# PINBALL OZ WIDE - EPISODE 18: LYNDON CARTER FROM AUSTRALIAN PINBALL MUSEUM

**Source:** Pinball Oz Wide  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2026-05-25  
**Duration:** 50m 2s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pinball-oz-wide/episodes/PINBALL-OZ-WIDE---EPISODE-18-LYNDON-CARTER-FROM-AUSTRALIAN-PINBALL-MUSEUM-e3jrv0i

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## Analysis

Lyndon Carter, owner of the Australian Pinball Museum in Adelaide, discusses his family's pinball and arcade business history spanning from the late 1980s, the creation and philosophy of the museum, and the upcoming inaugural Australian Pinball Expo (July 3-5, 2025) featuring approximately 200 machines. He also highlights innovations like a Pokemon card-dispensing mod and discusses machine curation, venue operations, and community engagement through monthly tournaments.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] The Australian Pinball Museum will feature approximately 200 pinball machines at the inaugural expo, with Lyndon contributing about 100 machines from his collection. — _Lyndon directly states: 'About 200' total machines expected, and 'I'm going to bring about 100 of my own games.'_
- [HIGH] The Australian Pinball Expo will take place July 3-5, 2025 (Friday-Sunday) with VIP early access on Thursday, July 2 at Morphettville Racecourse in Adelaide. — _Lyndon confirms: 'First week in July...the three main expo days is Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 3rd, 4th, 5th of July' and 'there is a VIP early access on the Thursday night beforehand.'_
- [HIGH] Barrels of Fun pinball manufacturer is sending machines from Texas to the Australian Pinball Expo. — _Lyndon states: 'Barrels of Fun are coming from Texas. Okay, nice. They're sending their games down.'_
- [HIGH] David Van Es, an Australian pinball designer, is attending the expo as a confirmed guest and homecoming event. — _Lyndon confirms: 'He's coming, yep' and notes 'He grew up in Adelaide. So for him, it's like a homecoming, hometown expo.'_
- [HIGH] The museum's Pokemon pinball machine features a custom card-dispensing mod that spits out Pokemon cards based on player performance and achievement. — _Lyndon explains the mod in detail: 'So as you're playing my Pokemon pinball machine here, it will spit Pokemon cards out at you. And that's dependent on your scores. And also high scores, game mode high scores.'_
- [HIGH] Lyndon has purchased 12,000 Pokemon cards for the expo's Pokemon-themed machines. — _Lyndon states: 'I've bought 12,000 Pokemon cards. So hopefully that should be enough.'_
- [HIGH] The museum holds IFPA-sanctioned monthly tournaments on the last Saturday of each month, with typical attendance around 30 people. — _Lyndon confirms: 'last Saturday of every month' and 'I'd say the average for an end of the month event is around 30.'_
- [HIGH] Newer pinball machines are by far the most popular with museum visitors, followed by early solid-state era machines. — _Lyndon explains: 'I'd say if you go for categorizing what time periods are the most popular, it's the new machines first by a long shot, but then it's early solid state. That's the next most popular time period.'_

### Notable Quotes

> "The very first game we had was way back...An operator was driving to the dump, to dump a couple of games. Stopped in, had a kiss on the back, and just started shouting. 'Oh, it'd be a good educational tool for teaching the kids how electronics and all that works.'"
> — **Lyndon Carter**, Early in conversation
> _Explains the serendipitous beginning of the family's pinball business with a Kiss machine found at a dump_

> "Late 90s in South Australia, pokies became legal. So all the pubs, they were calling up, saying, take your games out, we're putting pokies in. That was a big hammer in the coffin for all the arcade games around then."
> — **Lyndon Carter**, Mid-conversation
> _Explains the market disruption that nearly ended the family's arcade business_

> "I didn't think it was seriously going to be, anyone would be interested in it...to start with, we actually started off as having a games room at the motel. That was like testing the waters to see if there's any interest in pinball."
> — **Lyndon Carter**, Museum origin discussion
> _Shows the incremental approach to building the museum concept_

> "So I started off with that. That was like testing the waters to see if there's any interest in pinball. Then it was around the time ACDC was released, we thought we'd actually get back into buying games. So that was the first new inbox for, what, 20-odd years?"
> — **Lyndon Carter**, Museum history
> _Pinpoints AC/DC (circa 2012-2013) as the catalyst for renewed interest in modern pinball_

> "I've plugged it into the ticket dispenser system on the Stern. So in the system, you can set up where the pinball machine will spit out tickets. And so, of course, that's when it's spitting out cards...the software controls when it spits out the cards."
> — **Lyndon Carter**, Pokemon mod explanation
> _Technical explanation of how the custom card-dispensing mod integrates with Stern's native ticket system_

> "It's weird feeling a card whack into your leg as you're playing. Because it doesn't just flow out. It spits the card out."
> — **Host**, Pokemon mod discussion
> _Captures the unique physicality and surprise element of the card-dispensing mechanic_

> "I've seen people saying, oh, kids saying to their dad, oh, play again, play again, I want to get another card."
> — **Lyndon Carter**, Pokemon mod popularity
> _Demonstrates how the card mod drives re-play motivation and family engagement_

> "Over the years, I've never broken a pinball machine. And back in the day, Dad only had one arcade machine similar to what you had that fell out the back of a trailer. That's the only damage we've had moving machines. And we've moved hundreds of machines around."
> — **Lyndon Carter**, Late in conversation
> _Highlights experience and care in machine logistics across decades_

> "The whole history aspect, you know... All the memorabilia, showing how they work, you know, So having the guts of pinball machines up on the wall to show how they work. Of course, all the write-ups too."
> — **Lyndon Carter**, Museum philosophy discussion
> _Articulates the museum's educational and historical mission beyond just playable machines_

