# Episode 71 - Women's Competitive Pinball

**Source:** Wedgehead Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2025-02-24  
**Duration:** 62m 49s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** Buzzsprout-16599368

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## Analysis

Wedgehead Pinball Podcast Episode 71 explores the history and current state of women's competitive pinball, featuring IFPA director and former Women's World Champion Zoe Vrabel. The episode traces women's participation from the 1970s-80s when pinball was ubiquitous and less gender-divided, through the 2010s rise of women's-only spaces like Bells and Chimes (founded 2013), and discusses why segregated tournaments are necessary to counter sexism, harassment, and poor sportsmanship in male-dominated open events. Key themes include the importance of tournament director enforcement of codes of conduct, the role of women's events in community-building and visibility, and persistent sexism in local pinball scenes.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] In the 1970s-80s, pinball was ubiquitous in bars with 3-4 machines, and there was less gender division in who played — _Zoe cites interview with Betsy Boucher, Pops Pinball Parlor regular from that era; echoed by multiple industry figures mentioned (Roger Sharp, etc.)_
- [HIGH] IFPA was rebooted in 2006 and began ranking players; the original IFPA existed earlier — _Zoe states this directly; Josh and Zach Sharp took over the name and started the modern ranking system_
- [HIGH] Bells and Chimes was founded by Eka Schneider in Oakland in 2013; Babes in Pinland founded by Kayla Greet in Seattle the same month — _Zoe provides specific dates and founder names; describes this as spontaneous groundswell_
- [MEDIUM] There are now over 100 women's pinball groups worldwide, including chapters in Australia, Mexico, New Zealand, and the UK — _Zoe states this directly but does not cite source; plausible given growth trajectory she describes_
- [MEDIUM] When Zoe started playing competitively in 2009, women made up approximately 10% of IFPA rankings — _Zoe's recollection; notes the percentage hasn't increased much despite more overall players_
- [HIGH] In 2011, a crowdsourced women's ranking was created via spreadsheet because the IFPA ranking had no gender markers — _Zoe describes her personal experience being excluded because people thought Zoe Vrabel was a European man's name_
- [HIGH] At the first Portland Bells and Chimes event at C-Bar, men waited outside a reserved room to enter immediately after the women's event ended at 10pm — _Zoe's direct account of the event she helped organize_
- [HIGH] A 2010 Willamette Week article described Zoe as being 'on a bad luck streak and perhaps a little drunk' after finishing second in a tournament — _Zoe provides direct quote and context; article mentioned a player saying 'I got beat by a girl'_
- [HIGH] Zoe and Eka Schneider both attended Reed College in Portland, motivating a feminist approach to making space for women in pinball — _Zoe's direct account of her relationship with Eka and shared educational background_
- [MEDIUM] Tournament directors often don't enforce codes of conduct due to discomfort and fear that enforcement will drive away players — _Zoe's analysis of TD behavior based on 15 years of tournament running experience; acknowledged as opinion but informed by practice_

### Notable Quotes

> "I am an IFPA director and I've been running tournaments for like 15 years. So my opinions are the best ones."
> — **Zoe Vrabel**, early in episode
> _Self-aware disclaimer about her authority on the subject; establishes her credibility while acknowledging bias_

> "I want pinball to be ubiquitous like this again. Like this is like sort of the high watermark."
> — **Alan (host)**, discussing 1970s-80s era
> _Core aspiration for the pinball community; nostalgia for pre-organized, casual era_

> "I got beat by a girl."
> — **Anonymous male player, quoted in 2010 Willamette Week article**, referencing 2010 tournament
> _Emblematic of casual sexism in early 2010s pinball; demonstrates gendered language and dismissal_

> "If you don't think that your local scene has these problems, you are just not looking hard enough."
> — **Zoe Vrabel**, discussing sexism in pinball scenes
> _Direct statement that sexism is universal in pinball communities; challenges denial and complacency_

> "If you actually give people consequences for bad actions, they will either stop coming or they will do those things less often."
> — **Zoe Vrabel**, discussing TD code of conduct enforcement
> _Practical guidance on community management; reframes enforcement as necessary for scene health_

> "Pinball is not a constitutional right for them."
> — **Zoe Vrabel**, discussing TD sanctioning power
> _Strong statement defending TD authority to exclude bad actors; framing access as privilege, not right_

> "It's addition by subtraction. You got to prune the tree for it to grow nice and strong."
> — **Alan (host)**, discussing community management
> _Metaphor for the necessity of removing toxic elements for community growth_

> "I have never gotten better trophies than I have at a women's event."
> — **Zoe Vrabel**, discussing women's event quality
> _Humorous but meaningful observation about attention to detail and care at women's tournaments_

> "They were like, you know, maybe you're like, I can't even think of Jorian Enbrexen. that's the name that we don't really know how to deal with. Let's just assume it's a European man."
> — **Zoe Vrabel**, discussing 2011 women's ranking mishap
> _Illustrates unconscious bias in gender categorization; shows need for opt-in systems_

> "Just play somewhere else for one night, dudes. You don't have to be in our space all the time."
> — **Zoe Vrabel**, describing first Portland Bells and Chimes event
> _Captures tension between male entitlement to space and women's need for dedicated community time_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Zoe Vrabel | person | Former IFPA Women's World Champion, IFPA director for 15 years, tournament organizer, competitive pinball player from Portland/San Francisco area; primary guest expert on women's pinball history |
| Alan | person | Host of Wedgehead Pinball Podcast; bar owner in Portland with pinball event organization experience |
| Eka Schneider | person | Founder of Bells and Chimes in Oakland, California in 2013; Reed College alumnus; drove women's community organizing groundswell |
| Kayla Greet | person | Founder of Babes in Pinland in Seattle in 2013; co-organizer of early women's pinball community movement |
| Ellen Frankel | person | Legend of women's pinball; won women's division at PAPA IV in 1990s; still active in pinball community |
| Helena Walter Higgins | person | Historic women's pinball player; won B-division at PAPA 8 (2004); in top 50 IFPA rankings for early 2000s; Swedish speaker; mentor figure to Zoe |
| Robin LaSonde | person | Highly ranked women's pinball player from San Francisco in early 2010s IFPA era |
| Louise Wagons-Zahner | person | Highly ranked women's pinball player from San Francisco in early 2010s IFPA era |
| Danielle Peck | person | Discussed in prior Wedgehead episode about women in pinball design/manufacturing side; competitive player |
| Betsy Boucher | person | Pops Pinball Parlor regular; interviewed about women's experiences playing pinball in 1970s-80s |
| Josh Sharp | person | Co-founder of modern IFPA ranking system (rebooted 2006) |
| Zach Sharp | person | Co-founder of modern IFPA ranking system (rebooted 2006) |
| Bells and Chimes | organization | Women's pinball community organization founded 2013; now has 100+ chapters worldwide including Australia, Mexico, New Zealand, UK; became iconic brand for women's pinball spaces |
| Babes in Pinland | organization | Women's pinball group founded in Seattle in 2013 by Kayla Greet; independent from Bells and Chimes but part of same groundswell |
| IFPA | organization | International Flipper Pinball Association; rebooted in 2006 to rank competitive players; has women's divisions and rankings; historical organization from earlier era |
| PAPA | organization | Professional and Amateur Pinball Association; had women's division as early as PAPA IV (1990s); women's divisions reappeared at PAPA 19 |
| Shorty's Coney Island | organization | Legendary Seattle pinball bar; has run Powder Puff Pinball Tournament for women since early 2000s (possibly 2005+); pioneer of women's tournament organization |
| WHIPPED | organization | Women in Pinball Tournament; attached to Pinberg starting 2018; described as one of largest and most lucrative women's events |
| Pops Pinball Parlor | organization | Historic pinball bar where Betsy Boucher plays classic games like Haunted House and Black Hole |
| C-Bar | organization | Portland bar venue where first Portland Bells and Chimes event was held; reserved back room for women's event |
| Wedgehead Pinball Podcast | organization | Podcast hosted by Alan; focuses on classic pinball games and community; this is Episode 71 on women's competitive pinball |
| Reed College | organization | Portland college attended by both Zoe Vrabel and Eka Schneider (different years); associated with feminist values |
| Pinberg | event | Major pinball tournament event in Germany; WHIPPED women's tournament runs on Sunday of Pinberg weekend |
| Willamette Week | organization | Portland-area publication that covered Zoe Vrabel in 2010 tournament article with sexist framing |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Women's participation history in pinball (1970s-present), Rise of women's-only tournament spaces and community groups (2013 onwards), Sexism, harassment, and poor sportsmanship in male-dominated pinball scenes, Tournament director responsibility for enforcing codes of conduct, Why segregated women's spaces are necessary vs. fixing open events
- **Secondary:** Gender representation in IFPA rankings and competitive pinball, Community building and social dynamics in pinball, Accessibility and visibility of women in pinball for new players

