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360 Walkthrough at Golden State Pinball Festival! | Lodi's Biggest Pinball Celebration

Erika's Pinball Journey·video·23m 13s·analyzed·Jul 2, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.025

TL;DR

Golden State Pinball Festival walkthrough showcasing classic EMs, homebrews, modern games, and vendor community.

Summary

Erika provides an extensive 360-degree video walkthrough of Golden State Pinball Festival in Lodi, California, showcasing the EM (electromechanical) room with classic games, a homebrew corner featuring machines like Joust and Tron Door, and the main hall with modern titles from manufacturers like Stern and Spooky. The event features vendor booths (Pinball Pirate, Planetary Pinball, Flipper Room), modified and restoration projects, and runs as a family-friendly festival with overnight RV camping, food, and after-hours play until midnight.

Key Claims

  • Golden State Pinball Festival happens every year around the weekend after Mother's Day

    high confidence · Erika states this as a standing annual event

  • Someone won either James Bond or Swords of Fury earlier today in a raffle

    high confidence · Erika directly observed this raffle result at the event

  • Ninja Eclipse is a very rare game because they only made a hundred of them

    medium confidence · Erika's statement about production rarity; verifiable through manufacturing records

  • RV camping for Golden State Pinball Festival sold out within approximately five minutes

    high confidence · Erika confirms this based on organizer announcement at the event

  • The event runs until midnight on Saturday, with after-hours play continuing in the campgrounds

    high confidence · Erika observed it was 8 PM with 4 hours remaining; confirmed after-hours activity

Notable Quotes

  • “Pinball shows, they can never go badly. Yeah, well, do you have a bad time while you play pinball?”

    Chris Coons (Pinball Pirate owner) and Erika @ ~19:45 — Captures the community sentiment that pinball events are inherently positive social experiences

  • “Evil Dead. Spooky seems to be rocking it with this game. People are loving it.”

    Erika @ ~15:30 — Community reception indicator for Spooky's recent release Evil Dead

  • “Dune's got such a big line. People are digging Dune.”

    Erika @ ~29:20 — Strong demand signal for Barrels of Fun's Dune at a major festival event

  • “What's cool about this show is that you can park your RV, bring a tent, bring a bunch of friends, and stay overnight.”

    Erika @ ~38:00 — Highlights unique event structure differentiating Golden State from typical pinball tournaments

  • “Thank you for supporting pinball. Pinball's really cool.”

    Kyle (Stern video producer) @ ~51:30 — Industry personality reinforcing community value despite manufacturer affiliation change

Entities

Golden State Pinball FestivaleventErikapersonPinball PiratecompanyPacific Pinball MuseumorganizationPlanetary PinballcompanyFlipper RoomcompanyLynn's ArcadecompanyCapital Pinball ParlorcompanyGreater Sacramento Pinball Leagueorganization

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Festival features educational programming through Pinball University (Marco Specialties/Emoto) and museum-led toppers providing learning opportunities alongside play

    medium · Erika mentions Pacific Pinball Museum 'bringing games with toppers that say a little bit of description' and thanks 'Marco Specialties as well for Emoto for having Pinball University here'

  • ?

    event_signal: Golden State Pinball Festival RV camping sold out in approximately 5 minutes upon release, indicating high demand for overnight festival infrastructure

    high · Erika confirms 'I think they said it was like campsite sold out within like five minutes or something' and describes personal experience refreshing at 8:59 to secure spot

  • ?

    community_signal: Homebrew pinball community active and present at major festivals with diverse machines (Joust, Tron Door, Dauntless Deputy, Mad Max, Meteor) organized in dedicated showcase area

    high · Erika documents 'little homebrew corner. Cober Pin put a bunch of this together' with multiple custom machines on display

  • ?

    community_signal: Festival demonstrates strong vendor ecosystem with Pinball Pirate, Planetary Pinball, Flipper Room, Lynn's Arcade, and specialty vendors actively participating and selling games

    high · Multiple vendor booths documented with active sales operations and community engagement

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Widespread game customization culture documented at festival: powder coating, alternative backglass art, black glass mods, 3D-printed components, and operator-specific modifications indicating strong maker/modding community

