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Episode 382: INDISC 2024 will soon be here

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·34m 49s·analyzed·Dec 12, 2023
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TL;DR

INDISC 2024 January tournament details: format changes, game selection, and streaming success.

Summary

Jeff Teolis interviews the three-person INDISC organizing team (Carl D'Angelo, Jim Belsito, Jay Collins) about the 2024 INDISC tournament scheduled for January in Riverside, California. They discuss structural changes to the event format, game selection for various divisions, volunteer opportunities, streaming numbers from 2023, and the upcoming 2024 World Championships that Jim will also host. The conversation highlights INDISC's commitment to returning 100% of entry fees to prize pools and maintaining high-quality tournament standards.

Key Claims

  • INDISC 2023 streamed over 100,000 hours of live footage with 16,500 peak live viewers

    high confidence · Carl D'Angelo relayed these statistics; Jay Collins corroborated them

  • INDISC returns 100% of entry fees to prize pools

    high confidence · Jay Collins explicitly stated this founding principle; confirmed by Jim Belsito

  • Classics Target Match Play has 120 entrants with top 24 qualifying at 30 points threshold

    high confidence · Carl D'Angelo provided specific tournament structure details

  • Jim Belsito will host 2024 World Championships in California approximately 6 months after INDISC

    high confidence · Jim Belsito confirmed World Championships hosting; describes it as 'the big monster' but less work than INDISC

  • Main Bank features 18 games; confirmed selections include X's and O's, Valley, Flintstones, Casino, Tommy, and games in Classics

    high confidence · Jim Belsito and Carl D'Angelo disclosed game selections; some games still unannounced

  • INDISC moved from Museum of Pinball to Riverside Convention Center, with further expansion this year

    high confidence · Jay Collins described venue history and current L-shaped room configuration

  • High Stakes division has fewer than 20 available spots at $500 entry fee for 10 cards

    high confidence · Carl D'Angelo specified capacity and pricing

  • Sunday Strikes tournament will no longer be IFPA-certified due to 2024 rule changes regarding simultaneous tournaments

    high confidence · Carl D'Angelo explained rule change reason; tournament continues as non-certified event

Notable Quotes

  • “I think of King Ghidorah and Godzilla. That's this right here for InDesk.”

    Jeff Teolis @ ~2:30 — Colorful characterization of the three-person INDISC organizing team as a unified powerhouse

  • “I'd love to clone myself.”

    Carl D'Angelo @ ~9:00 — Reflects the overwhelming workload Carl carries managing streams, tournament logistics, and ensuring technical perfection

  • “The streams are always about pinball. It's about growing pinball and expanding the audience. It's not necessarily about the player.”

    Carl D'Angelo @ ~10:30 — Core philosophy driving Carl's streaming approach and INDISC's broadcast strategy

  • “100% of that prize pool money is going back to the players.”

    Jay Collins @ ~14:00 — Emphasizes INDISC's foundational commitment to player compensation and transparency

  • “We didn't run the best event we could. And we made sure that all the people coming to attend were getting their money's worth in their entries.”

    Jay Collins @ ~14:15 — Articulates INDISC's core mission and value proposition since its founding

  • “The biggest thing for me is getting the comments that come in... these are the best games we've played for a tournament in a long time. You know, mean but fair, and they just play so well.”

    Jim Belsito @ ~55:00 — Jim's measure of success as games director: player feedback on game quality and fairness

  • “There's something special about how good can you do in two minutes or in five minutes.”

    Jeff Teolis @ ~37:00 — Jeff advocates for speed-run/timed tournament formats as underutilized in IFPA pinball

  • “Just the event in general. Seeing everybody show up, have a good time... when the event's over and I see everybody come in and what we put on... and then leave with a smile on their face.”