### Sentiment

**Mixed** (0.55) — Episode celebrates growth of women's pinball community and acknowledges progress (Bells and Chimes, WHIPPED, top players), but heavily emphasizes ongoing sexism, harassment, and structural problems that persist even in 2025. Tone is proud of women's organizing achievements but frustrated with male-dominated scenes and TD negligence. Hosts are optimistic about solutions (enforcement, women's spaces, cultural change) but realistic about challenges.

### Signals

- **[community_signal]** Persistent sexism in pinball tournament scenes including condescending prize structures, harassment, inappropriate advances, and hostile behavior toward female competitors; examples from 2010 and described as ongoing in 2025 (confidence: high) — Zoe's detailed accounts of being marginalized in Willamette Week coverage, her experiences at tournaments, and statement that 'pretty much every local scene' has these problems
- **[community_signal]** Tournament directors have responsibility and ability to enforce codes of conduct and sanction bad actors; enforcement improves vibes for all players and drives growth; fear of confrontation and player loss prevents adoption (confidence: high) — Zoe's 15 years as TD and IFPA director; detailed discussion of enforcement mechanisms (warnings, removal, bans); Alan's bar owner experience confirms effectiveness
- **[event_signal]** Bells and Chimes founded in Oakland 2013 by Eka Schneider; Babes in Pinland founded in Seattle 2013 by Kayla Greet same month; spontaneous groundswell of women's community organizing (confidence: high) — Zoe provides specific dates, founders, and describes as coordinated moment of women taking up space in competitive pinball
- **[sentiment_shift]** Shift from 1970s-80s ubiquity and casual mixed-gender play to modern era of organized male-dominated competitive scene with gatekeeping, toxicity, and need for separate women's spaces (confidence: high) — Betsy Boucher interview (1970s-80s less gender division, ubiquitous play) vs. Zoe's experience (2009-2010 being one of two women at events, harassment, condescending coverage)
- **[community_signal]** First Portland Bells and Chimes event at C-Bar faced immediate pushback from men waiting outside reserved women's event room; indicates tension over male access to spaces and women's perceived encroachment (confidence: high) — Zoe's direct account: men waiting outside until 10pm event end, Zoe noting 'You don't have to be in our space all the time, dudes'
- **[community_signal]** Growth of women's-only tournament infrastructure (Bells and Chimes 100+ chapters, WHIPPED at Pinberg, Powder Puff Pinball in Seattle since early 2000s) as response to male-dominated open scenes (confidence: high) — Zoe cites expansion to 100+ women's groups worldwide, specific tournament names and histories, and describes them as safer spaces with better vibes
- **[market_signal]** Women's-only spaces are necessary response to systemic sexism in open pinball scenes, not a niche preference; visibility of women competitors (trophies, Twitch streams, community presence) drives recruitment of new women players (confidence: high) — Zoe argues women's events should highlight women to broader audiences and reduce gatekeeping; describes specific mechanisms (streaming, tournament quality, community support)
- **[market_signal]** Women's pinball participation has grown but gender ratio remains skewed; when Zoe started (2009), women were ~10% of IFPA rankings; remains low despite overall player growth (confidence: high) — Zoe states women were 10% of IFPA when she started and 'hasn't gone up that much' despite more overall players; attributed to barriers in male-dominated scenes
- **[community_signal]** IFPA ranking system originally had no gender markers; in 2011 crowdsourced women's ranking was created via spreadsheet; gender identification required opt-in due to misidentification errors (Zoe assumed male because of name) (confidence: high) — Zoe's direct account of being excluded from 2011 women's ranking; male friend named Erin included instead; notes IFPA changed to opt-in system as result
- **[community_signal]** Eka Schneider moved to Oakland and founded Bells and Chimes shortly after (2013), with feminist Reed College background motivating creation of women's space in pinball (confidence: medium) — Zoe notes Eka's departure from Bay Area coincided with Bells and Chimes founding; shared Reed College feminist values explained as motivation

