It's TPF 2026. This is a really exciting one because this is our first pinball convention ever. Have I been to HR conventions before? Yes. Uh, completely different. So, I had no idea what to expect. We flew over to Frisco, which is just north of Dallas. It was our little baby's first flight. Were we nervous? Of course. But, uh, he's a champ. He's the best baby I've ever met. He did so good, guys. We got in early on Thursday and we got to see people setting up because we had special media badges, which we're very fortunate to have that TPF gave us. There were so many cool things being set up. But really, I just saw the giant room with so many machines. Like I said, people were setting them up, but you could see where they were going and it was really exciting just to see how much there was going to be. And I saw a map. I saw like how many Beetle Juices there were going to be, how many were going to be in Stern's Corner and things like that. And so it was just really exciting. It was fun. Um, and then that night, uh, Dr. C got to play in a media people tournament, which was fun and exciting. Playing against some people that I watch online. And it's kind of weird. Trying not to be starstruck, you know. You got this. It's fine. I'm about to play Foo Fighters, which I, you know, have a whole tutorial on how to play and I'm probably going to lose. I mean, you know better than I do. You should watch your tutorial. Get good. We'll see if it works out. Good ball. Thank you. I saved it and then Oh, well, free game. I ended up getting six out of like 18 people, so that was good. I was hoping for a first place win, Cameron. But, uh, no, six is pretty impressive. So, um, the next day we got in early while people were still finalizing their setups, and the first place we went to was Monster League Hockey. I had heard about this. It was the talk of the town at Pinball Expo last year. It lived up to the hype. Monster League Hockey, for those that don't know, is a one-on-one or a head-to-head style pinball machine. This was awesome. The artwork by Brad Albbright. And if you've ever seen it, on the side of the machine, there is a woman with an insane mohawk. There's actually two mohawked women on this machine, but there's one with the craziest mohawk, and she was there in real life with the crazy mohawk. Uh there's also a dog named Jesse that is featured on the art package on the inside and Jesse was there. It was so fun to see the people in real life and this game looks and plays amazing. I think the biggest innovation that it has over the other head-to-head games is there are two balls. This is the perfect mix of pinball and air hockey. It was so fun. I love being able to go head-to-head. I want one for our house ASAP. Such a fun game. They're actually putting this into production. We got our name on the list for when they start manufacturing them. And you better believe that we want one real bad. So, we're going to have to see what happens. We then went over to Turner's booth because we knew that they had a new game, Yukon Yeti. The other media personalities that had been in the tournament were also there and we got to play it kind of before everyone else came in. Uh while we were waiting in line, we also talked a little bit to Chris Turner. Such a cool guy, you know, told us about how he got started and just a little bit of his background, which I always find so fun to know. And so, it was super fun to get to know him a little bit better. So, we just played Yukon Yeti. So much fun. Uh so much fun that there is a giant long line and I felt the pressure while I was playing. People were like watching. I really wanted to do all the cool things like there's that like bumpy ramp, the wave ramp. I didn't make it up there. There's the ball lock that moves up the mountain. I didn't make it up there. I got Avalanche multiball and it was so fun. It's so cool. Was that the time that you played before? That was the time I played before. I was playing with Retro Ralph and Jamie and yeah, such a fun mode. So, this was my first time, your second time. My second time playing. Um, so fun though. Just a smooth shooter. Fun things to hit. I want to play it again when the lines aren't so long. When you couldn't really hear it because there's so many people, but earlier where there's fewer. The sound effects are amazing. Oh, really? It has a Wilhelm scream if you go out the out lane. The Yeah. Yeah. So much fun. That's so fun. We talked to Chris, the owner of Turner Pinball. So nice. He's great. Shout out to Chris. Lovely man. Yeah. So, yeah. So much fun. So exciting. Yeah. People are going to love this game. Yep. Looking forward to playing it again. Um, and then we hopped on over to Spooky's booth and played some Beetlejuice. This is the first time I'd ever seen a Beetlejuice in person. I was excited. Uh, Dr. C and I had just watched Beetlejuice for the first time. Uh, it was probably about a year ago, but regardless, uh, you know, on the Beetlejuice train, so it was super fun to play it. Uh, Ralph was nice enough to teach Dr. C how to play the game, and then Dr. C taught me. So, this boat's kind of tough actually because you got to hit this handbook and it's reason I always miss this shot. Unlike Jan, I've played some Spooky games. Quite a few of them actually at the Flipper Room in Concord. Okay, we're here in front of the Spooky Beetlejuice section. 