    Jay Collins — Core motivator for Jay: community gathering and positive attendee experience over competition metrics

Entities

INDISCeventCarl D'AngelopersonJim BelsitopersonJay CollinspersonJeff TeolispersonIE PinballorganizationRiverside Convention Centerevent_venue

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Sponsorship becoming increasingly critical to tournament viability; Carl D'Angelo and hosts emphasize need for sponsors to reach audience of tens of thousands viewers

    medium · Jeff noted sponsorship importance; Carl emphasized streams about pinball growth and audience expansion; sponsorship mentioned as enabler of events like INDISC

  • ?

    community_signal: INDISC emphasizing community experience and social aspects alongside competitive play; volunteer gauntlet, youth tournament with free attendance, puzzle activities, and free-play areas designed to maximize inclusive attendance

    high · Jay Collins emphasized social aspect of tournaments; Jeff noted Hot Nudge Girls mingling; youth tournament free; volunteer gauntlet scheduled; large free-play areas mentioned

  • ?

    community_signal: INDISC positioning as primary annual gathering point for global pinball community; mentioned as tournament many players attend once yearly; reunion/social network function emphasized

    high · Jeff noted attendees traveling from Canada and globally; Jay mentioned seeing people not seen since prior INDISC; Jay described INDISC as gateway to pinball tournament participation

  • ?

    event_signal: INDISC expanded facility space year-over-year; combined two smaller rooms into L-shaped configuration; lighting improvements noted as critical for streaming quality

    high · Jay Collins described venue evolution; Jim noted L-shaped configuration better for lighting than prior year's two small rooms; Carl confirmed lighting eliminated need for additional stream lights

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.104

0:00
Seems it never rains in Southern California Seems I've often heard that kind of talk before It's time for another Pinball Profile. I'm your host, Jeff Teels. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com. We're on Twitter slash X, Instagram at pinballprofile. We have a great Facebook group as well. You can also show your support on Patreon. Don't worry, the show will always be free, but it helps keep the show continue. Patreon.com slash pinball profile. Great people like William M., Tony V., Stefan R., and so many others. Thank you for your support. Oh, I'm looking forward to this every single year because it's InDesk time. I'm joined right now by the three-headed monster that is InDesk. I mean, think of King Ghidorah and Godzilla. That's this right here for InDesk. Carl D'Angelo, Jim Belsito, Jay Collins, they're all online right now. Hi, guys. How are you? I'm well. Hello, Jim. How are you? Doing well. First of all, I want to say I'm glad, Jim, you and Carl can still be friends. I did see the beatdown at Pirates on the weekend. And even after you tried to destroy the flippers, Jim, you and Derek Price on Excalibur, that Carl seemed to find a way to win. So it looked like a great tournament. It was a lot of fun. It was a good time. And Carl desperately needs those California points. Oh, boy. Can you imagine Carl not in the state finals? Carl, are you sweating a little bit? Yeah, I'm sweating. Of course I am. I think I need around 100, and I'm not there yet still.
1:34
Hold on. Listen carefully. Everyone listening right now is going, poor Carl. Poor. You know, I kid because, wait a second. We're talking about Carl D'Angelo, one of the greatest pinball players ever. We see what you do on IE Pinball, and it's because of what you and Jim and Jay do. put on this wonderful tournament that you don't even play in or very, very little, very sparse. I think it's a great sacrifice. First off, thank you, thank you, thank you for all the work you do for InDisc. It's why people flock from all over the world, let alone the country. This is a big event, and back in January you've got to be pretty excited. Oh, absolutely.
2:19
@ ~52:00
Pinball Profilemedia
Pinball Profile Triviaevent
Museum of Pinballevent_venue
IFPAorganization
Liamperson
Deb Tallmanperson
Plutoperson
Pin Monkorganization
2024 World Championshipsevent

event_signal: IFPA rule change in 2024 restricting simultaneous tournament eligibility; INDISC Sunday Strikes tournament modified to non-certified status to maintain event while complying

high · Carl D'Angelo explained rule change reason; stated Sunday Strikes will run as non-IFPA-certified tournament with $10 entry fee and prizes

  • ?

    event_signal: INDISC 2023 achieved major streaming success with 100,000+ hours watched and 16,500 peak concurrent viewers; Twitch partnership credited as key factor

    high · Jay Collins relayed exact streaming metrics; Carl D'Angelo confirmed Pluto/Twitch partnership; positioned as unexpectedly high numbers for pinball events

  • ?

    event_signal: INDISC 2024 confirmed for January in Riverside with expanded qualifying windows and structural changes to reduce queue times and accommodate multi-event participation

    high · Jim Belsito and Carl D'Angelo detailed specific format changes: Classics Target Match Play now includes finals (new); Classics split to two qualifying days instead of one seven-hour sprint