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## Transcript

 So it's gonna be forever, or it's gonna go down in flames You can tell me when it's over, if the high was worth the pain Go on my Starbucks lovers, they'll tell you I'm insane Cause you know I love the players, and you love the game Cause we're young and we're reckless, we'll take this way too far It'll leave you breathless, or with a nasty scar. Got a lot of nice Starbucks lovers, they'll tell you I'm insane. But I've got a blank space, baby, and I'll write your name. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. My name is Alan, your host of this podcast. Once again, I am solo this week without my normal trusty co-host, Alex the Waterboy, who is out sick. But today, we are again discussing women in pinball. Last week, we discussed women who impacted the design, manufacturing, and operation of pinball machines. And this time around, we're talking about the pinball community, both competitive and not so competitive. But for this very special episode, I'm joined again on the show by my good friend and former IFBA Women's World Champion, Zoe Vrabel. Welcome to the show, Zoe. How are you doing? I'm doing well. And just because I'm doing well doesn't mean you can assume that all women are doing well, because women are not a monolith and they have a variety of opinions. And these are just mine. But also, I'm an IFPA director and I've been running tournaments for like 15 years. So my opinions are the best ones. So thanks for having me to share my opinions with the world. Yeah, I'm excited for you to tell us about kind of the history of competitive pinball and women's competitive pinball in particular. And you wrote the outline to this episode. So I'm going to let you enlighten us on the history of women's pinball. Today, I am taking you on a tour of the eras of women's pinball. Unfortunately, we do not have a Taylor Swift pinball machine yet. So this is the closest I could come. We're trying on the show. Alex and I are trying. Every time we get a chance, we're saying make a Taylor Swift pinball. I've been out on the show. Stern pinball, you are cowards. Make it. Make it. Got to get a street team going. Got to really spread the gospel on the streets. Swifties have the money. It would be gangbusters on location. Like, I just think about it like as an operator. I'm just like, my God, that would just change the landscape of like the people that currently play pinball. Like I've even considered swapping my Iron Maiden's music out for Taylor Swift's song. You should. Because I had never heard an Iron Maiden song until I won that pinball machine. You should. So I will. I'll probably, I'll talk to Mitch Curtis, one of your other podcast guests, and see how he did it on the games that he has changed into other sound packages. Let's talk about the early years of women in pinball. The histories of the heyday of pinball don't seem to have captured much in the way of women's stories. So I don't know much. This is a blind spot for me. Old enough to have been playing competitive pinball for 15 years, but I was not alive in the 70s. So if you or your mom or your wife or your cool aunt were playing pinball in the 70s, tell them to look me up because I want to chat and hear what they're saying. I was able to talk to Betsy Boucher, who is a Pops Pinball Parlor regular, about her experience playing pinball in the 70s and 80s. And I just pulled out a couple of the things that stood out to me the most. Most bars that you would go to had three to four machines. They were everywhere. There weren't really arcades or barcades at that time, which basically sounded like Portland in the early 2000s to me. Yeah, that's like how Portland kind of, I mean, we have more arcades now, but it's still like that. Like when people see the Portland pinball map, they're like, oh, my God, there's pinball machines everywhere. And you're like, it's just like this. It's three to four in a lot of places. Yeah. If you're living in Portland and you're not walking distance from a public place with a pinball machine in it, where are you living? You're living in a weird kind of Portland. So another one of the most important things to know about pinball in the 70s and 80s is that no one had machines at home except for this one guy. But he was a Coke dealer. Oh, well, naturally. So that's who had the pinball machines at home. The home user market is a completely different beast than it was back in the 70s and 80s. As far as she knew, there weren't really as many, if any, organized tournaments and there was less of a gender split. It was more of a pinball is something everyone did when they went out, kind of like pool tables at bars nowadays. Like when I was in college, I wouldn't have to be good at pool to play around with my friends. This is something that I saw on this list and I thought was very interesting. It's something I bring up on the show a lot. I also was not born in the 1970s. My parents were coming of age in the 1970s. They were in high school in the 1970s, so they got to see the heyday of pinball. And this is what I hear from everyone when I talk to Roger Sharp or anyone that was there at the time. They basically echoed the same thing is regular people played pinball. It was around. It was ubiquitous. Pinball machines were everywhere. They were in all sorts of businesses. There was a couple of them. And it's just something that people used to spend a little bit of time with their friends, co-workers, spouses, anybody in just a local bar flies or whatever. And it wasn't a sort of organized nerd pursuit like it is maybe today. Yeah. And I think it's interesting, like you said, she reported less of a gender split, meaning that it was more like women and men played pinball. It wasn't so much a male dominated experience like it is maybe in modern times. Yeah. And I wonder if that's why we don't hear as much is because it was just such a normal thing to do that they didn't really capture women's stories because they didn't think that it was going to be something of anthropological interest in a couple of decades. I wish we can get back to this. This is a thing I think about all the time where it's like, I want pinball to be ubiquitous like this again. Like this is like sort of the high watermark. And I want to I don't know how it happens necessarily. I mean, the first thing is just access. That's why I'm always trying to when people talk about their local scenes and they're like, well, there's no pinballs on location or I got to buy these machines from our house because there's nowhere to play. I was like, take your fucking games and go put them out on location and then start organizing events like this is how it all works. And also, I think that you don't even have to have it be an event. I think the most bars having just a couple of machines, and this is something, again, we've seen in Portland, people are going to just stumble over and play a couple of games if it's just part of a larger bar that is just for hanging out. You have so many spots that are so pinball specific that it's full of pinball people and you don't have that same unintentional, oh, I guess we're at a bar with a pinball machine. Guess we're going to play Sopranos. That's how I got into pinball is two of my friends in college were like, oh, we got to play this medieval madness because you can blow the castle up. And I was like, well, I want to do that. Yeah. And you said there's a great picture of Betsy literally sitting on a haunted house machine. What back when that game was new? Don't tell the operator. But yes, she was literally sitting on the glass of the Haunted House machine back when it was one of the new machines to get out and play, she remembers. And she still loves playing Haunted House and Black Hole and those games with the lower playfields that the Pops Pinball Parlor guys have on location. So it's nice to see her back in the day and then still doing that decades later. She is the coolest. That's awesome. So that's as much as I could pull up about the early years. Like I said, get in touch with Alan, get in touch with me if you want to tell us more stories of being a woman in pinball in the 70s and 80s. In the 90s, from what I was able to dig up, Papa had a women's division, the Professional and Amateur Pinball Association, Papa, had a women's division as early as Papa IV. It was won by the legend Ellen Frankel, still plays pinball today. When Papa came back in 2004 after a hiatus, there was no longer a women's division, but Helena Walter, now Helena Walter Higgins, won B division at Papa 8. So there were, again, still great women playing in pinball, regardless of if they were playing in women's events or open events. And then to cap off the Papa part of this, women's divisions showed up again starting at Papa 19 and Whipped, the women in pinball tournament. But Whipped was attached to Pinbrook starting in 2018. and that is one of the largest and most lucrative women's events. It's a full day of match play in a very similar format to Pinberg, but just for women. That's cool. And it happens like the same weekend as Pinberg or is that a separate event entirely? It's the Sunday of Pinberg weekend. So those of us who like to play in both get to exhaust ourselves for three or four days at Pinberg and then have to play more pinball at WIP the next day. Have you gotten to play against Ellen Frankel or Helena Walter? Oh, yeah. Yeah, Ellen and Helena and I have all played together quite a bit. The women's scene is small. It is growing, but it is still small. But Ellen and I crossed paths when I lived in San Francisco. I remember meeting Helena, actually. I was so excited. I was in Colorado. I was representing Oregon at the first ever North American Championship that first year that the IFPA ran it. Noah Davis won Oregon, but he couldn't go. So I came in second and I got to go. Nice. But that was the same week as IFPA, I don't know, 12 or whatever, the one that was in Colorado. So Helena was in town and I got knocked out of the North American Championship real quick. That was great because then I went next door to Oscar Blues Brewery and me and Helena just drank beer on the patio and got so sunburned and she taught me how to speak Swedish. That's awesome. Yeah, that was a real meeting your heroes moment. She was, you know, in the top 50 of the IFPA rankings for so much of the early 2000s. And she was the first woman who I was really aware of playing at that