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.070

0:00
What's up everybody? My name is Erica and welcome to my pinball journey. Today I'm going to take you guys around Golden State Pinball Festival's like campgrounds and festival grounds and just seeing the lineup of games and what it looks like here at Golden State Pinball Festival in this 360 video. So go ahead and feel free to scroll around. We're going to go ahead and enter and yeah this is just such a great place to play pinball and it happens every year around the weekend after Mother's Day. Hi, everybody. And that's like where you check in. You can buy shirts and raffle tickets and all sorts of swag. And then you can also sign up for the raffle to win a pinball machine. They already raffled off and somebody won either James Bond or Swords of Fury earlier today. This is the EM room. So they put a lot of older games in here. This was a table earlier that had some cotton candy, like a cotton candy set up. They hadn't had that before, but they kind of left for the day. I'm doing this a bit later in the day. It's around 8 o'clock, 8 p.m. Saturday, end of, getting close to the end of the second day. Oh, I love this game, Varkon. It's so cool that it's here. Yeah, so here's the EM room. We've got a lot of the older games. Super cool to see, like, these old style with the old legs, and I haven't seen this kind of Captain Hook before. Yeah, a lot of really great classics out here. This safari looks cool. I've never seen this game before.
1:28
Friendship 7. Right on. Pirate Gold. I haven't played Bounty Hunter ever before. That's something I'm really interested in playing later.
1:43
Surf Champ is such a sick game. What else do we got here? This Time Warp is in really nice condition. At least the back glass looks like it. It looks shiny. I don't know what it is, but it looks shiny. It looks great. Now, these are pretty interesting. So these are, like, these are games. I don't know what this one, this game is, but this game is Air Aces, and this game has, like, a whole new setup on it. Someone has, like, updated the back glass to be something different, and they've, like, updated the art. Same with this game here. Epic Flipper. This is Jumbo Flippers. I'm not quite sure what game this is, but if you do know what game this is, feel free to put it in the comments down below and help people know what game it is. Over here we have Stellar Wars. It's also been revamped. They powder-coated it. They put some new decals on it all over. It looks crazy. You've got this astronaut on the side and this new back glass. I had a moment where I was looking at it wondering what it was.
Little Flippers
organization
Sparky Pinballcompany
Dirty Donnieperson
Greg Creechperson
Kyleperson
Chris Coonsperson
Rewind Pinballcompany
Mystery Pinball 3000company
Cober Pinperson
Marco Specialtiescompany
Stern Pinballcompany

high · Erika documents Stellar Wars powder-coat revamp, Alien custom mods, Ghostbusters powder coat, Walking Dead black glass, and multiple alternative backglass installations

  • ?

    event_signal: Golden State Pinball Festival operates as established annual community gathering with strong vendor participation, family-friendly programming, overnight camping, and after-hours play extending to midnight and beyond

    high · Erika documents comprehensive festival structure including RV camping infrastructure, vendor booths, EM/modern game separation, league representation, and late-night operations

  • $

    market_signal: Rare vintage game (Ninja Eclipse, 100 units produced) present at festival with active sale attempt, indicating collector/dealer market activity

    medium · Erika notes 'Ninja Eclipse is a very rare game now because they only made a hundred of them and they have one here and it looks like someone's selling it'

  • $

    market_signal: Barrels of Fun's Dune generating substantial queue demand at festival event

    high · Erika reports 'Dune's got such a big line. People are digging Dune. I played it once today... The line's really long'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Strong community reception for Spooky Pinball's Evil Dead game at festival with high demand for play

    high · Erika notes 'Evil Dead's had a long all day. Evil Dead. Spooky seems to be rocking it with this game. People are loving it.'