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Jim Belsito serving dual roles as INDISC co-organizer and 2024 World Championships host in California; managing both simultaneous preparation cycles

    high · Jim confirmed World Championships hosting; states INDISC is 'the big monster' requiring more immediate focus; World Championships facility still under completion

    • We've been seeing some of the games leak on Discord. I highly recommend everyone join the Indisc Discord because some fun trivia. Jim, you always have a bit of fun with that, and we're even going to have a special pinball profile trivia. Yes, we are. What's going to happen in, I guess, the Classics? What's going to happen in High Stakes, Women's, and the Main Bank? Yes, all these big things happen. Indisc's kind of changed the structure a little bit this year, so I don't know if it's for certified reasons, but we're not seeing two Classics events. We're seeing a longer Classics target match play, and a longer Classics. Explain some of the changes, Jim. The big change this year is target match play is not going to have a finals on the day after, which is pretty exciting. Finals are always fun. And then the regular Classics, instead of splitting it up in two days where everybody's got to race, to have seven hours to try to get enough entries in there where you can qualify, we're going to have to go back to the original format and have two days of qualifying and then finals for that. So it's going to make it a little easier. I guess one of the complaints we've had is trying to qualify for classics, and even though we have so many games, the queues can be pretty long when you have that many people in an event. So I think this should help that a little bit. Well, Jim, I like your queues quite a bit, in fact. I think they're very reasonable considering how many people are at this event, but that extra hour certainly will help because with a card-based format, it's not even about the queues. It's about being consistent and doing well on each game. So you can punch your ticket early if you have a good bank of, I assume, four. Is it four games for the Classics? It's five games. It's five? Five games. Oh, yikes. Five games. No, but that's good. And the same could be said for the main and, of course, the high stakes. It's all about being consistent. You don't have to go for the GC. I love that you do this format. And it's certainly a lot harder to qualify for something like Indisc than your typical pump and dump where you can just go back to the well. Don't you agree, Jim? Absolutely. I mean, it's a great format. It makes you be consistent. You've got to move game to game to game. You can't just sit there and try to pound and try to blow something up. You've just got to move across and stay consistent with all the shots are different. It's way more challenging, but I think a lot more fun. I think of all the challenges you've had and forget the pinball aspect and bringing this all together. I mean, Jay, you can remember how devastating COVID was and coming back from that. Do you think we're back to where we were prior to COVID? Yeah, I think we're about where we were. I mean, obviously, we're different now in Riverside than we were before COVID when we were at the Museum of Pinball. So that's definitely a change. But I think the event, even since then, has grown since we were at the museum. So I think we've seen definitely a positive move into Riverside. And I think, you know, where we were last year, I think it's been a really popular location. I think it's really shown that the work we've done since then has delivered. Jay, I agree. I love the Riverside connection there. The hotels are all right there. The great food court just down near the lab. And, of course, a big event going on. I think Neil McCrae is running an event the day before in disc at the lab. So, yeah, I'm glad now in the third year there. It's also easier from a travel standpoint, too, if you're flying into the Ontario airport. So I'm sure these were all factors in deciding to go to Riverside. I mean, we basically looked everywhere we could think of around Southern California, and we had a difficult time finding anything that would provide a better experience for the attendees than Riverside. So, you know, hopefully it shows. Carl, I know what it's like when I sit behind the desk there with you, behind the control there, whether it's running Never Drain software, whether it's helping people with their entries or any kind of issues in that aspect. and then, of course, the wonderful stream. That stream last year, for those that didn't know, because of your partner's status, why don't you give us some of the numbers of how many people watched InDisc last year in 2023 in January? Putting me on the spot here, Jeff. I'm up top of my head.
    6:25
    Tens of thousands. It was a lot, especially with the unique viewers. But, yeah, thanks to the help of Pluto at Twitch, he got us on the front page, and he's going to be helping us again this year with that. And he's going to be helping at the event, too. Oh, that's great. Oh, yeah. He's going to help out with the stream. So hopefully there's a little more free time this year.
    6:47