20 of them. There's a lot. And it's so hard to even get on one of them. So, that's definitely a big crowd-pleaser right now. We both just got finished with the game. Tell me what you think. It's so cool. It's so fun. The playfield is very cool. I mean, very bright and colorful. It's got lots of throwbacks to the movie, of course. Um, you got the Deo. I got the dancing flippers, which was so fun. I like the three Beetle Juice and the scoops and I completed it. I completed the Deo mode. Uh, I was going to win and then Cameron pulled something crazy. I got a mystery where those 50 million points. Not happy. Um, but what's your favorite part? Um, I think gosh that the just the modes are so cool. like the Deo mode that you got. Yeah, I did the Gravedigger mode earlier uh and completed that which was amazing. And then I did the Till Death mode and that was so cool. And they have another mode. I forget what the name of it, but you have to hold the flipper or hold the Oh, As Seen On TV. As Seen On TV. Yes, you have to hold the flipper down. I want to try that. He didn't do very well. No, I didn't. So, but anyway, super fun. Excited. We're next to the giant Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. But yeah, see you later. Very cool. Afterwards, we headed over to the Barrels tent to try out some of their games. Now, I've played Labyrinth. There's one in a person's private collection where I play league here in Salt Lake, but it's the only Barrels game I've played. Uh, I had never tried out a Barrels of Fun game, nor had I even really seen one in the wild, so I had no idea what to expect. And they are pretty. And now I am so mad that I can't get my hands on a Winchester. We need to change this. All right, we just got done playing all three games from Barrels of Fun. Uh, okay. Rank them. One, two, three. Winchester, Dune, Labyrinth. Okay. Uh, I would go Winchester Dune Labyrinth. Yeah, makes sense. Yeah, Winchester's so cool. It's so pretty. It's so cool. And can I just say I've never played on a Barrels of Fun machine before, but very high quality. And they're very pretty. Very pretty. Like I am impressed. I know. We're going to We have to get one eventually. Oh, yeah. We do. Um, Winchester's not going to happen cuz they only made 500 of them, which makes me very sad because it is very cool. It's very cool. I mean, I love I I'm a sucker for cool ramps and they have that staircase ramp that I think is really fun. I love the turntable at the top that changes your path. Very cool. Um, I got the multiball. She got the multiball. I did not get a multiball. So, that was very fun. Um, I loved Dune. I thought Dune was Dune is very cool. And the one thing I wanted to get on Dune, I did. I got the one hand thing where you HAVE TO HOLD THE BUTTON. YEP. And then I immediately drained. I did not last very long, but I got it. So, that's all I care about. So much fun. So fun. Um, Barrels. Uh, yeah. Do Pee-Wee. Do I love Pee-Wee's Big Adventure? What do you think about Labyrinth? I like Labyrinth. I've played Labyrinth before. Um, it's a good I don't love the movie. It's just weird. It's a blast from the past. I don't know if it's a good blast from the past, but it takes me back to my childhood. Yeah, for sure. But, um, so cool. So fun. We look forward to playing more beautiful machines. Beautiful. Good job, Barrels. After that, it was time to catch some Pokémon. Pokémon was such a hit. Lines were there constantly despite the fact they had multiple machines. And what I noticed at the Pokémon is that there were a lot of kids in line. Uh they also had like a little arcade of like the Pokémon fighting game that was constantly stationed by kids. Okay, we just got done playing Pokémon. First time. It was really fun. Uh, Mrs. Jay beat me. What? You beat me. Oh, I did beat you. Rare occasion. We'll take it. Beginner's luck. You got the multiball, right? Yeah, I did. And that was very cool. I like the mouth balloon. I told Cameron that was the one thing that I wanted to make happen and I did it. So, I'm very excited. I did not. Nope. I went for the Pokémon Articuno. I was like I just needed to hit the Pokéball and I couldn't do it. Couldn't do it. Hitting the Pokéball is kind of hard. It's kind of hard and it's so stressful cuz it's like there's only one thing counting down. But it's so much fun. But it's really fun. I love the whole concept of trapping the Pokémon. It's just one more thing you can do. And it's really fun. The um you know, the little pieces in there, the Pikachu Pikachu and the big Poké Ball and everything. So fun. We were next to some kids that were playing it and they were just loving it. This game is going to print money. I really like this game. It's really fun. Um we'll see. We'll