high level. And I was like, oh, OK, this is possible to do. It's possible to be that woman. And there doesn't have to just be one. Right. So that's what I have on the 90s. I was not yet playing pinball in the 90s. So unfortunately, a little bit sparse in my research. But then we get to your era, the Zoe era. Is this the early aughts or is this before Zoe? Early aughts is slightly before Zoe. I started playing pinball in 2009, but this is where I start to have like picked up bits and pieces of what was going on right before I got into it. So Shorty's, Shorty's Coney Island up in Seattle, a long time, long standing pinball bar has been running the Powder Puff Pinball Tournament, which is a women's tournament that's existed since the early 2000s. I couldn't find the exact date, but I think I found a Stranger Alt Weekly article from like 2005 talking about Powder Puff. So that's a women's tournament that for a long time gave away a pinball machine to the winner. Of course, the year that I won, they stopped giving away pinball machines. I got a cool custom back glass, so it was still worthwhile, but a little disappointing. So they've been running women's events since before women's events were really de rigueur and like you said one of the first pinball bars in general i mean shorty's up in seattle is legendary and it's moved location or it's like moved across the street or down the street but yeah legendary pinball spot i remember getting into pinball yeah i got into pinball about the same time as you zoe i thought it was like 2008 yeah 2007 2008 something like that when i first moved to portland going up to shorty's in seattle that's cool to see that they were sort of the pioneers of running regular women's tournaments in the early 2000s. Yeah, Seattle's still the hotbed of tournaments. And that lineage really started with Shorty's back in the 2000s. And they've been running their annual open event as well every November for who knows how long. So they really were on the cutting edge of pinball. And honestly, that was happening before the IFPA was rebooted, because that's the next thing on my list is some people don't realize this, but it wasn't until 2006 that the IFPA was rebooted and started ranking pinball players. Yeah, I didn't know that. The IFPA existed in the past, but yeah, Josh and Zach really geared it up and started ranking folks back in 2016. Or not 2016. Oh my God. 2006. 2006. Oh, yes. So the IFPA was already an existing name that they took over and began ranking pinball players. So as I mentioned, Helena was in the top 100 for the first decade. And by the time she fell out of the top 100, she had been joined by Robin LaSonde, a great pinball player from San Francisco, Louise Wagons-Zahner, also from San Francisco, and Danielle Peck, who we spoke a little bit about in your last episode about women on the creation side of pinball. So now that we're talking about the IFPA, as I kind of mentioned up top, I am one of the IFPA directors, but nothing that I'm saying on this podcast should be taken as IFPA position or gospel truth or anything like that. I just have opinions and also lived through the early aughts, which made me stronger as a person. So instead of women's divisions back then, back in the old days, a lot of tournaments of this era had a prize for the top female qualifier. So I have a lot of envelopes that just say top woman or top female qualifier, $50. And it's like throwing you a bone, good job, you did the best of the women, but we don't expect you to be in the real mix of the finalists. Yeah, condescending prizes. Yep. I mean, this was literally when people thought it was normal to say shit like, I got beat by a girl. Yep. That's a quote from an article that the Willamette Week wrote about pinball in 2010. They came to one of our weekly Tuesday tournaments, one of our Flip City weeklies, and one of the guys who they were hoping was going to be a big part of the article, because he was so good and he had so many high scores. He was knocked out of the tournament in the second round. He gets knocked out and he has to tell the reporter, I got beat by a girl. That was me. I came in second at that tournament. The only person I lost to was the best player in Portland at the time. Hell yeah. And yet I was described as being, quote, on a bad luck streak and perhaps a little drunk. That was all I got in that newspaper article where I came in second in the tournament. Just got beat by a girl. Yeah, that's, you know, what's interesting is I think we'll get into it later in this episode, but we'll talk about sort of the differences between open events and women's events and why we have the space for women's events. But there is still, even in the year 2025, this is still an issue that happens. There is still sort of sexism in... Sort of sexism. Well, yeah. I mean, there's sexism and misogyny in these local scenes and tournaments and a lot of bad sportsmanship and a lot of excuse making about why they lost and usually not a lot of credit given to just losing to a better player or someone play better than them, regardless of their gender. Yep. Much like the machines being made in the early aught, this was a dark time for women in football. Then we get to the rise of women's rankings and women's spaces starting in the 2010s. And this is also, like I said, I started playing competitively in 2009. So I was in the mix at this time. And a lot of this comes from my recollections. So if I get things slightly wrong, apologies. As the Willamette Week described, I was a little drunk during this era. Well, you're not an anthropologist. I mean, you're not. Oh, yeah, I was taking field notes behind my tall boy of paps. I was just writing everything down. In 2011, members of the broader pinball community started crowdsourcing a women's ranking based on their open IFPA rank So it was like we want to figure out who are the women in this long list of players that have no gender markers associated with them So in that first approach to women rankings which was just in a spreadsheet that like people sent around, I was not included on it because they thought I was a European man. They like the name Zoe Vrabel just didn't work for people. But my friend Aaron, who spells his name E-R-I-N, he was included in the women's rankings. And that is One reason why the IFPA has since stopped making assumptions about who gets included in rankings solely based on their names. I don't care if your name is Tiffany. If you don't opt in in some capacity, I'm not going to assume that you want to be in the women's rankings. Is Zoe a common male name in Europe? No. No, I think they just hadn't dealt with it in any gendered capacity. They were like, you know, maybe you're like, I don't I can't even think of Jorian Enbrexen. that's the name that we don't really know how to deal with. Let's just assume it's a European man. So apparently Zoe Vrabel just didn't catch their eye as a particularly female name. That is when people started paying attention to who were highly ranked women who were playing competitively in IFPA tournaments. 2013 is when women in pinball really get going, though, because that is when Bells and Chimes was founded by Eka Schneider in Oakland, California. And the same month, Babes in Pinland was founded by Kayla Greet in Seattle, Washington. The same month? Two entirely separate women's... Did they know each other? Maybe they'd crossed paths, and I know they probably met in the future, but I think that was just driven at the same time. The same month? That's crazy. I'm fairly certain. That's wild. I'm remembering that from what Kayla has told me. But it was just like a groundswell of women in pinball who finally wanted to start taking up space for ourselves. Like when I got into it in 2009, 2010, I was one of maybe two women at most events that I went to. And any time I saw a girl playing pinball, I would like go up to her and over enthusiastically ask if she wanted to play pinball. I tried to start a women's league in Portland, but no one showed up except for my roommates. But people showed up to Bells and Chimes. People showed up to Babes in Pinland. And so now there are over 100 women's pinball groups, both Bells and Chimes chapters, as well as independent groups like Babes in Pinland across the world. And in addition to the U.S. chapters that you often hear about, there are also Bells and Chimes in Australia, Mexico, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. That's incredible. Yeah, I think the Bells and Chimes name is super recognizable across the country and I guess across the world. It's impressive. Yeah, it's kind of like a Kleenex or Xerox situation where people refer to women's events as bells and chimes, even if they're not. It's iconic. It's just like that's what it means. It is the iconic women's pinball group. And so I'm not surprised. Can you tell me about Eka Schneider? What do you know about her? Well, Eka and I played pinball when I lived in the Bay Area. I lived there from 2011 to 2012. So as soon as I moved away, she decided to create a women in pinball group. Well, she didn't want you winning each week. So I doubt it was that calculated. But Eka and I actually went to the same college, not at the same time, but we both went to Reed College in Portland, Oregon. And so I think we both are coming from a kind of feminist motivated. I want to prove that I can do these things, but I also want to make it easier for the women who come after me to do these things. And I think that was a big part of Eka's motivation to found Bells and Chimes was I I want some space for women to get into the game of pinball without having to contend with the other social factors of living in a patriarchal society that come with open events. Yeah, that's why we're asking the next question here is why women's only groups and spaces? Like, why are these necessary? That's a great question, Alan. So any hobby with such a skewed gender ratio, when I started playing pinball, women were maybe 10% of the IFPA rankings. And it hasn't gone up that much, but that's just because more and more people are playing overall. But we'll get into that later. But anyway, any hobby where the gender ratio is so skewed is going to feel intimidating to members who are not in whatever majority. So women's spaces allow players to focus on learning rules and on building community without having to deal with inappropriate actors, overly competitive sweaty goobers, getting asked out or asked who's