    • 2:42
    What else have we got over here? I have a fathom. That fathom is beautiful over there. Also, Singalong is a game I own. It's a great little fun game. yeah it's just such a great show and in this room you get to hear all the bells and chimes you get to hear like the little things and swooshes and drop targets spinners it's a good time uh what else we have to thank the pacific pinball museum super great place here kind of locally here in california and the bay area side they're in alameda and they all these games with these toppers on them that say a little bit of description that's all pacific pinball museum bringing here for the show i did want to point out this game here rainbow my dad actually has this game as well it's fun i've never seen bus stop before yeah there's just always some fun new games fun new old games for me at least like i haven't seen them before because you don't see all these classics all the time everywhere except places like museums like the pacific pinball museum you also got a vendor here selling some stuff i love these hats i actually have this one says pinball on a stick that one's pretty fun and special when lit i think i have to come back for this hat it's so funny oh and there's these books and magazines sweet hi and then there's a bonsai run some games being worked on over here got uh airborne bonsai run and freddy
    4:17
    Over here there was a bunch of stuff. It's kind of been winding down a bit, but they've been doing a little raffle where you could win some little prizes and stuff like that. Put some tickets in a bag, and you see if you win what that bundle is. So you've still got, like, this stern, socks and things here. A bunch of stuff that the community comes together and brings by to, like, give some, like, fun, exciting prizes for people.
    4:43
    Here's our little homebrew corner. Cobrepin put a bunch of this together. We have this remade Joust. So this is an original Joust. Somebody like made this one and remade this game. We got a Trot Door. Dauntless Deputy. Yeah, some cool homebrews. Then there's Mad Max. Ah yeah, it's all 360. It's gonna see everywhere. and somebody up this meteor over here uh so they got dj playing over here this year it's pretty cool now we're heading over to the other side so the other side has like all the newer games we just saw like just a little taste that's where you sign up you play some ems get a little bit of nostalgia play a little bit of the older games and it's super fun time um yeah and then we're going around here, we're going to go to the main hall. So the main hall has all the games all the newer games new things that are happening Yeah they got a vendor for eating out there You can chill over there It looks like there a little bar thing But yeah.
    5:56
    So now, main hall time. Let's go. All right. There's a lot of things we can see in here. Hopefully you can still hear me okay.
    6:09
    I've got to make sure my volume is okay. volume's okay? Yeah. Alright. So, we'll start with going... I have some trolls. We'll start with over here. We got some fun little games over there. We got Metallica, Turtles, Wheel of Fortune, Monopoly, Demolition Man, Godzilla, X-Men, Chainsaw... Evil Dead's had a long all day. Evil Dead. Spooky seems to be rocking it with this game. People are loving it. And you got a bunch of games here from Pinball Pirate. So Pinball Pirate has like these little stickers at the top of each of these games. They just got all these ones here that are in the little zones. Yeah, there we go. There's Pinball Pirate sign if you want to look. This is a 360 video, so you can kind of scroll and push around. But we got a bunch of King Kongs. It says that they're sold already. I'll kind of like get up in the action here. We got a Premium and a Pro, and it's pretty freaking cool. Yeah, it's 360. Go ahead and say hi. What else have we got going on here? Some other games. Star Trek, Mandalorian.
    7:24
    Yeah, all of these are Pinball Pirate. They got their booth over there. We're just starting off on this side. This is a really great art for the show this year done by Johnny Crab. No, Dirty Donnie. Oh, man. Who is it? That's going to be bad. I'm going to have to put a caption or something as to who the artist was. I feel like I got something mixed up there. But, yeah, there's some other games out here in the corner. This Avengers looks really nice. Maverick. That's a fun game. I don't know what it is, but I like that game. you got Roadshow, Heavy Metal Meltdown oh you got TJ playing it, TJ's amazing another vendor went down for the night but I know this is Mario, he's got a bunch of old classic parts for games, so if you're looking to get your old game working he's got manuals, he's got boards, he's got chips what else we got out here some people selling games, I know this Dracula was for sale but maybe somebody bought it because the sticker is off of it now Oh, Radical. Some more Pinball Pirate games out here. We're coming back to Pinball Pirate this way.
    8:27
    What's cool is Pinball Pirate set up this booth over here to play some games that do better in the dark, like Avatar, Stranger Things, and Metallica.
    8:37