> "Ray Maloney, the CEO of Lion Manufacturing, they did other penny games. He created a subsidiary Bally. He was pissed off that Gottlieb couldn't keep up with his orders...So he's like, well, I'll make my own pinball machines."
> — **Lyndon Carter**, Pinball history discussion
> _Provides context on Bally's origin story and why the company was created_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Lyndon Carter | person | Owner of the Australian Pinball Museum in Adelaide; curator and historian; pinball enthusiast; expo organizer |
| Australian Pinball Museum | organization | Museum in Adelaide featuring playable pinball machines spanning multiple eras, historical artifacts, and educational materials about pinball history |
| Australian Pinball Expo | event | Inaugural expo in Adelaide, July 3-5, 2025 at Morphettville Racecourse, featuring approximately 200 machines, exhibitors, and industry guests |
| David Van Es | person | Australian pinball designer and confirmed speaker/guest at the Australian Pinball Expo; grew up in Adelaide |
| Barrels of Fun | company | Pinball manufacturer from Texas; exhibitor bringing machines to Australian Pinball Expo |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; Pokemon and other recent releases at museum use Stern hardware |
| Vector Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturer with games on display at Australian Pinball Museum; exhibitor at expo |
| Home Pin | company | Pinball manufacturer bringing games to Australian Pinball Expo; Mike Homepin confirmed as guest |
| Smith Pinball | company | Interstate pinball dealer/exhibitor bringing machines to Australian Pinball Expo |
| Mr Pinball | organization | Australian pinball operator/venue business bringing machines to Australian Pinball Expo; operated by Wayne |
| Steel Tiger | company | Pinball dealer/exhibitor bringing machines to Australian Pinball Expo |
| Amusement Works | company | Local Adelaide pinball dealer/exhibitor at Australian Pinball Expo |
| Mike Homepin | person | Representative from Home Pin manufacturer; confirmed speaker guest at Australian Pinball Expo |
| Ray Maloney | person | Historical figure; CEO of Lion Manufacturing; created Bally as a subsidiary to manufacture pinball machines |
| Bally | company | Historic pinball manufacturer founded by Ray Maloney; first game was Ballyhoo (1932) |
| Gottlieb | company | Historic pinball manufacturer; first game was Baffle Ball; competitor to Bally |
| AC/DC | game | Pinball machine released circa 2012-2013; marked turning point for modern pinball interest and museum's acquisition of new games |
| Pokemon | game | Recent Stern pinball release at museum; features custom card-dispensing mod; subject of monthly tournament launch party |
| Princess Bride | game | Recent P3 (Multimorphic) pinball release on display at Australian Pinball Museum |
| Elton John | game | Pinball machine at museum that experienced repeated shooter rod breakage, leading to golf ball mod innovation |

### Signals

- **[event_signal]** Australian Pinball Expo announced as first major multi-day pinball expo in Australia, scheduled July 3-5, 2025 in Adelaide with ~200 machines and international guest appearances (confidence: high) — Lyndon confirms dates, venue (Morphettville Racecourse), 200 machine target, VIP early access, and multiple confirmed exhibitors and guests
- **[community_signal]** Australian Pinball Museum serving as regional community hub with monthly IFPA tournaments (~30 attendees), launch parties, and destination venue drawing multi-state visitors (confidence: high) — Lyndon describes motel bookings, monthly tournaments, launch events, and geographic draw from interstate visitors making repeat trips
- **[design_innovation]** Custom Pokemon card-dispensing mod on Stern machine achieves significant operator interest and family engagement through score-based reward mechanic; inspired other Australian operators to request similar mods (confidence: high) — Lyndon explains technical integration with Stern ticket system, 12,000 card inventory for expo, observed family re-play motivation, and multiple operators expressing interest in additional units
- **[product_strategy]** Museum balances financial sustainability (requiring newer popular games for coin revenue) with educational/historical mission (maintaining older machines for historical context), resulting in ~80% newer games, ~20% vintage/historical (confidence: high) — Lyndon explains: 'high percentage of newer games because that's what the public want to play...you've got to have the place cover itself. It's got to have the coins going through' while maintaining historical machines 'because you're the museum'
- **[gameplay_signal]** Newer pinball machines significantly outperform older/vintage machines in venue playership due to forgiving rules, bright lights, screen animations, and pop culture themes; early solid-state era emerges as secondary attractor (confidence: high) — Lyndon notes newer machines are 'first by a long shot' in popularity, explains older machines are 'not forgiving' and players unfamiliar with era 'might not respect the gameplay,' while bright lights and themes 'draw people in'
- **[historical_signal]** Lyndon provides detailed historical context on bagatelle origins (1700s France), transition to plunger-based pinball (late 1800s), and early manufacturers (Bally 1932 Ballyhoo, Gottlieb Baffle Ball), demonstrating museum's archival focus (confidence: high) — Lyndon explains bagatelle evolution, Ray Maloney/Bally origin story, Gottlieb/Bingo relationship, and maintains information kiosk with historical documentation and machine cutaways
- **[venue_signal]** Multiple Australian interstate pinball operators (Mr Pinball/Wayne, Smith Pinball, Steel Tiger, Amusement Works) collaborating on expo, indicating growing regional operator ecosystem and venue consolidation around major events (confidence: high) — Lyndon confirms exhibitor list: 'Most of the big names, you know, so local dealers in Adelaide like Amusement Works...We've got interstate ones coming down like Smith Pinball, Mr Pinball, Steel Tiger'
- **[manufacturing_signal]** Major manufacturers (Stern, Vector Pinball, Home Pin) and smaller US-based makers (Barrels of Fun) participating in inaugural Australian expo, suggesting growing international market reach and appetite for Australian market engagement (confidence: high) — Lyndon lists Vector Pinball, Home Pin, and Barrels of Fun coming from Texas as exhibitors; David Van Es (Australian designer) attending as guest
- **[business_signal]** Multi-decade family business evolution from 1980s arcade/pinball operations through market disruption (pokies legalization ~late 1990s) to museum/venue model; demonstrates resilience and diversification (crystals/gems wholesale business mentioned) (confidence: high) — Lyndon describes father's business from late 80s arcade routing, warehouse storage, pokies disruption in late 90s, and parallel gems/crystals wholesale business allowing warehouse space for machines
- **[product_concern]** Elton John machine experienced repeated shooter rod breakage (multiple units), prompting local innovation solution with golf ball mod to address plastic edge stress/durability (confidence: high) — Lyndon describes troubleshooting: 'spring was too strong...barrel spring...sharp edge...plastic on the edge of the shooter rod constantly broke. Gone through heaps and heaps of them, only on Elton John' → solution: golf ball on shooter rod
- **[collector_signal]** Late 1990s market collapse prevented sale of high-value games (Twilight Zone held at $1,000+ asking price); machines entered long-term storage, eventually repositioned as museum collection as market recovered, demonstrating value preservation through HODL strategy (confidence: high) — Lyndon explains: 'Twilight Zone owned $1,000, so it was like he's not going to sell it for less than $1,000...lucky he couldn't sell them because fast forward to today...a lot of them just went into storage'
- **[market_signal]** Pokemon pinball machine generating unexpected cross-market engagement from Pokemon collectors and younger demographics; card mod creating new retention mechanic and family motivation driver; 12,000-card inventory commitment signals confidence in demand (confidence: high) — Lyndon notes: 'families come in, the dad's playing, the kids are all excited, picking up the cards...kids saying to their dad, oh, play again, play again, I want to get another card...new people coming in...I love Pokemon collect cards'
- **[operational_signal]** Large-scale event logistics requiring week-long museum closure, dedicated transport (1 van, 2 trucks), volunteer coordination, and staged setup (Wed-Sun week before expo); demonstrates operational complexity of moving 100+ machines (confidence: high) — Lyndon outlines: 'I'll have one van and two trucks here...load everything up...setting up on the Wednesday at the venue' with volunteers helping; 'about a week' closure post-tournament