your boyfriend every time that they're at an event, getting the rules explained to them. Like having a women's only space helps us avoid the very frequent pitfalls that happen to us as women in a majority male space otherwise. Yeah. I mean, I know you told me when I first met you some of your horror stories of competing in pinball during this time and open events and being kind of a trailblazer. I think lots of people lost to a girl named Zoe Vrabel during this time in Portland in pinball tournaments. But you had to deal with a lot of very cruel and unnecessary and sexist behavior targeted at you specifically because you were a woman. You were somebody that was a non-majority member of the local scene. Things that were tolerated that, you know, shouldn't be, but for some reason are in every local scene. Not every local scene, but I want to say like it's. I would say pretty much every local scene. If you don't think that your local scene has these problems, you are just not looking hard enough. So that's that's not it's not a pinball thing. It's about living in society. I always feel like that, too, where there's like this thing that happens when we talk about pinball and particularly pinball scenes. And I see it a lot. I think it's nice because we all want to grow pinball. We all want to see pinball be bigger. We all want to see it be more accessible. But what I see sometimes is people gloss over and they go, oh, we have some like people that rage tilt machines or bang their fist on the glass when they lose or they get too drunk. or they, you know, are emotionally, verbally, physically abusive or whatever. And then I always hear people play, but not in my scene. And I'm just I just sound like that's not there's no way that it doesn't happen somewhat. We live in a world. We live in a society of people. And every day we live in a society of people. And there are bad actors. Right. And there are bad people in pinball. And I get that some people are like, aren't pinball people the best? aren't we just the best aren't we the best little community and i'm like yeah i mean i meet a lot of great people in pinball but also unintentionally i think it is sort of downplaying some of the problems that exist in a pinball scene and in a tournament scene in particular and it holds back sort of the growth of the overall scene because it makes different players feel uncomfortable for different reasons coming out and playing in local events you know so that's why i think it's like it's so important that we get some of these women events. And it sounds like you were a part of the groundswell of it in here in Portland. And you wrote here that you have the first one, the first night Portland Bells and Chimes met at C-Bar. Can you tell us more about that first night? Oh, I apologize to all of my friends who are part of this story. But the first night that Portland Bells and Chimes met, we met at a bar that had a back room full of pinball, and they generously closed off that back room so that just the Bells could have it for the night. And we're talking Portland, which has the most pinball machines on location per capita. And yet we had the room reserved for us until 10pm. And there were so many pinball dudes who were literally waiting outside the room so that they could come in at 1001. Like, just play somewhere else for one night, dudes. You don't have to be in our space all the time. It was wild. But more to the point of what you're saying, like I played in Bells when it was first started in Portland. I played in women's events, but I didn't start running women's events until I started running state championships and women's world championships. Like I have all of the tournaments that I ran starting in 2010 till 2020 were open events. And so one thing that I want to say to your listeners of all genders is that having and enforcing codes of conduct can have a positive impact for all players, not just women. And in all events, not just women's only events. It makes the vibes more inviting. It makes it less normalized to rage tilt or to throw a tantrum if you don't win or to like have a bad time. If you actually give people consequences for bad actions, they will either stop coming or they will do those things less often. And that is how you make open spaces more fun for women to be in so that we don't feel this need to self-segregate and find our own spaces where we can just actually enjoy pinball without getting bothered. totally it is something that i think about a lot because you know i own a bar and we try to have events and it's part of why my event howdy partner is the way it is i don't want it's something i always struggled with because i would see it that i don't play in tournaments because i don't like the vibe i'm part of the majority i'm a male dominated field and like i still don't like the vibe at some open tournaments that i would see around town at the time and it's just it's mostly to do with other players' behaviors, and I think some of the TDs' reluctance to intervene. And I think that that's something that everyone should do more of, because if somebody's there for their first tournament, and they see someone rage-tilt a machine after losing, or they lose a match, say they're a good player, they lose a match to a player that showed up for their first week. Instead of just being like, good game, congratulations, they'll swear and they'll blame the machine or they'll blame a ruling and make that person feel bad about winning and it's just bad for the scene and it's bad for the growth and i feel like the td i mean you are the person that's there you're there to help provide vibes like and i think that and you can speak to this since you've been a long time tournament director and you've run open events and so you've had to be that woman in charge of not only just a woman's event but you mean like an open event with men and women and you have to make decisions that i'm sure they didn't appreciate but i want to ask you as a td do tds not do it because my assumption is they don't do it more often because it's a small community and they're therefore afraid that they come down to hard admonishing bad behavior or unsportsmanlike conduct and therefore that less players won't they won't come to their event and then they won't have a tournament to have at all? Is that sort of the thought process or is it just fear of confrontation? I think it's more simple than that. People don't do it because it's uncomfortable to do. It does not feel good. You do not know how the person you are sanctioning will react. It might not always be, oh, okay, you told me to stop doing that, so I'll stop doing that. Everyone's going to argue. The thing is, you can have in your rules, if you keep on arguing with me, you get another warning. Like you can just have a process and having a process, having an established code of conduct saying here is how I handle outbursts and personal conduct issues gives you something to say this is what happens at my event. And you know this. You're a bartender, bar owner. Like you can 86 a customer if they're being an asshole. I can do that as a tournament director too. Tournaments need to be available and accessible to everyone writ large. But if someone is a jerk, and especially if they have a pattern of being a jerk, pinball is not a constitutional right for them. Tournament directors are able to sanction people for doing shit that makes the vibes horrendous. Yeah, and it's addition by subtraction is the way I look at it. I look at it like you got to prune the tree for it to grow nice and strong. You can't leave the dead branches there. It's holding back the growth of the overall scene, and you will get more players if you don't allow bad behavior. I know we're off on a little tangent here, but, you know, that's just in general some advice for people running their own tournaments. But it seems like in general, also, the reason why we're talking about women's events in particular is, you know, it seems like oftentimes a lot better ran or at least better vibes overall. And I don't know what that says about just women in general versus men in general. We like to have a good time. That's what it says. I have never gotten better trophies than I have at a women's event. And I'm not a trophy gal. I'm sorry to anyone who plays in my tourneys. They're not. Trophies are not where my talents lie, but the trophies are cute. And the other reason to have women's events is to highlight that high level women, not even just high level women, it's just to highlight that women are out here to people who might otherwise just see pinball as a bunch of dudes. If you are scrolling through Twitch and you're like, who's streaming pinball tonight? Oh, there's a women's tournament. Oh, these women play pinball. Oh, I can play pinball too. Oh, they're really good. I hope I can get that good. Like you see someone like you, you're more likely to say this might be the hobby for me. So that's the other thing. Like the importance of representation and seeing yourself in a hobby and seeing yourself represented. Yeah. And not always being the other because not everyone's comfortable being the other. Not everyone's comfortable being the trailblazer. They're not comfortable being Eka or Zoe, right? Like being in like such a dominated male field, But if you gave them a space, if you give them the bells and chimes chapter, then you can all of a sudden women feel more comfortable coming out. It fosters the love of the game and it brings more and more people in, allows more women to play, allows more people to play in open events and just is better for the health of the hobby overall. Exactly. And so in service of that, in 2015, the IFPA started to maintain a dedicated women's ranking based on their performance in open events and eventually leading to the first ever IFPA Women's World Championship, which was held in 2016. I'm just checking the date on my trophy because, oh, yeah, I won that one. No big deal. And then in 2017, women in the community lobbied the IFPA to begin sanctioning women's only events and maintain a separate ranking based on performance in women's only events. So up until 2017, those bells and chimes events, those babes in Pinland events, powder puff tournament at Shorty's, those weren't worth ranking points. That was just for fun and money and bragging rights. But in 2017, the IFPA started tracking performance in women's only events and starting in 2018, started inviting players to