    Yeah. And then here's the Pinball Pirate booth. Yes. And we have a pirate. Yes. And we have... Hi, Michael. This is Chris Coons. He is the owner of Pinball Pirate. and yeah, you guys got an amazing booth amazing that you bring all these games to the show always, how's it been going for you so far? How's it been going for you so far? It's been going great, everyone likes the games people are buying them they're playing them, everyone's having fun pinball shows, they can never go badly Yeah, yeah, no I mean, do you have a bad time while you play pinball? Yeah, well awesome, well thank you so much Chris Alright, let me get this mic back on myself all right oh my god little ones playing pinball oh that's very cute little ones play little pinball little flippers is a non-profit pinball league that you can start for kids um definitely feel free to check them out little flippers dot org they're amazing you want to we want to support kids playing pinball and grow that community you gotta start them young you know because we want to start getting people to play uh flipper room is a local to me it's in concord california they have amazing art they work with a lot of artists they just like have the best shirts and swag and things to grab so it's just like you can't go wrong with anything from the flipper room i go to their leagues on tuesday night sometimes. I just started going back to them. What other games we got here? This Ninja Eclipse is a very rare game now because they only made a hundred of them and they have one here and it looks like someone's selling it. So they're trying to see if anybody wants that one of a kind kind of game. It's fun. Like I like, you know, every once in a while you have to sell games. Kind of like liven up your lineup and get things going. Sometimes you have a game maybe and you feel like you've finished the rest of it. Oh, I was going to just swing by here real quick. Check out Sparky Pinball stuff for you guys. Check these toppers out. Look at all these. I love them. Yeah, they have them on the games. Godzilla, Deadpool, new King Kong one, Destructions and Dragons. Yeah, this Jurassic Park, John Wick. All super great. We got Homer Simpson. I dapped him up earlier. All right. Now we're going to walk through this Planetary Pinball. I have to shout out them every once in a while, too, because they also are big fans of my channel. I thank you guys, Planetary Pinball, for what you do for me. All right. Then we have here, we have Portal and Dune. So we got the lines set up for that Yeah yeah What cool about Portal is I helped save the day and I brought the flippers assembly from my weird owl to put in Portal so the game would play so they could play Portal And Dune over there, I just played. Oh, there's Joel! What's up Joel? Hi! Abba is here too, so some people are playing Abba. I've had a chance to play Abba, Cold Beer, Ripley version of Alien. else we go and got our planetary pinball booth man they got so many fun things they got this stuff all lit up he's like light science i really like these and these giant flippers look at these 3d printed flippers they're just so cool i think i gotta get some who's into some awesome 3d printed flippers they also what is that a space jam oh my god that's so fun They have like All these play fields I'm just selfishly doing this now A fun house one right on Oh my god This is the Lord of the Rings How cool Yeah they just have a bunch of classic stuff Got some games for sale Yeah oh my god Some of these signs Let's see Oh this Walking Dead is pretty cool Because it's got alternative Black glass art Which is pretty cool Dune's got such a big line. People are digging Dune. I played it once today, or the other day, just yesterday. It was really fun. I enjoyed it. I want to play it again. The line's really long, so you've got to wait. And I'm around the show just doing some stuff, so I'll get a chance to play again later.
    13:15
    What else? We've got a road show, Spider-Man, Lyra. This is a 360 video, though, so you guys feel free to spin around, check things out. I'm not going to get super close to some things.
    13:29
    But, yeah. Oh, I love this, like, screen on this Venom with the Insider Connected challenge. Pretty cool. I think these games are from Pinball Parlor. Yeah, the Capital Pinball Parlor. Sacramento.
    13:43
    Yeah. My buddy Ryan, that's his new place. He just opened it. Sacramento. Really cool. Oh, look at this. Alternative Fire Black Glass. Okay. That's cool. What? Oh, this one's nice too. They've even powder coated it. Oh, this one as well. This rotates. Nice. It's so cool to see what people come up with and what they do to change games, mod them. Powder coats, super fun. I don't know. I just enjoy that stuff. There's my Weird Al. It is sadly off because my Weird Al is donating its flipper assembly. So here You can see the portal flippers are here because I took out my flipper assembly so that they could play portal And then let me see Uh What else is going on we got harsh Car hop, you don't see that game very often nascar. I don't see very often Lost in space. I want to get a game on that Just like amazing lineup of what's here. We got a haggis. This game is now super rare. I got a haggis fathom Oh, what else? Spirits. Spirits are so cool. Look at that back glass the way it spins. Super fun.
    15:01
    And this alien, though, like, check out this alien. This alien's super modded. I don't want to bug this guy's game, but, like, that one has, like, this crazy different back glass, and it has, like, all these mods on the, like, field. It's got, like, little 3D-printed stuff. Oh, man, it's so cool. This Ghostbusters is also really nice. Look at this powder coat What Yeah Looks good Oh we done That's such a good game We're almost done Walking around the whole show guys This is the last line That I have to show you From the show And we got another vendor Over here Set up with Selling some stuff Got some other games I really want to play Party Animal I've never played That game before Or Atlantis I might have played Atlantis But it just looks cool I feel like the back glass Is a lot nicer than one I've played before, if I have played it.
    15:55
    Yeah, John Wick is so good. I keep debating if I should trade my Deadpool for John Wick. I don't know. Let me know in the comments below if you think I should trade Deadpool for John Wick because I love the speedy-fastness of that game. And this is the show floor. This is like you guys got to see a little bit of everything. There are campgrounds. So what's cool about this show is that you can park your RV, bring a tent, bring a bunch of friends, and stay overnight.
    16:27