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## Transcript

So we're here with Lyndon from the Australian Pinball Museum, just going to have a bit of a chinwag about everything that's going on in his life, from the museum to the expo, history and the like. So Lyndon, welcome. Thank you for coming. We thought it might be a bit pertinent to have a bit of a chat, Lyndon, let people know about you who don't, although most of the community probably do know about you, I'm going to guess. At least heard of us. At least heard of you, yes. Well, I mean, a lot of the pages now, and especially with the Australian Pinball Expo, that's getting promoted, so definitely people would have seen the name and understood that. But, yeah, I guess if you just want to start off, give us a bit of background on you, how you got into the industry or, you know, the hobby initially. Okay, yeah, it depends how deep you want to go in the history. Well, you can start with the history. It's your story. Well, you can talk for as long as you want, I'll just cut it out. Yes. Yeah, just where it all began for you, with your family. Okay. How it all started. Well, for the arcades and pinballs, my family started off in the industry back in the day. Yep. You know, late 80s and through the 90s. Just sighting machines. You know how you'd see one or two at a fish and chip shop deli, that type of thing. Yep. So that's locally here in Adelaide? In Adelaide it was. So you're an Adelaide boy? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, grew up in Adelaide. Yep. Yeah. So yeah, they're just sighted machines. So growing up, we also had a warehouse with just machines that weren't on site that would be rotated in and out. So as a kid, that was my private arcade. But what do you mean a warehouse? Like, how did that all come about? I presume your father bought those machines? Yeah. Because who imported them at the time? Because there was no AMD, was there? So was it a direct purchase? No, but there was lots of importers. Of course, you'd heard of Leisure and Allied. They did a lot of the Bellies of Williams. Then there was a few others, because even though there's no AMD, but Bruce was around back then. He was importing the Data East, the Sega games all back then, just under a different name. Yep. But, yeah, there was a lot. I know in Adelaide we had Frank Sebastian. He was dealing in Gottlieb's back there, back in the day. Yeah, there was lots of people you could get the games from. The very first game we had was way back. Dad was actually a teacher. Okay. Because that's what I was going to ask you. Like, did you have a passion for it? Yeah. Or was it a straight-up business? So it was actually, we owned a, oh, we've had many, many businesses, but we had like a deli, corner shop type of thing. Okay. An operator was driving to the dump, to dump a couple of games. Okay. As they would. Not unusual, I guess. Stopped in, had a kiss on the back, and just started shouting. So you mean the machine, you didn't have a kiss on the back? No, the kiss pinball, yes. It was like, oh, it'd be a good educational tool for teaching the kids how electronics and all that works. So that was the very first game. Yeah, beautiful. Then not too long after that, got a rout and exploded from there, I guess you could say. Have you still got the Kiss Machine? No, not that one. That one ended up on a bonfire. I guess that was the thing in the day. That's the thing back in the day, yeah. People just got rid of them, didn't they? If they didn't work or you couldn't get parts or you'd part them out, you'd get rid of them. Of course, Dad kept all the generic things, you know, the coils, light bulbs, that type of thing. Yeah, yeah. Bags and bags of the gloves. I know he kept the back glass and then used that to sweeten a deal of a sale later. I can't remember the game. It may have been a Mata Hari who was trying to sell for like 50 or 100 bucks and the guy was umming and ahhing over it. 50 or 100 dollars. But he was wearing a kiss shirt and he's like, oh, I've got a kiss back glass, you know, throw it back to him. No, then we had, you know, machines around everywhere. Late 90s in South Australia, pokies became legal. So all the pubs, they were calling up, saying, take your games out, we're putting pokies in. That was a big hammer in the coffin for all the arcade games around then. And of course, late 90s, you just couldn't really sell the games. There were some games that Dad didn't want to lose money on. It was like Twilight Zone owned $1,000, so it was like he's not going to sell it for less than $1,000. Yeah, that's right. And well, lucky he couldn't sell them because fast forward to today. Yeah, that's right. So a lot of them just went into storage, just hoping for the youth to be able to use them again someday. Like I said, we had a warehouse. You'll notice here at the motel we've got gemstones and crystals and all that. That's another business we've been running since the 90s, wholesale in crystals and that. So we had a warehouse for that. Jesus, that's a train in the background, if you've heard that. Apologies. But yeah, for that business we had a big warehouse in Lonsdale. So the front of the place was all the crystals and showroom and that and out the back was all the pinballs. Yeah, nice. Okay, nice. Plus, in the house growing up everywhere, lounge room, garage, every room. Coffee table was an asteroid's tabletop. Yep, nice. I had an old Spacey's tabletop when we were growing up, so that would have been late, when was Spacey's? 77 or 78? So it might have been early 80s we had that as well. Whose grand vision was this, the Pinball Museum here? Bit of mine, pushed by Dad, I guess. Yep, yep, yep. You know, to start with, I didn't think it was seriously going to be, anyone would be interested in it. Yep. I guess he sort of pushed towards me going and doing it. Doing it, yeah, yeah, yep. So we actually started off as having a games room at the motel. Okay, in the same spot, yeah? In the same spot, yeah. It was actually a business centre. You know how that motel back 20 years ago would have a computer connected to the internet and printer and all that. And we had a gym there as well. And then an arcade. Yeah, nice. So I started off with that. That was like testing the waters to see if there's any interest in pinball. Then it was around the time ACDC was released, we thought we'd actually get back into buying games. So that was the first new inbox for, what, 20-odd years? Yep. Bought that, put that on site here. You know, that was interesting. There was gaining attraction, pinball was, around that time. And then we started tossing up the idea of doing it. What year was that? It was 2014? 2012? 2013? Yep. It was ACDC, yeah. Started becoming popular. We started getting known around the pinball community as a motel with an arcade. Yep. We started to have people coming here as a destination. Mm-hmm. So I started tossing up the idea of, you know, what about doing it properly as a public location, open to everyone? Yep. And I didn't want to just go down the route of an arcade. I wanted to do something special. Yep. And I really enjoyed the whole history aspect and looking into how they're made and the whole history of Pinball. I thought, well, museum. There wasn't anything like it in Australia. And at the time, there was only a few around the world that were pinball museums. So, yeah, started going down that route. That rabbit hole. Yeah. So I guess for the listeners, in your mind, what does this classify it to be a museum as opposed to... Instead of just a collection of games to play. Or, yeah, inverted commas, an arcade that's open to the public. Yeah. The whole history aspect, you know... All the memorabilia. All the memorabilia, showing how they work, you know, So having the guts of pinball machines up on the wall to show how they work. Of course, all the write-ups too. There's the information kiosk in the front room where you can read up about everything about pinball. And you had some old, I want to say, they're not pachinkos obviously. Original pinballs in the 1930s. So you've got some of that as well. To see where it all started. You've got the very first ballet game and the very last as well. And then a few in between. Today, there's not as many machines here because I'm packing a few up to go to Expo, but normally we've got the first Bally game here, the first Got Bob Libbe, a few like that. What were they? The first Bally was Bally Who. Okay. It was actually named after a popular magazine at the time. Okay. And the artwork was the cover of the magazine. It sounds like it's 50s or something, is it? 1932. 