the Women's World Championship based on both sets of rankings, which I think is really important because you want to recognize women who are playing high level pinball, regardless of what type of event is available to them, regardless of what type of event they prefer to play in. There are plenty of women who prefer open events and don't really participate in women's events. There are women who feel much more comfortable playing in women's events only. There are people who cross the streams and play in both. Like we want to make sure that we are showing you the best women in pinball, not just based on one set of events. And I think we'll get to this by the end of this episode. But in many, many places, there are just really not a lot of women's events. So the only chance for women to play is to play in open events and they needed their rankings to be correlated to their performance in those open events because they might not have a Bells and Chimes chapter or they might not have a local equivalent Which I hoping that by the end of this episode we will convince more people to start up their own local chapters and start their own women tournaments Spoiler alert. But yes, that is what we're going to tell you to do by the end of this episode. This is kind of a detour out of the feel good space that we just started getting into. But another thing that happened in 2015, in addition to IFPA women's rankings starting up in an official capacity, is that Stern released, whoa, Nelly, big juicy melons. And the social media response was a fucking mess. I don't know what your podcast is rated, but there's no other way to describe it. Yeah, totally. Like, and this is something, you know, Stern continues to have a blind spot when it comes to how they represent women in their social media to this day. We've constantly seen them put their foot in their mouth as far as posting memes that make it seem like, oh, the girlfriend doesn't really like pinball the same way our core customer demographic does or whatever. Like with Wonnelly, Big Juicy Melons. It's literally the entire joke is that, hey, it's a hot girl with big boobs and she's on a watermelon farm. So we're not actually talking about her boobs. It was just like, it's 2015, dudes. We don't need to still go back to this well over and over again. Just play one of the many sexist pinball art machines from the era. From yesteryear. Socially acceptable. Yeah, exactly. There are plenty of big juicy melons. Yeah. Which brings up a point of like, I know I've talked to you before when you've been in Wedgehead. You're like, I've never seen this movie or I don't like this show. I don't like whatever. You know, when we're talking about themes or new games, right? And it was really striking to me because I don't know how many of the themes that come out that I necessarily love. Like, I'm not like a superhero guy or a Marvel guy or I don't really care too much about Star Wars or anything like that. But I also realized from talking to you, I was like, these themes are very targeted towards their current buyer and what they think is their majority player base at the time, which is, you know, male facing themes and the male gaze that they use on their art direction. Do you think that's ever going to change? Is it going to be 2050 before we see change? Are we going to see more women's focused theme choices? Like, I mean, how many do we get where you're like, hell yeah, like, I love this IP. I love this thing. This speaks to me. I mean, we spoke about the Taylor Swift machine, but, you know, which I think would be a great one that was clearly like prioritizing and focusing on, you know, what is 50% of the population? We're 50% of the population, but unfortunately, we're not 50% of the pinball playing community. And this is kind of going back to what we talked about at the top, where like, when I started playing, women were 9-10% of the rankings. We're still like, probably only 12-15% of ranked players now, because even though the number of women playing has really mushroomed, the number of dudes playing has expanded exponentially on top of that. The ratio hasn't changed. The ratio hasn't changed and the people who are spending their disposable income on pinball machines hasn't really changed. But here's the thing. Isn't it a little bit of a chicken and the egg scenario? So marketing heavily to men and the choice of the themes and the access to the machines. And wouldn't it be something like, I don't know, like a Taylor Swift machine? Wouldn't that maybe Taylor Swift machines get released? They get put out on location. women everywhere see one go i've never cared or thought about a pinball machine in my life but that's taylor swift i love taylor swift i want to go play that machine and some of those women will not only be like oh isn't this cool i played this weird pinball machine we'll take one photo with it and really not think about it but many more will be like i now love pinball that's why they do license themes in the first place is to draw attention draw the eye so if we got more female-centric themes or at least a couple every i don't know decade maybe like just a few even just a couple of them i think it's it's similar to the what i was saying about how tds at open events should still enforce conduct policies. Stern and similar manufacturers should still try and release content that appeals to women or occasionally throw us a bone, even if we are not the main marketing demographic. I understand people with MBAs are doing their number crunching and saying, oh, these are the machine themes that are going to get us the most market capture. But just give us one in a while. This isn't a wild idea. Yeah, I bought a machine when the ReplayFX collection went up for sale. I specifically bought an EM called Superscore. And the back glass is a picture of three women gathered around a pinball machine playing a pinball machine. Yeah. And that's why I got it. Like, there's other cute stuff. There's two sets of two-inch flippers. There's a little roulette wheel in the middle. But the reason I got it is that it's just non-sexualized women enjoying a game of pinball while some guys in the background leave them alone respectfully. That is the utopian vision I have for pinball. And they made that in like, what, 1968, I think is when that was made. So like, you can make games that appeal to everyone. I think Jersey Jack tried to do some of that with like Wizard of Oz, for example, that was a lot of the PR and marketing was focused on this is a family friendly theme. This is something where we want the whole family to be involved, not just the man who bought it was kind of the subtext, but like, at least they were thinking we want things for women. And so, yeah, I would love to see something that's a little bit more overtly marketed towards the women's side of pinball, but I do understand how capitalism works. Well, is there I mean, I guess I would think and maybe you haven't seen the show or care about the show, but I think maybe Stranger Things would be one strong female lead. She's sort of the main character. Eleven. Sure. That's sort of one of those things where it gets crossover appeal because men and women like that show. But it's also a healthy representation of a strong female lead or protagonist, something that women can see themselves in in a non-sexualized way. That's a great one. I have no problem with the Stranger Things pinball machine. In fact, I like it more than a lot of people. So do I. I don't know how it's ranked on IPDB, but if you need someone to die on that hill, I absolutely will. I like that game, too. I think that game's super fun. It's great. Yeah, it's Attack from Mars for the 2020s. I've told you this before, but I'm a simpleton. I really just appreciate a simple game. I like ladder stack inserts in front of shots like they did in the 90s, because I'm like, yeah i get what i'm supposed to do now just make the game hard not complicated i think is the difference yes just make it something where you have to demonstrate skill to hit the shots you don't need to make the shots themselves complicated yeah in the yeah the rules progressions where the new modern rule sets always lose me it's like yeah make make the game hard uh make it hard to do easy to learn hard to master that's what i think makes a great game and i think it Definitely applies to pinball as well. Absolutely. Stern has made some strides, but having women's sized clothing and female models is no substitute for critical thinking and actually of responding to criticism that they do still receive to this day from women in pinball. Moving on to the last dot in this rise of women's rankings and spaces era. In 2019, the IFPA Women's Advisory Board was founded partially in response to the IFPA bungling an attempt to roll out a sanctioning fee for women's events, similar to the one that was already in place for open events. I was one of the co-founders of the IFPA Women's Advisory Board. It's something that I'm super proud of. It's a group of women who have been recruited to reflect a wide variety of lived experiences as far as gender identity, race and ethnicity, region, family status, class, etc. Like, we're not trying to represent how white women with male partners experience pinball. We are trying to find out how women in general are experiencing pinball and how we can improve that experience from within the monster that is the IFPA. Yeah, so this began in 2019. We're now recording this in 2025. We've just had the state's women's finals for each state. And it seems like as of this last year, the cumulative prize pool funding wasn't enough to support each state women's finals. And some of the women I was talking to were they were expected to pay to enter their state finals, whereas I think in the opens of each state, they no longer were. There was no buy in. Right. Right. Correct. So quick history lesson. 