see. Uh but so far, Pokémon thumbs up. Yeah, we're playing really good games today. This is bad for us. Yeah, this is bad. This is bad. We only have so much money. Uh but yeah, we'll talk to you soon. And then right next to Stern was American Pinball's booth where they showed their Houdini 100th Anniversary Edition, which was very fun to look through. Looks like a super fun machine. The new art package was by Christopher Frankie and looks incredible. The powder coating they did on it really looks good. I had never played a Houdini. This was my first time and I was actually really impressed with the game. It's a tight shooter. It's a difficult to shoot game, but it has some really fun shots and getting the ball lock where it launches the ball from the front of the playfield to the trunk in the back is such an incredible pinball moment. I loved it. And then later on that weekend, they announced their new upcoming title, a remastered, re-imagined Circus Voltaire. So very exciting to hear that from them. One of the things that was so obvious in talking with everybody at American Pinball was how excited and energetic they are. I'm so excited to see what comes out of American. They're on the rise and I can't wait to see. Uh and then after that we hopped on over to Multimorphic's booth. Now they didn't have a new game, but we also have never tried a Multimorphic machine, so they were all new to us. Uh, we were able to try Portal, Weird Owl, Heist, Final Resistance. My favorite of the bunch, probably Final Resistance, weirdly enough. Uh, but Portal was also amazing. And I just love the whole concept of what Multimorphic is doing, especially for people like us that are wanting to build out a home arcade, but we don't have all the space in the world. Super excited about Multimorphic. So excited to see what they come up with next. And, you know, we're excited to hopefully someday get our hands on one. We did check out Jersey Jack's booth. They didn't have anything new either, but they were able to bring some of their Harry Potter Collector's Editions. Okay, I love the Harry Potter machines. The Collector's Editions are next level. They have like little signed cards with a wax seal on the front. They just look so good. So, it was fun to see. We got to play it a bunch and I am reminded just how much I love how this game plays. Finally, we headed over to the homebrew section. Such creativity. These people are amazing. They're making their own pinball machines. They're doing it from scratch. It's incredible. We got to play Monsters, Inc. This is one that I had heard about and I'd seen a little online, but it looked like a legitimate machine. And they have everything down to the details. It's like one of the ramps in the back. They've got like the big scream collector. They've got the doors. It was just so fun. And uh we even got to speak with Ernie who was the creator of it. He's so talented. He was so cool. Check out the homebrew section moving forward. It's incredible to see what these people are doing. We also got to just walk around the floor, see everything else that's there. And man, there are some talented people. Shout out to Brad Albbright who was so nice to us. Uh we looked around his booth. He has some really cool stuff, including these wood cutout pieces of art. And if you've seen our basement, we have a whole nerd wall dedicated to just pop culture art. And I think we need a Pee-Wee Herman on our wall. I myself am not a huge Pee-Wee Herman fan, but it's like Cameron's holy grail. We just wanted to share a couple of our like ending thoughts on Texas Pinball Festival 2026. It's been a very good fun experience. Some things that I did not expect. We'll go over a lot of these things. Um just basically what to expect from your first conference I think is a good thing. Yeah. This is our very first convention festival I guess. I don't know. Convention, whatever. Exposition, whatever you want to call it. Exactly. First pinball event. First. Yes, that's a good way to put it. First pinball event. So, why don't you start us off? What are what are some things that to expect for your first pinball event? First things first, people in pinball are so friendly. Oh, they were so nice. Everyone was so nice to us. People just like talking, just making comments in line, just like funny things like just just, you know, everybody's there to have a good time and everybody there was so friendly. So friendly. So, I loved that. Yeah, absolutely. I think the the amount of people that were willing to come up, talk to somebody, talk to somebody in line, just share, oh yeah, I have one of these at home or, oh, I'm so excited about this. Yeah. Just start up a conversation. I mean, we were waiting in line at Barrels of Fun and there were these two guys that we just chatted with. Shot the breeze. Yeah, it was great. It was great. It was absolutely fantastic. We met so many people. So many nice people. I think another thing that I learned is you're going to wait in a lot of lines. And that was something that really surprised me because