32, Jesus. Yeah, okay. Wow. There was actually another Bally Who pinball later. They used the exact same name. Yeah, right. But yeah, the original Ballyhoo, that's what started it all off for them. The first Gotlib was Baffle Ball. Well, that was the first one they designed. They did produce a game earlier than that as a contract for another company. You could say the very first game that took off was Bingo by Bingo Novelty. Yeah. They couldn't keep up with orders, so they got Gotlib to manufacture because Gotlib was known for making other penny arcade games. Okay. And Bally's first game was because Ray Maloney, the CEO of Lion Manufacturing, they did other penny games. He created a subsidiary Bally. He was pissed off that Gottlieb couldn't keep up with his orders. He was saying, you know, we want another 50 of these or whatever. And Gottlieb couldn't produce them fast enough. So he's like, well, I'll make my own pinball machines. I'm assuming that's why he called it, he just, the company Bally after the first game Ballyhoo, I doubt he was expecting it to continue. You know, just name the company the same as the machine and thinking it's probably a month off, I'm assuming. And yeah, it exploded. And then disappeared. Yeah. No, but we've got a resurgence now, which is good. It is actually. It's come back. It's struggled. It's an amazing market there, isn't it? Huge. It's struggled a little bit. But yeah, you mentioned Pachinko. Pinball and Pachinko came off from the Bagatelles. Okay. Bagatelles. Like two different ways. That was a French game starting off or dating back to the 1700s. Okay. Yeah. Which was a variation of billiards, pool table. So instead of just a normal, say, pool table with your six holes around the sides, there would be holes in the centre. You'd have posts and obstacles, that type of thing. I've got in the information kiosk in the front room of the museum, I've got a few pictures of them if you want to see what they're like. But yeah, pinball, because you'd still play it with a pool cue, a pool stick. Yep. Then, of course, late 1800s, that's when they started doing a plunger to shoot the ball up on the play field and slowly became the pinball we know today. Well, I don't think there'd be any doubt that you're the right man to run a museum. Exactly. With the knowledge that you have. I think I rambled on that part. Oh, no, no, that's great. Great information. I could go a lot more into that going on. I've certainly never heard any of that, so, yeah, interesting stuff. I can go on, you know, when people say, oh, this was the first game with multiballs. I'm like, no, it was actually this one, and this is the first game with flippers. No, there was actually flippers beforehand. At least it shows you've got passion for it. Yeah. 100%. Yeah, don't get in an argument with Lyndon over certain things. So you also touched on the Pinball Expo. Do you want to have a quick chat about that, the Australian Pinball Expo? What's going on into that so far, where you're at, dates and tickets and how it's looking? Expectations and, yeah. Yeah, hopefully expecting a lot. Hopefully it's going to be good. Yes, it's an idea I've had for many years. Before COVID, I was starting to think about doing some big event. Yep. Then, of course, all plans for that disappeared during COVID, lockdowns and all that. But, yeah, so it's coming up soon. It is. First week in July. Yep. So it's going to be in Adelaide. What are the dates? So the three main expo days is Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 3rd, 4th, 5th of July, but there is a VIP early access on the Thursday night beforehand. Very nice. Yep, so I've got a few special things planned for that. It's going to be Adelaide, Morfittville Racecourse, good venue, nice and central to the city. Yep, good transport. Good transport. It's right on the tram line between the city and Glenelg, so it's got its own dedicated tram stop. So if you staying in the city or staying in Glenelg there is a small motel right next to the venue I say this close to the vent it might be booked out by now But the city only what three k away Glenelg about two and a half three k So is it similar to other expos around Australia that a lot of people are bringing their own machines or how's it set up in regards to the layout? Yeah, so we've got game contributors bringing machines in. Of course, we've got exhibitors as well, people selling parts, mods, that type of thing. I've kick-started the game list myself by I'm going to bring about 100 of my own games. Yep, Jesus. They're the ones that are in the barn, obviously. Some from the museum here. And then, of course, yes, I'm in storage. Yep, that's a huge move. There's quite a few that have never been to the museum yet. So they might go to Expo and then I might take them, bring them to the museum here afterwards. We'll see. See if they're popular, if people play them. So how many are you expecting to, machine-wise, how many are you expecting to have there? About 200. Shit, okay. So you're expecting 100 contributors from the exhibitors and collectors. Yeah, okay. What sort of exhibitors have shown interest? We've got most of the big names, you know, so local dealers in Adelaide like Amusement Works, That type of thing. We've got interstate ones coming down like Smith Pinball, Mr Pinball, Steel Tiger. They're all bringing games. Of course, then we've got manufacturers bringing games like Vector Pinball bringing their games. Of course, Home Pin will be there with games. Barrels of Fun are coming from Texas. Okay, nice. They're sending their games down. Is there a special Vaness? What's that? Is it David Van Es? David Van Es. Is he coming as well? He's coming, yep. Yeah, okay. Because he's an Aussie boy, isn't he? Yeah, yeah. He grew up in Adelaide. So for him, it's like a homecoming, hometown expo. Yeah, nice. That'd be awesome. Yeah, he's been excited for it for a long time. Yeah. Nice. Any other guests? I think it was a year or two ago I told him about it. So now I'll start planning it. Building it up. Any other guests as well? Confirmed, of course, is Mike Homepin and, of course, the Vector guys. International-wise, though? International-wise, that might be it. I mean, not that it matters. No, there's a couple that have been umming and ahhing. Recently, I've had two that I've had to pull out, but luckily I hadn't announced them, you know, saying, oh, family commitments, that type of thing. Yeah, okay. But, yeah. A lot of them I hadn't been, like David and that, I was waiting until I heard that he'd booked his flights before saying anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, I don't want to announce anything beforehand, like some of these others that I've had to pull out. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, all good. Yeah. They're saying, oh, all apologising, saying, oh, we'll see you next year. He's like, yeah, all good. Yeah. Oh, well, it should be good by the sounds of it. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to get over. I sort of went for TASPIN this year, and I'll have Melbourne Expo as well later in the year. Are you going up to Pinfest? No. I can't make it there either. Yeah, that's what I mean. I've just sort of got a juggle. Kids' birthdays, unfortunately. It sounds corny. I'm only talking about two events, really, but I guess it's just, yeah, family life and, you know, getting away and concocious. Still wades up, doesn't it? Yeah. Well, hopefully we'll see you there next year and maybe do a podcast. Although then again, I mean, it was five hours to drive here, so I don't know how much further Adelaide is from here. Five more hours, isn't it? Another five? Distance-wise, it's halfway. Time-wise, it's quicker to get to Adelaide. Okay. How quick do you reckon? Just over four hours. Okay. I did want to just backtrack because you were talking about obviously certain machines that you're putting in the expo that have never been to the museum here. How do you choose what you put in the museum? Like I notice a lot of, and it was interesting, I was having a chat to Nathan earlier about it, that he went out on site with a mate and was calling him up, no, you know, Pokemon's on site, do you want to go and see it? And he's like, not really. He goes, I want to play the older machines. He goes, I can't find them anywhere. There's never any 80s, you know, I mean, obviously SS