2019 IFBA Women's Board started five months later. COVID happened. And instead of doing anything for women in pinball, we just helped Josh figure out when it was okay to start playing pinball again. So when we came back in full force in what, 2022, 2023 is when things started up again, we introduced the Women's North American Championship Series, which mirrors the existing open North American Championship Series that has been going on since 2015, I'm saying off the top of my head. The first year, we just had women's states championships. We did not bring everyone together for a final. We just said, let's see how it goes. Let's see how many women's championships we can run in a given year. There was no IFPA women's dollar endorsement fee at the time. So there was no IFPA raised prize pool. So every competitor paid 20 bucks, which is what I charge for a medium scale event typically. So not the biggest entry fee, not the smallest entry fee. After that first year, we decided, great, That went really well. We had like 45 state championships for the women's side of things. Let's run it again next year. And this time we'll funnel all the winners into a women's North American championship. Still no women's dollar. So we have more states. They all run their tournaments. We bring everyone together for the first ever women's North American championship held in Fort Wayne, Indiana, last March. Won by Amy Kesting. Again, $20 for entry fee, mostly because I forgot that that was what was in the rules when I put them on the website. And then it was too late to change it. I would have charged more otherwise, to be clear, not less. So then, based on the success of that, the IFPA determined that it was probably time to introduce a women's dollar endorsement fee to women's events held in the United States. And brief side note, women's pinball in the United States and Canada is exponentially huger than what's going on in Europe as far as women's events. There are women playing pinball competitively in Europe. Women's events have only just started happening there. So you're seeing a lot of disparity regionally in women's rankings because all of the events are so concentrated in certain regions of the United States and Canada. Right. So now we have a dollar endorsement fee, which means one dollar per player from every tournament is sent to the IFPA to pay for the privilege of having a ranking system that is entirely volunteer run. And then 65% of those dollars stay in state as part of the state championship prize pool. 25% go to the Women's North American Championship prize pool and like 5% are processing fees and whatever comes up with the financial side of the IFPA. So that's where the majority of the prize pool comes from. an open endorsement dollar already exists and has since i want to say 2016 or 2017 on the open side of events and that's how they fund the prize pools and why open events as you play throughout the year and every time you give a dollar to the ifpa that goes towards funding a prize pool at the end of the year for the finals and it also allows the qualifiers to also not have to buy into that year end of tournament because they've already raised the money to be a part of that large prize pool. Is that correct? Exactly. That is all spot on. But the first year that the dollar endorsement fee happened on the open side, the IFPA kept that entry fee in place that they had been charging previously in case the dollar fee was a total disaster and no money was raised. You want to make sure that there's some level of a prize pool. So the first year of the open dollar, there was still an entry fee. That is what happened in this, our first year of the women's dollar. We continued to have every state charge an entry fee of $20 to participate in the event. States also got that 65% of the endorsement fees coming back to them to supplement the prize pool. But like I said, regional disparities are huge. So the prize pool for Texas, which has three different chapters of Bells and Chimes, huge women's weekend called the Southwest Women's rodeo, has the Texas Pinball Festival women's event. Texas's prize pool was $1,200. On the other side of things, I ran Maine's first ever women's state championship. We had two events, two women's events prior to the championship. Our prize pool was $11.70. The winner in Texas, they've got a great prize pool to work with. The winner in Maine wins $2 if we don't have the $20 entry fee. So that's why the entry fee stayed in place this year is to make sure that there was some level of equitable prize pool distribution, some minimum amount that a winner could be proud of winning for winning a state championship. There are some states where women's pinball is large and hosts regular events and has big turnouts and therefore can subsidize a big prize pool. But then there are others where they just don't exist or they're not run or they're not run consistently or they're not run with players showing up. So it seems like the solution to this moving forward in the future is everyone in their local scene just needs to run more women's events. The entire point of the Women's North American Championship Series, the entire point is to motivate women to participate in pinball, to run pinball events so that they can qualify for this thing. If they're interested in qualifying for it, they've got to make sure there are events that they can play in. So the conceit is run more events, get more people into pinball. There will be a bigger prize pool. There will be more people to play. One day, Maine is aspiring to get a full 16 players to show up for our women's state championship. Like regions are at very different places in their development. Interesting. How many states do you think have what you would deem to be like a healthy scene? And how many do you think have something like an undeveloped or maybe anemic scene? And is there like, is it, are we like, if we're talking about just the US, like the 50 states, right? Or maybe you're not concluding 50 states. Maybe are you including like what, like the lower 48 or? Alaska and Hawaii had women's state championships this year. So let's say we're say just for the sake of this podcast and keeping it simple, we're just talking about the 50 U.S. states. How many of those 50 do you feel like have a solid or promising young burgeoning women pinball scene And how many have an almost non one I scrolling through this past year prize pool I would say that any state that had more than $200 as a cumulative prize pool, that's a state that has a healthy women's scene. That's a state where at least 200 players have played in a women's event in the past year. It Could be the same players every month or multiple times a week. But, you know, that's a lot of people playing in it. And that's a healthy scene. If you see something that's in the single digits, like Hawaii's 195 prize pool, that's one that's really just getting started. That's where they're still just trying to get people to show up to their events. So there's places like Ohio or Pennsylvania or Oregon or Washington where they've had women's events for so long that it seems so normalized that there are women in the community. But then you've got the Hawaii's, the Alaska's, the Maine's, the Nova Scotia's of the world where there just aren't that many women playing. There aren't that many or any women's events being held. So we're trying to balance the needs of a lot of different types of scenes when making these Ryan Policky decisions. And I know as soon as we get rid of the $20 entry fee, we're going to get complaints about why isn't my prize pool as big as the open prize pool? And it's like, because that has had a decade of growth poured into it. And you're getting, you have a larger group to pull from, to recruit from, because it's people of any gender can play in an open event. Only women and non-binary players can play in a women's event. There's not as many people. We're not as active. there are some like lifestyle and societal instances where, you know, we are more likely to be tasked with child care or we are more likely to have other other responsibilities outside of our hobbies that we need to attend to. So we can't go to a tournament every night. That's my spiel about why women's prize pools are smaller, how they can get bigger, which is anyone listening, running events and why the IFPA has recently charged $20 to enter the Women's State Championship, which is because we did the same thing to open in 2017. The end of this episode, what I want to see happen is, and I think you do too, is if we care about women's pinball and the growth of women's pinball, I want to speak from myself as a business owner and hosting women's events. I want to give a couple quick plugs towards some of the local events we have in Portland. We have the Gator Queens, which we host here at Wedgehead. It began in 2023, and it's run by Ashley Von Casey Butler and Rachel Hakula. It happens on the last Monday of every month here at Wedgehead. It's always IFPA certified, and it's open to all cis and trans women as well as non-binary players. I'll put the link in the show notes here. But it was a very similar conversation. They were good regulars of ours. They play in open events. They come to Howdy Partners. and they were, Ashley was just confiding. She's like, you know, I really wish we had a Bells and Chimes chapter that was still active here, or I wish there was more happening, you know? And I was like, it's got to be you, you know, just you do it. And she's like, well, I don't know. I've never run a tournament. And I was like, yeah, but you could. And that, I think that's sort of the thing is like, even in a big scene like Portland, it takes women to organize because, you know, the open events are well taken care of. Like those are happening all over the country, all over the world. And that's fantastic. But if you want women's events, you have to organize them. And if something doesn't exist in your seat, it's not sometimes, unfortunately, it's not enough to be like, oh, I would play in one if there was one. You're like, sometimes somebody has to be the person that, you know, grabs the reins and goes, well, I'm going to do it. I'm just going to do it. I'm going to reach out to a local arcade or a bar or whatever. I'm going to get permission. I'm going to get their support. I'm going to register with the IFPA. I'm going to contact Zoe. I'm going to figure out what the IFPA rulebook and what I need to do to submit scores, what rules I need to follow, and then I'm just going to go do it. And I think Gator Queens is a great example of that. It's been running for over a year now. We do it every month. We also do Wowdy Partners, which are kind of a quarterly women's version of my Howdy Partner format, and those will typically happen on a Saturday afternoon. these are not ifpa points based so it's not helping with this prize pool problem that i was talking about before uh mostly because the format isn't necessarily can't be run as an ifpa event but it is cooperative