    That's Luke. He's a really good player. But you can stay overnight. This show goes really late. So right now it's 8 o'clock. This goes until midnight tonight. People will be here, hanging out, playing pinball. I'll be playing pinball. And then what's really cool is the after hours, if you're staying at the campgrounds, Or even not staying at the campgrounds and you're going to drive to your hotel later.
    16:53
    Oh man, I have so many people that love breaking me. I don't even remember what my train of thought was anymore. Or the campgrounds. Oh yeah, even if you're not staying, it's totally cool. People hang out for a long time. Party, have some drinks, hang out. do barbecue and it's just like a solid show with so many people It is family friendly too People bring their kids all day You just saw like a crowd of kids pass me Yeah this show is just great And there just like as you can see I'm walking out a little bit here to the campgrounds. Just like a little peek. I don't want to go into people's like spaces entirely, maybe Lynn's because they got like a pretty cool setup. But yeah, the show is really great. I love that I've been able to have this show local to me and just like make it out here. If you haven't yet gone to Golden State Pinball Festival, I would highly recommend it. Such a great show. People are amazing. The community really comes together for this. And it's just like, oh man, I just love pinball so much. I just love all pinball or most pinball. A lot of pinball, like 98% of pinball maybe. I don't know. There's a lot of games I like. But this is a really cool mod for fire here. So I guess there's something that you have to hit a certain shot. And if you hit it, this thing blasts up fire. And a local operator, Greg Creech, he created this. So it's pretty cool. Maybe we can see if somebody hits that target. I don't know.
    18:28
    Might not make it. But it's super cool. It's like, what a setup. Really awesome. But yeah, as you can see, people park their cars. I do know last year somebody asked me to do a little bit of a walkthrough through the campground. So this is what I'm going to be able to do for y'all. So, yeah, people parking their cars, parking their RVs, trailers, putting up tents, and got your chairs. There's pinball. People set up pinball so you can do, like, pinball matches all around. I'm going to walk in this direction because Lynn's Arcade's thing. Lynn's Arcade's, like, camp is this way. And Lynn's Arcade, I love them. They're a great local arcade. Local-ish now. I don't live as close to them as I used to. So I don't get to go out there as much anymore.
    19:17
    But Lynn's Arcade is an amazing arcade in Seaside, California, which is close to Monterey. So if you're familiar with Monterey, that's where that is.
    19:28
    Here we go. Almost there. But yeah, you bring your RV, you can sign up. It sold out super quick this year. I think they said it was like campsite sold out within like five minutes or something.
    19:46
    I had been super lucky and I like refreshed at like eight fifty nine or something and then like was able to sign up and get it so I could get RV parking because this does fill up and not everybody gets to get their RV parked or have their tent and stuff. so you gotta if you want in on this show you gotta make sure you sign up ahead of time so you can get that all right now we're walking over to lynn's arcade section and they got like such a dope setup really excited for you guys to see it uh also our friends capital pinball parlor they got their setup over there and the greater sacramento pinball league close by as well all right a little sneak peek now here towards the end of this episode i guess 360 reveal of Golden State Pinball Festival.
    20:35
    Yeah! So we got this win section. Hi! People playing some games. Oh, they took the top top. It was a bit windy.
    20:47
    Oh, and then we got Manu from Mystery Pinball 3000! DJ! Yeah! I think that's where I have to end this. Let's go! Right on. Yeah, there were lids on these. I don't know what happened. Maybe they took them off because it got hot. And some of the games in here. Somebody brought Wonelly. I'm just gonna sneak in here. There's a queen. There's a queen, Dungeons and Dragons, and a Wonelly. Yeah! Waka, okay. Oh, I love this game.
    21:29
    This and this. Yeah, these people, you can tell they're from the Flipper Room. They got Flipper Room swag. Rewind Pinball. Shout out to Rewind Pinball, one of my sponsors, actually. So, if you want to buy a pinball machine, hit up Rewind Pinball.
    21:43
    And, uh, yeah. That's about it, guys. This is, like, back lot. There's Kyle! Hi, Kyle! Kyle works for Stern. He used to. Uh, he does, uh, he does a bunch of videos for Stern. Yeah, on all the mechs and stuff. This is my 360 walkthrough of Golden State Pinball Festival. I'm about to sign out. Anything you want to say to the people?
    22:03
    Thank you for supporting pinball. Pinball's really cool. And Shane Nazari makes really awesome Korean barbecue. And he just made me some. It's delicious. Oh, awesome. Yeah. Right on. Thanks. Well, sweet. Well, thank you guys for watching this 360 video of the Golden State Pinball Festival. I hope you guys get a chance to come out and enjoy the show. And if not, this year, because maybe this video, when you see it, it's too late. But if not this year, then next year because the show just gets bigger and better. And the community, I just have to say thank you so much to the Golden State Pinball Festival team and whatnot because you guys have made this such a smooth, easy thing for me to help out and be able to be a part of the show in a way where I can bring stuff to the community. Thanks to Marco Specialties as well for Emoto for having Pinball University be here and us teaching people about different things for pinball and just sharing that love.
    22:57
    Yeah, that's about all I have so far. But stay tuned for other shows and other things. Lots of pinball to come. And, yeah, you guys keep flipping out there. I'll see you.