probably a bit harder maybe on site to keep going. The older they are, the more mainstream. So how do you choose what goes into the museum and what you keep out? Because obviously all the new releases you seem to get. We're sitting in front of a Princess Bride by P3 and obviously we've been playing Pokemon, Star Wars, Walking Dead. And then June 3, most in June, the newest releases about. I like to have a good balance of all the time periods. But as you notice, there's a high percentage of newer games because that's what the public want to play. Yeah. And at the end of the day, you've also got to think, you've got to have the place cover itself. It's got to have the coins going through. Yeah, that's right. And that's the same with the machines too. Some of the older ones and that's like, well, what are people actually playing? But there's a couple of like historical ones that I've just got to keep there. Because you're the museum. Yeah. Yeah, no, I understand that. I just, I mean, obviously we're trying to make this a yearly trip, so this is our third time now. I just noticed a lot of the people are our age, so they're 50s and older. So you're saying that age is very much still geared towards the newer machines? Because I see a lot of strikes and spares in there and I'm keen to give that a good go because that's my machine as well. Yeah, I'd say if you go for categorizing what time periods are the most popular, it's the new machines first by a long shot, but then it's early solid state. That's the next most popular time period. But I also mean as well, it doesn't look like you get many younger players in here that might be drawn to that sort of stuff. So that's why the balance and maybe the advertising that you do and everything that goes with it, it must be a little bit tricky to work out what to put in there as opposed to what not to. It can be. I have in the past tried doing a lot more older games and that, but they just don't get as many plays and people. And of course, it depends on your time period when you're coming. If you're coming school holidays and that type of thing, the place is packed with all younger people. Okay, good. Nice to hear. We usually stick out of school holidays for that reason. And I suppose the older machines too are just a bitch to play. They don't last very long, do they? They're not forgiving, some of them. No, so if you're not, not necessarily a good player, but if you're not of that year or that generation, you might not respect the gameplay of that machine. You'd be like, fuck that, I'll go play some Pokemon. And the new ones being forgiven. They give you the ball back constantly sometimes. And it's also the bright lights and the screen animations. The bright lights draw people in. Just all of the above. The theme sells a lot. And the Pokemon cards. Oh, yes, you like my mods? That's fantastic. Listen, we've got to have a quick chat about this because we've been playing Pokemon and we're up here with Rowan as well. I gave mine back to you because I have kids that are older, so I've kept maybe one or two just, as I said, as a memento. The expensive ones. It's kind of cool the way you've set it up. Yeah, so as you're playing my Pokemon pinball machine here, it will spit Pokemon cards out at you. And that's dependent on your scores. And also high scores, game mode high scores. Yeah, so grand champs and stuff like that. Yeah, if you get game mode ones as well, like multiball champion and that type of thing, it gives you another Pokemon card. Yeah, which I've got quite a few. You are sitting in GC, aren't you? Yeah, I mean, I was speaking to a couple of the guys yesterday and they were like, apparently you're the only one that has done this so far, is that right? I've heard there's a couple of people overseas working on it, but I don't know if there's one in the UK and one in the US. The UK one, last I heard, he hasn't got it working and selling it yet. And the US one, I haven't heard much at all, so I don't know. Patent pending, perhaps? Who knows? Get on to it. There are a lot of Australian operators who are interested, so I might have to make a few more. Yeah, so that's not a card dispenser that you can just buy from Stern or anything like that? No, it's not official Stern. Like a ticket-style dispenser or anything? Yeah. You need to hit Stern, I might. Yeah. Get on the accessories. So have you made? I've used some existing parts, but I've had to do modifications, that type of thing. There's nothing that was plug and play. Okay. So how did you work? There are card dispensers that you can buy for other arcade machines. I don't know if you know some of the Japanese fighting games. They will spit out cards and those cards you can, like when you defeat a character, you get their cards, that type of thing, trade a card. So how did you work that in with the code then? Because I'm stupid and wouldn't. I've plugged it into the ticket dispenser system on the Stern. So in the system, you can set up where the pinball machine will spit out tickets. Yep. And so, of course, that's when it's spitting out cards. Okay. Yep. Instead. Okay. So it's all integrated into the software. Okay. You don't have to jump away from the extra ball lies or something like that like other mods do. Yep. Okay. Yeah, so the software controls when it spits out the cards. Yeah, very cool. Very clever, yeah. I like it. Like I said, it's fun. It's weird feeling a card whack into your leg as you're playing. Because it doesn't just flow out. It spits the card out. It speaks to it. But you need a friend there with you to pick the card up for you. Yeah. Unless you just get it in the pops and let it just banter around. Yeah, but it's been popular. I've seen, like, families come in, the dad's playing, the kids are all excited, picking up the cards as he wins it. When I completed a mode or whatever it was, I just, because it traps the ball on the left ramp, I think it was, so I was just sort of kneeling down with my hand out, like, waiting for it. It's so exciting, yeah. It's just something corny and fun to do, so yeah. But no, I've seen people saying, oh, kids saying to their dad, oh, play again, play again, I want to get another card. Yeah. It's actually been quite popular. Yeah, good. So I'll do that for Expo too. I'll have all the Pokemon games with the cards there. How many cards did you buy, Lyndon? I've bought 12,000 Pokemon cards. So hopefully that should be enough. And let's be honest, have you opened those packs and gone through them in case there's a one of one something, I don't know, whatever they're chasing? I don't have the time to do anything like that. You need to pay someone to do that. Okay, just thought I'd ask. Okay, so there's a Charizard in there somewhere. There could be. I don't know how rare it is, but... Yeah, I don't know if that's a popular card or not. There's been a few holographic ones spitting out when I've played here, and I've been checking, oh, what's that on eBay? It's like, oh, that's a $5 card or $10 card. Just throw it back in the machine. I was going to say, yeah, it is what it is. My kids have no interest in Pokemon, so that's why I gave them back. I'm going to take mine back to my kids, though. I've got some young kids, so they'll enjoy it. No, they will. But no, definitely, it's good fun. It's good fun. So get down, have a bit of a bash, and get a card or two. But yeah, I've never really been into the whole modding pinballs, but to me that was a very logical one. Well, hang on a minute, I just want to call you up on this because there's one mod in that games room that is, I think, going to take off and that's the golf ball mod. So, I think you need to explain what happened here. I reckon it's a great mod. The Shooter Rods. It's a Shooter Rods, yeah. Sorry, guys. Out of the whole museum, they've all got – and they don't have any – what are they called? Sculpted shooter rods or anything like that. They're the standard sort of black-handed ones. But the one on Elton John kept breaking for some reason. It was the only one in the whole museum. And the story was that you had – Well, first I thought maybe the spring was too strong and then maybe the barrel spring on the other side could have a sharp edge on it, wasn't cut right. So I've replaced all that, put washers on maybe if it was poking into the plastic. Just the plastic on the edge of the shooter rod constantly broke. Gone through heaps and heaps of them, only on Elton John. And then a local here was like, oh, I've got buckets and