I figured at something like Pokémon or you know the other Beetlejuice, the bigger games of the show. Yeah. I expected to wait in lines there, but even the older games, some of those there were lines. Yep. I remember I had to wait in line to play like a Fireball. It's like 1970s. Yeah. You know, you're just going to wait in a lot of like because there's so many people there. There's so many people. There are so many machines. Yes. So many machines. Yeah. But still, not enough machines, you know, enough people. So, yep. You're lines and that's fine. You strike up a conversation, be friendly. Exactly. Along with that, I feel like the early bird ticket is worth it. 100%. Now, we got lucky. We had a media badge. It got us in super early, like even before the early bird people. And being able to just play without a whole lot of lines, especially on the very new stuff. Great. But we even were there during the early bird session and it wasn't that bad. You can get on just about anything. Yeah. So after that it was a little crazy. Yeah. So if you can get the early bird Yeah. It's probably worth it. At least I feel like it. Yeah. Uh I think the the next thing that we learned and we learned this cuz we have a six-month old baby uh baby G. It's very loud. It is so loud. I did not realize. I mean, a lot of pinball machines on their own make a lot of sound, but then you have a lot of people in there, too. Yeah, it's very loud. A lot of people I saw had ear protection in just just to to handle it. I was okay. We put some ear muffs on our baby and he he had was a little wiggly when everyone was there. During the early section, he was fine. Fine. It was an angel. Um, but after everyone was in there, he had a little Yeah. So, we played some really cool machines. Yes. I want to hear what are your top like what was your top thing? Pokémon. I really like Pokémon. We played Pokémon. We played Beetlejuice. We played the brand new Yukon Yeti, which was super fun. All of these were very fun. We also played I mean, they're not super new anymore, but in the Barrels of Fun tent. We had never played a Barrels of Fun. Um Yeah. So, we got to play Dune, Winchester, and Labyrinth. All three right there. Um those were super fun. Pokémon wins it all for me. Really? Yeah. Why Why is it the Pokémon? I love all of the things on the playfield. I love the big Pikachu. I love the little uh Pokéball that kind of like twitches a little. We play the premium. Exactly. I love the Meowth balloon. Um I got the multiball which was super fun. I did not get the multiball. It's a shame. Um and just the you know, you have the opportunity to catch the Pokémon by hitting the caught a Pokémon. We kept like we I think we got a little bit of jitters. Yeah. Okay. I also really enjoyed Pokémon. I thought it was a fantastic game. It was our first time being able to play it. It's going to be everywhere. Yeah. So, it wasn't quite the highlight for me, probably because I know I'm going to play it more. Okay. Right. There are two games that really stood out to me. Winchester Mystery House was so good. It was so good. Um and right before we got to talk to Dirty Pool Pinball, Jeff, like he was so friendly, so nice. Um, the other one for me was that uh Yukon Yeti. Okay, it was so congrats to Chris and the team over there. Turner Pinball. It was fabulous. I love playing it. The Avalanche multiball. It was so I got it um and I beat Retro Ralph when I played it. Oh, good work. So, uh, no, it was fantastic. I absolutely loved it. It was so much fun. Um, and I think the other highlight for him, it's not a machine. We met so many nice people in the pinball community, right? Yeah. Like, um, special shout out to Retro Ralph who really made me feel welcome. Uh, I, you know, I'm very new to this, didn't know many people. He was like called me over, congratulated me on the channel, was super nice, and then just kind of let me hang out with him and the crew uh during the the media kind of section of it. Oh my gosh, it was so kind. Um they're fun. They're fun people. Yeah. Uh so that was another highlight for me. Uh the homebrew section. Oh my gosh. It is incredible the machines that people are able to put together on their own. Like the Monsters, Inc. machine. His name was Ernie. Yeah. So cool. Insane. Like it looked so good and it was so fun to play. It's such crazy cool ball paths. I love playing the ball path. Just the detail in there. Just everything. It looked like a legitimate machine. These people are incredible. They're so talented. Yep. So, I thought that that was really fun. So, um, anything else before we wrap up? No, I think that's it. But we had a blast. We had a blast. We are coming back next year. Very excited. Already announcing it. We're coming back next year. Yep. So, anyway, uh, that's kind of it. We hope you enjoyed this little review and all the stuff that we had to say about Texas Pinball Festival. Uh, subscribe to hear more to hear more tutorials, reviews, all the pinball news you can think of. Um, it helps out the channel. And until then, keep whipping.