and team-based and i think it does help get new players it's very good at getting a new player that's very hesitant to play an organized event to play in it because you're not getting matched up you're not getting matched up you're not playing matches against the player You're not getting handed a win or a loss on Deadpool. You know, you're not getting a strike. You're not. It's none of that. It's more you're playing with a group. You're cheering each other on. You're teaching each other how to play a game. You're sharing in the success. And you don't feel the sting of a loss because it's not direct competition amongst other teams. We also have two more. We have Fantastic Ladies in Pinball, the flip events run by Lexi. And that happens the first Wednesday of every month at Ground Control. Also, IFPA sanctions. And then we have Good Luck Babe, which is run by Brenna and is held on the second Friday of each month at rotating locations around southeast Portland and is IFBA sanctioned. I will link both of those in the show notes and the calendars for any local listeners that want to participate in any of these women's events. And I think you should. I think we should just focus on like, Zoe, you've run a lot of tournaments. You know, you've been a tournament director. You're also a prominent woman in pinball. you're on the ifpa uh you know board of directors right like you are how do we get women to look at their local scene and you know pick up that gauntlet and run with it and run their own events i mean i think you're right that it really just takes someone to do it so continuing to use main as my example i live in massachusetts now uh and i'm one of the people who created the women's North American Championship Series. So I got an email from a reporter in Maine asking about the Maine Women's Pinball Championship. They were like, I know you have an open one, but I heard there was a women's one now too. And they didn't have one that year. So I had to write back and say, there's a lot of other places that have women's state championships, just not one in Maine right now. And writing that email, I was like, oh gosh, I got to just run a couple of women's events in Maine and just get this started. So I threw together two tournaments in October and November of this year, two women's tournaments. Got about nine players, came out to each of them. One of them, my friend Nicole, brought her mom to just to have another person play pinball. And just in those two tournaments, I already have two women who decided to re-up their Bells and Chimes chapter in Portland, which, similar to Oregon, Portland, fell out of commission for a while. So they're already restarting Bells and Chimes in Maine. The bar that hosted both of the tournaments is now running a monthly Silver Bells event. They're the Silver Ball Tavern, and now they have the Silver Bells. And that's just from having two tournaments where women showed up and said, oh, I'm excited about this. I didn't realize this was so doable. So just, if you don't think you can do it, ask someone who has run a tournament before and say, hey, I'm interested. How do I get started? I'm already turning all of the main stuff over to the main women next year. I'm not going to play in that event again. I just wanted to make sure that something existed and then they can pick it up and run with it. That's really what you need. It's just someone's got to start it. And it might as well be you because everyone else is lazy and busy. Right. Exactly. And also, you know, culturally, maybe historically and still to this day, women are maybe culturally conditioned to not see themselves as the person that goes out on the limb and starts things and does that because they it's to be secondary. to men running things or events or organizations, but women are just as good, if not better than it. And you're every bit as capable of doing this in your local community. And it's gonna take someone like you. It just takes women who care about pinball and who love pinball and wanna spread the game and wanna create safe and welcoming places for other women to also find the game of pinball and play in it. And it's just so good for a local scene. It's not women's pinball versus men's pinball. at all. It just strengthens a local scene to have women's only events because it brings in new blood and it brings in new players and allows them to play a game amongst their peers, amongst people like them. And in a way, it just grows the scene for everyone and it builds the community aspect of pinball, which I think most people enjoy the most about pinball in general. It's not just about the game. It's just a ball rolling down a piece of wood. But it's the people you meet along the way. And pinball still, even in the open, there's not enough people playing pinball. And more people need to play pinball. And the way to get people out there to do it is sometimes it's got to be you. So if you're listening to this show, please go out. Contact the IFPA. Set up a local chapter. Start your own women's events. Have them recurring. Start doing a monthly event once a month. and just start promoting it. Start reaching out to your local bars or your local operators and find a place to host your event. And I want to tell any operators that are listening, do it. When somebody approaches you, absolutely do it. We host the Gator Queens. We do our Wowdy Partners. It's the best. They are wonderful. It's fantastic having them show up. They are such gracious players. They're so kind. It's a friendly atmosphere. They spend money. they don't cause any problems it's not sweaty or weird uh it is it is good for business and it is also good for the community it is one of those things where it is a win-win and if you hear any grumblings about men who are like oh i don't get to play in it shut just who cares those people are just outing themselves as idiots and losers you don't need those people literally The entire world is your safe space. Just give us like this one day of the week where we get to play some pinball. Can I give a couple of shameless plugs as far as where people can get resources or start running events? And I do want to underscore that running women's events, making women's events fun is a funnel into open events. And it's only a good funnel into open events if open events also enforce codes of conduct. But I'm looking at this Post-it note that I've had on my desk to remind me about this number. Portland Pin Brawl is an event that I have been involved with since it started in 2009. And in 2009, 12.4% of the players were women. Every year since then, it has increased. That percentage has increased and we are now at 28% as of 2024. Nice. So that's an open tournament that sells out almost immediately, 128 players. That's a pretty good sample size. And seeing that every single year more and more women are part of the community and want to play in it, really gratifying. It only happens because women decide to be active, present members of their pinball scene, whether it's through open events or women's events. If you want to start a Bells and Chimes chapter, you can go to their website, which is Bells, B-E-L-L-E-S. and Chimes, C-H-I-M-E-S, pinball.com. You can fill out a form. They will get you resources for starting a Bells and Chimes chapter. There's also a Discord that you can find a link to on their website. If you have questions about women's pinball, if you have feedback about the IFPA's women's initiatives or our gender inclusion Ryan Policky, you can email IFPAwomen, that's plural women because there's more than one of us, ifpawomen at gmail.com. And then coming up in the hopefully very near future when this episode goes to air, Women's World Championships and Women's North American Championships will be streamed on Twitch. They're being held March 28th through the 30th, 2025 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. You can find all of that streaming action on Backhand Pinball on Twitch. We're giving away two new inbox sterns, one to the Women's World Championship winner and for the first time ever won to the Women's North American Championship winner. I'll give Alan the Twitch link to include in the show notes as well as the Bells and Chimes website and our email address for the IFPA. But women are doing really cool stuff, not just in the past, also today. In 2024, the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show, all divisions were won by women. Can I just say that? Yeah. Jackie Olsen won. Jackie Olsen won classics. Anna Wolk won women's. Jane Verweys won B division. Leslie Ruckman won A division. That was the coolest thing to see. Even though I wasn't there, I was so proud of all of them. Like there are really talented women playing pinball and you should want more of them to be in your community. So be good people. And that's a great place to start. Yeah. If there's anything near you, go out and find it and participate in it. If you are a woman, if you are a cis or trans woman or non-binary player, seek this out. Seek out your local bells and chimes. Seek out your local groups. Try to find somewhere near you that you can go out and play. If there is nothing near you, but there is pinball machines on location, well, it might just have to be you and your friends trying to figure out how to create the scene, start it from scratch, and then watch it grow. okay this goes for everybody everywhere you need to go out and play some pinball you need to organize pinball we weren't all trying to do our part to grow pinball and women in pinball are a sorely neglected and long overlooked part of the overall population of people and pinball is for everybody and it's stronger with everybody in it we want to see spaces for women in pinball just like there's spaces for everyone else in pinball and we hope that we see more of this in the future. Follow these resources and get organized, and hopefully we can see more and bigger events and bigger turnouts year over year. Zoe's doing a lot of hard work over there at the IFPA, and she's a great ambassador for the game and for women in pinball. And I want to thank her once again for joining me on the show and for this series of episodes. It was lovely to talk to you again, Zoe, and I can't wait to see you when I come to Pentastic in April. Woo-hoo! Thanks for having me. And with that being said, until next time, good luck. Don't suck. I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: f7ce0c5e-c179-430f-989e-cf8ad44071ad*