buckets of golf balls. Because he saw all these broken shooter rods, I had a box of them. He's like, oh, what if I just start putting golf balls on the edge of Shooter? I was like, yeah, whatever. Take it all away. I've got no use for them. So yeah, threw that back on Elton. And Pink probably matches Elton's game, which is well done. Yeah. Very good. It's IFPA. You also have tourneys up here as well once a month. Yeah, last Saturday of every month. And sometimes launch. Launch for the games. It goes in with the tournament as well. With the tournament, yeah. So the Pokemon is this month. Yep. What's planned? Let the cat out of the bag. Go on. I can't let too much out of the bag. Give us a little Are you dressing up as Pikachu or Ash Oh I not dressing up Someone will be I don know sitting in the corner there behind that banner for the expo you might see a box that might give you a clue It says Airblower. Here you're going to be Airblower Charizard, aren't you? So you're going to have something large, obviously. A giant inflatable Pokemon, yes. That's one of the things planned. I've got lots of prizes and things to give away. What sort of stuff? I've got Pokeballs, I always make up souvenir mugs for every launch party with artwork on it. We've got quite a few people that collect mugs, they try to come to every launch party. What sort of numbers do you usually get, like around that typical 30, 35 type numbers? Depends on the title, the time of the year. Yeah, but I'd say the average for an end of the month event is around 30. Yeah, I think with the Pokemon card you might get pretty busy. The motel booked out really quick. And that's what you need for a thing like Pokemon. It's getting new people in and I have seen a lot of people come in already. It's only been here a week but it's like oh I love Pokemon collect cards and everything. One the other day was saying their parents own Pinballs. They played a couple of times not really into it but they thought they'd stop in take photos for them. Yeah nice. Ends up playing getting cards and it's like oh I don't have this card in my collection. And saying for a while playing Pokemon just for the cards. Well like I said I've enjoyed it even though I don't collect the cards it's still been fun to have them spit out at you. So with Expo, are you shutting the museum down? Yeah, going to do all hands on deck. So how, I mean, we noticed obviously when we came up, we sort of called you and went, the place isn't going to be empty, is it? Because like, I'm taking a few games. So we noticed obviously the back room of those older EMSSs have gone. I've packed up a whole stack of them, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Which, I mean, I must admit even it was a bit weird because when you put the newer DMDs in there, it actually looks quite good. It fits, obviously, to the theme of the museum. You're just missing out on those old school ones. But, yeah, I presume you're taking them all out a week, two weeks, three weeks before. Most of them will be just beforehand. What is it, end of June? Yep. We're still having our end-of-the-month tournament. Yep. And that Sunday afterwards, I'll have one van and two trucks here. Okay. And we'll load everything up, ready to take them to Adelaide, which we'll start setting up on the Wednesday at the venue. I mean, you're not moving them. Who's moving them? Oh, we've got a few volunteers helping. Yeah, yeah. Okay. That's great. That's where I was sort of hinting at is like, I'm presuming you're not doing all the back break and stuff yourself. No, that Sunday I'll just be loading up one small truck. I'll be driving, you know, the ones with a car licence, just those four and a half tonne trucks. Yeah. I'll drive that back Sunday. I'll load that up with games. So anyway, Lyndon, you said just though you're going to be shutting down for about a week, yeah? It'll be about a week. About a week, yeah. But yeah, well, with moving machines, either we've been incredibly lucky all these years or we, I wouldn't say we know what we're doing, I don't think we do, but we've got experience. Because over the years, I've never broken a pinball machine. And back in the day, Dad only had one arcade machine similar to what you had that fell out the back of a trailer. That's the only damage we've had moving machines. And we've moved hundreds of machines around. And it's tight in there. The rooms to get in and out are a little bit tighter. I feel like once you've moved some of those DMDs into the back room, it's opened up a little bit more, but it's a tight space. How many do you usually have in there? There's usually just over 50 pinballs in there. I think right now it's 35, 38, something like that. How do you choose what comes out when you get it? Because obviously you keep buying the new ones, so Pokemon came, so if it was a full boat out there, how do you choose what comes out? So moving the new machines, it's literally just whichever gets the least amount of plays. Okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so we normally keep around 20 Stern Insiders and about three or four Jersey Jacks. Yeah. And yeah, so out of those, it's just whichever gets the least plays. On the chopping block. Yep. Which is a shame, you know. Some people say, oh, my favourite game's gone. It's like, well, we'll bring it back eventually. We do swap them around. Yep. They've just got to come down more and put more money into it for you to keep it on the floor. So yeah, like I guess you could say the bottom machines in those, we do swap them around every now and then. So, you know, you do get to see them. This last year I haven't been doing much swapping around though as I've been focusing on getting the XBO done. Don't want to be wasting too much time moving machines back and forth. I presume you're going to keep going with it. Like you're not going to do a one and done. No, no, that's the plan. Have you got help doing it? You're not doing it all on your own, are you? The organising it is all me. Yep. But of course, I've got family helping with actually running the show and that and volunteers. Your dad still does it? Yeah, he's still involved and help you out? He'll help her out, yeah. Primarily for managing the show and when we're actually there organising it, it'll be my sister and her husband will be doing a lot of the main decision making and helping and that because we run all the expos with the crystal business and that type of thing. We've run many expos with that, so we work together really well with the experience of that because we've got other businesses like the Crystals, we've got a farm and that, so we've actually exhibited at hundreds of other shows around the time, so we work together well. I actually just had some what I wrote as rapid-fire questions. Okay, so hopefully I can answer quickly, otherwise we cut the empty space out. Yeah, yeah. I just thought, oh, it might be a bit interesting just to see where you're at, so let's go. Best Bally Williams game? Oh, that's tough because you've actually got like 80 years of games. Well. I guess you could say all-time favourite was always growing up with Twilight Zone. I just loved the over-the-top sound effects, how crazy it got, you know, starting multiball, don't touch the door. It was just really over-the-top with the sound and music. Okay. Growing up, that was always my favourite. Okay. Most overrated game? Adam's Family, really? Yeah. I like that answer. Best soundtrack? Judge Dredd. Yeah, okay. That was a very quick answer. In soundtrack, I'm not including music pins. I'm not going to count favourite bands, that type of thing. For that, I'm looking at custom soundtracks just for the game. Okay, so best music pin. And guess what? That's why both Twilight Zone and Judge Dredd are still here. Yeah, it makes sense. Best music? Music? Oh. So band theme, I guess, is what... I mean, I really loved Guns N' Roses, Jersey Jack, with the lighting and the music, but personally I wasn't too much of a fan of the gameplay. Yeah, I 100% agree. But the experience with it, the whole concert experience with the lighting... You get drawn in, don't you? Yeah, it was really integrated really well. Yep, yeah, agreed. Yeah, they're very good at doing that. Yeah. Very good at doing that. But to me... So Elton John, how would that... Because the integration on that is... That's good. It does flow well. I mean, I wouldn't put Elton John as top of my favourite artist. I mean, I still like his songs and that, but Elton John is a good shooter. Yeah, typical Richie, I guess, isn't it? Best bang for buck title, which is probably a bit harder these days, but... Yeah, and then of course, bang for buck for general gameplay for a home user, collector, or on-site. See, on site. That stays on site because that's your business. Surprisingly, Shack Attack. Okay. That gets a lot of game plays. We love Shack Attack, don't we? And they're pretty cheap. You'd probably pick one up for, what, $4,000? Yeah. I'd say. Yeah. And it gets the same amount of plays as like a Doctor Who, Twilight Zone. Yep. And they're like twice the price. Yeah. Twilight Zone, probably three times the price. Yeah. Are you still purchasing second-hand machines at all or are they just brand new as now? Not really. I don't know. Do you still watch the market? Are you still scaring? I occasionally have a look, but if I'm looking at second-hand machines, I'm really looking at, say, 1930s, 40s, that time period. 70s, 80s games, 90s. We've got a lot in storage and that. EM's got way too many of them. Probably got a lifetime worth of fixing to get everything done. That was one of the questions. Was it your favourite EM? That is tough. I really like the gameplay of Champ, which is why we still keep it here. But then some of the 60s ones can be pretty fun too. You know, early, mid-60s type. There's some really good games in that. Centigrade 37, that's not bad. That's an AM, isn't it? So that's one of my favourites. Yeah, I like some of the ones like, say, Central Park. I like that one. There's a bit going on in some of those. Some of them can be brutal too with a huge flipper gap, but you've just got to play differently. It's a different style of gameplay. I do like some of the ones that have multiball too. Some of the EMs do multiball in it. They have some really unusual designs, some of them. Then Woodrail EMs, I like some of the ones that are like tic-tac-toe, crosswords, that type of thing. It's not just your points, you've got another thing, you're filling out a crossword, that type of thing. Cool. What about your favourite widebody game? A lot of widebodies, I would say, in my opinion, are very sluggish to play, to be honest. J.D., Judge Gregg can be pretty damn quick though. I was going to say once again, Demo Man puts up his hand. Demo Man. I find that just brutally fast. I think it's an amazing fast wide body. I mean, I'd say from other aspects like Judge Dredd for the music and Twilight Zone for the sound. Yeah, okay. I mean, I don't mind Empire Strikes Back. That's fun to play a few games on it. Okay. Very cool. And I mean, this might be a bit harder. Favourite bad game. Mafia. Everyone seems to rubbish it, but I don't mind it. For a simple play field. That's why I sit in the back room there, isn't it? I mean, there's only 10 were ever made, so it's got to be here for that rarity as well. Yep. Okay. I don't think it's a game that you can play for long periods of time. Yeah. The LEDs can be very harsh and seizure-inducing sometimes. But, you know, shooting the orbits and especially that middle spinner can be a couple of fun shots. Yeah. Okay. All right. We'll take it. There was just one last thing to finish was that is there one machine that you don't own that you've been chasing forever that you'd love to own? Again, going for more the museum aspect type of things, I'd say probably three have popped into my head straight away. One was I only just missed out on recently was Bingo by Bingo Novelty. When I did that little tangent earlier about history of pinball, I did touch on that one. That was like the first, first big pinball. So you've been chasing that for a while? Yeah, I had it lined up to get it in America my last trip in March. And I was driving up to Wisconsin to get it and a blizzard hit. They ended up, I think, with a couple of feet of snow where the guy lived. So I cancelled going up. We were driving just at the edge of the blizzard and it was complete white out. You couldn't see more than a couple of minutes ahead. So did you want to see it before you bought it? No, I was just going to buy it. Oh, okay. You just don't see them. Why didn't you end up with it then? Well, I'm not driving through a blizzard. No, no, no. But that's what I'm saying. Why don't you just listen? I can't make it. Here's some money. I'll get it shipped and organized. Yeah, I didn't want to go down the shipping route and that type of thing. Didn't want to waste the guy's time saying, oh, can you hold it for another six months for when I'm in America next? I prefer to just pick them up in person. Well, at the time, I had a dozen machines sitting in storage in America. I was just trying to think, hang on a minute, but you would have had to ship it back anyway. So you obviously had a ute or a water tray or whatever. You were going to load it up and take it back to a storage. I normally have games in storage in America with friends or family over there. And I take them to expos in America when I over there Contribute games to those shows As of right now I don have any in there because I got them all shipped back in a container but I guess that means that time to start buying more over there Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the dollar is getting a bit stronger, isn't it? But yeah, I'm on the lookout for that again. For historical significance, I'd love to have a live power. That was the first game designed to have multiball. Okay. Another 30s game. Yep. There's actually a lot from the 30s that you think, oh, the first with ramps, the first with subways, first with a lot of things, that a lot of people don't realise there was that much innovation in the 30s. So I'd love a live power. That's a fun game to play. I'd probably love a juggle ball. That's one with a weird way of controlling the ball. Like you're basically juggling it over the play field. Maybe a double shuffle. That's the first with flippers. They weren't electromechanical. They were actually just purely mechanical flippers. And then, of course, talking about flippers, Humpty Dumpty, I don't have. That's the first electromechanical flippers. So it sounds like you're chasing a few. A few old ones. I'd love a safe cracker. Are you more drawn towards those 30s machines than you are? I mean, you just mentioned safe cracker, so mid-90s or whatever that would be. Personally, I do really love playing the 30s games. They're really addictive. Once you start playing it and figuring it out, that's why people underestimate the rules. They underestimate them. A lot of people think, oh, just launch the ball and it's luck. But no, it's all in your skill shot. Well, literally skill shot. All pinballs nowadays still have a skill shot that you've got to get. And yeah, the game is purely skill shots. That's all it is. I like going to the expos in America because I've got a few friends there who take the pre-war games there and help them out in the sand and introducing pinball enthusiasts to it. And that's the same for my plan for Australian Pinball Expo. I'll bring at least 15. If this dozen arrives in time, I'll bring them as well, but I'm not holding my breath. That would be for next year's. Well, you've certainly opened my eyes to the earlier games. I'm not going to rush out and buy any, but I'll certainly spend more time on them without a doubt. Yeah. I mean, some of them are wholly collectible and not cheap. Classified, not cheap. There's one that I'd like, Army Navy by Rockola. Usually though they sell for 20,000 US. Yep, wasn't expecting that. Wow, US. What year? Early 30s. Wow. What was that? 33 or 34, I think. Might be waiting a while for that to come down. Then how many of those were made? Obviously not many, do I presume? Not many. Not that rare always means good. Yeah, but there's only about 10 known to still exist. Okay. It's probably the most complex, purely mechanical game before having coils in us and everything. The playfield's laid out like a whole football match between an army team and a navy team. Right, okay. And your balls go onto the football match and depending on where you then get the balls into other holes, it moves moving forward and backwards. Okay. Army-navy you said it was called? Yeah, okay. Have a look for that. I don't actually know American football, so I don't know the rules, but like getting a touchdown when you get to one end and that type of thing. There's a few of them that have got cool mechanics like that. The World Series by Ricola as well is a baseball one. That's the most units of pinballs ever produced, ever made of a single title. So, not Adam's family. If you go all the time. Stick that Adam's family. There was about 70,000 were made, but that's got a whole baseball pitch where you land the balls in it and they go around, spin around. I think I have seen that. I don't know if I saw that in Las Vegas, the Pinball Hall of Fame there, maybe. So yeah, they're a lot of fun, those old games. Yeah, like I said, I don't think people sort of respect them maybe enough. Like I said, obviously for me it's mainly 70s. For me, that's as old as I've gone. And the rule sets on those can be quite challenging and fun anyway. But that's also why I like taking those old games to everywhere, like shows Pinfest and all that, and even other gaming shows. I'll take the games to PAX and all over the place, just try and get as many people playing the pinball as possible. Yeah, that's a good thing to do. Nice work. It is definitely a good thing to do. We're an ageing population. Yes, if you want to collect pinballs and still want them worth money, you need to get new generations in. Otherwise it'll be like the late 90s where they all went to the tip. Yep, they're worthless. We don't want that to happen again. No. Well, that's been nice. Lyndon, anything else, mate? Well, we say the expo's coming up. You know, make sure you get your tickets. Yep. If you buy them online, it's slightly cheaper than at the door. But, of course, you can still buy tickets at the door. I'm running it different to a lot of other pinball events in Australia where they normally run the shows in sessions. Yep, okay. So this is just you buy your ticket for the day or the weekend and it's unlimited time the whole time, no sessions. So you're not closing down for any sort of maintenance or anything like that because I think that's why people generally do sessions. They do that. They close it down so that they can obviously clean machines, repair any machines that may need it. May break down. Yeah, which happens obviously. Yeah, they've also got to do that with capacity numbers. Yeah, correct, yeah. All the shows I've done, like taking my machines and that, you can get away with doing maintenance before the show opens the next morning or afterwards. I've also set up like a pinball hospital area. So if something needs major work, you can roll it out into there. Yeah, nice. So it's like I've got a pinball hospital and exhibit a lounge break room for people and that. Okay. But what I normally do when I do shows is if something needs a minor adjustment or switch adjustment or rubber replace, just crowd control bollards. You just put that around the machine for five minutes. And away you go. I think Pinball Hall of Fame have got QR codes that you can scan and report to them and it generates obviously a ticket or whatever it does on their end and then the tech wanders out. I thought that was a really good idea. Yeah, I've always thought, you know, maybe doing something like that for the museum and that, but it's the time to program it. To be fair, in all honesty, most of the machines run pretty smoothly for us. They are. We've not had an issue. Because, well, when you're at a public location, you need to have a good experience for the public. 100%. Otherwise, a new person won't come back to Pinball. Yep. But, yeah, well, Expo, get your tickets. Yes. PinballExpo.com.au. We've got a special VIP night on the Thursday night beforehand. Okay. And of course, all the games available to play. There's going to be a lot of rare and unusual games. We've got a Hercules coming. Nice. That's probably the first time in Adelaide, I think, since downtown days back in the day. There'll be a Hercules to play. Cool. Of course, all the rarities, like we said, a lot of games we've mentioned in the podcast so far. P3, the Mafia. Of course, we're going to have all the insider-connected Sterns. Yep. So every title from Batman to our Pokemon. Wow. It'll be the first time in Australia that every single title will be available to play, all connected to the internet. Even the rarities like Beatles and the special edition Batman, not Batman, James Bond. I wonder if you could get Stern to do some sort of special badge for the event. You know, so if you play every single one on the day or on the weekend. I have mentioned that. That would be awesome. No response. Crickets. Even when they announced Insider Connected years ago, they said locations will be able to make their own special badges. That still hasn't happened. Okay. Because, yeah, I've always thought that would be cool to have a special badge. It would be awesome. Like I said, if you played, but you would have to play like every game or, you know, earn over X amount of points on every game or something like that. You know, you just make it 5,000 points or something corny like that. Yeah, you get an Australian Pinball Expo badge or something. Well, that's possible, but like I said, with programming and time, maybe not this year, but if Stern don't do it, I could do something like that probably next year. I have looked into, you know, there's a lot of data that Stern has publicly available through your leaderboards and that, and I have messed around with scraping that data and making my own version of leaderboards. Or you could even do that with making your own custom, it's not an in-app badge, but a physical badge. I've got a lot of crazy ideas like that, but like this year with Expo, it's no one will believe me, but starting small. You're right, no one will believe that. There's so much I want to do and could do, and even this year I've had to cut back on a few things I wanted to do. It sounds like you've got a whiteboard that's already filled with ideas and you need another whiteboard. Well, good. I'm sure everyone will be looking forward to it. Hopefully the tickets start flying off the shelf for you. Good luck with it all. I'm sure it'll be a success. I look forward to getting down there hopefully next year and having a bit of a look. We'll make that for sure. Do you want an announcement scoop type thing for the Expo then? By all means. I've been thinking, I was going to keep this a secret for the whole time and I wanted to announce it at the start of the Expo. But the last few weeks I've been umming and ahhing thinking, oh, maybe I should announce it early because I don't want someone to think, I'm not going to bother going to the VIP night. So this is a Thursday night? It's going to be the Thursday. Okay. My original plan is, you know, everyone gets into the seminar room, say a welcome, that type of thing, and then I was going to announce this. But I've been thinking recently, oh, maybe I should say, oh, this is what we're going to do then, just in case someone finishes setting up their game and decides I'm going to go off for dinner and not bother coming back Thursday night. Yep. And I don't want to miss out. Okay. As a special thank you for all the exhibitors and the contributors and also your VIP night, there's a limited of 100 tickets. Still a couple left. You can buy in to get early access. You're not just getting early access to play all the games. I'm, how do I word this? I'll pay you tab, bar tab there. Free drinks and I'll have food for you. Just snack food. I think Matt's just getting up with it. Come and go. You are stuffed. Yeah, we're in our way. So Thursday night, VIP. Thursday night, VIP. Thursday night, VIP session. Drinks on you. There'll be, you'll have unlimited drinks and some basic foods. Yeah, nice of you, mate. Fantastic. So that's a thank you for everyone coming and supporting us. Okay. Very cool. Yep. And then for the rest of the show, of course, there is a bar at the venue. You can buy stuff. Yeah. But that's the VIP night. Awesome. Make it extra special. Yeah, nice. Yeah, I've been umming and ahhing about it the last year. Because my original plan was on the night, say it, and I just wanted to see everyone's faces, react like, oh, wow, this is amazing. But I'm now worried about, you know, what if people set up and then go away and don't bother coming back the night. And they might have plans as well. So we should give it a heads up. Very cool. Mate, thank you. Thank you. Awesome. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Thanks for letting us come down and have a bit of a play. We'll be right back. Thank you. Collection for theçaí of Pucci.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v5)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-06-06 | Item ID: b33b3189-c349-42b0-b871-fca8796982d3*