    Oh, sorry. I just brought up the numbers if you'd like me to share them. Yeah. There was over 100,000 hours of live footage, and we had 16,500 peak live viewers at one point last year. It was an amazing number. Really amazing, yeah. I didn't know if Pinball would ever get to these numbers. If ever they were going to do an event, this was the event to do. So kudos to everybody at InDisc and, of course, what you do, Carl, with the stream. So I know you put a lot of pressure on yourself, and that's probably why you do take a backseat and you don't play, because you want to make sure everything's just perfect and there's a lot of moving parts. It's kind of like when you go to a circus and you see somebody with a bunch of plates on sticks trying to keep all these plates spinning and not having any crash. That's Carl. Exactly. I'd love to clone myself.
    7:33
    Me too. If anybody has any advanced cloning methods and you're not busy in January, please come to InDisc. And, Carl, we'd be glad to give you a sample just to make that possible. I think, Carl, you're one of a kind. And, you know, I think from a streaming standpoint, now we're going to get more into InDisc, but what you put into your streams, whether it's just your Wednesday nights or everything you do, the tournaments, Ace Goge, all these kind of unique pinball events, even pin clash, for crying out loud, I see a lot of people use your template as really the go-to, almost like a master class of how to do pinball on stream, and that's got to feel pretty good. And I know you're very helpful with others too when they ask for suggestions. Yeah, I always try to help out wherever I can. I mean, one of the things I put forward is the streams are always about pinball. It's about growing pinball and expanding the audience. It's not necessarily about the player. They're not about me. I'm just trying to push the game. It's got to make it easier too especially because sponsorship is very important too and when you have those kind of numbers that Jay just relayed it makes it a little more attractive for your sponsors and we certainly can do a big event like InDisc or any pinball event without the wonderful sponsorship So for those that come on board and you want to reach one of these three guys to see how you can be a part of it, please do, because you're going to be at the first major of the year. I mean, that was exciting when that was announced a few years ago by IFPA and probably only put a little bit more pressure on you, wouldn't you say, Jim? Oh, absolutely. We're very honored to get that. Working with those guys has been great. But it, I think, is kind of a loser of our goals, but it's definitely something that we're excited to do. And, you know, we put so much time and effort trying to get, you know, make the best event we can, try to have the best games possible. I mean, the number of hours, I'm not going to harp on myself, but the number of hours put between myself, Jay, and all the people that work on the games, it's just astounding.
    9:30
    It's just an amazing amount of time that's spent trying to get these things, you know, work as best as possible and everything else. Carl with his stuff, of course. I mean, everything is, we try to be top notch. I mean, we spend a lot of time doing other things, you know, life, work, you know, families, all this stuff. We spend a lot of time trying to make the best of that we can because it's all about, you know, we started this because we wanted to cater to the tournament players. We went to a lot of tournaments. I mean, I've been playing tournaments since the 90s and there was, there was big, not a lot of tournaments back then, but there was big tournaments, but you know, a lot of them were underwhelming and it's like you go to a lot of tournaments and it's like wow where'd all the money go I did all that I won $500 like that can't be right why did I make something you know is great everybody wanted to you know excited to play everything they knew they were going to play a good product you know this is going to be a good format and you know a lot of money you know the prize pool is going to be you know worthy of coming for you know all the money goes back to it so yeah and that you know partnering with the IFPA made that even better you know great organization for pinball of course, and definitely happy to partner with them to make even a better event than we've had in the past. Jay, Jim mentioned about the giving back that prize pool money. That's something that's pretty important as people travel around and spend good money to go to events. Equally, you want to have a great experience because of what you have in Riverside. You get that because of the games, the quality, the tech, and everything else. But what Jim said there, you want to know, okay, where's this money going? Here it is. Indisk is saying 100% of that prize pool money is going back to the players. And that's a big, big ticket and probably one of the big selling points just as much as having a good time. Wouldn't you say, Jay? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, even before I started helping with Indisk, which was I think maybe in 2017 more heavily, I always understood that Indisk was taking all of the entry fees and giving it back to the people that were playing in the tournament. And that was like the founding principle that, you know, we didn't, we ran the best event we could. And we made sure that all the people coming to attend were getting their money's worth in their entries. And we've carried that forward. And even, you know, now with so many people, there's, you know, the prize pools have gone way up. And all that money still goes back to the people buying the tickets. So when you pay for a card, that money is going back to people that qualify. And, yeah, we're unfortunately, for better or for worse, you know, spending a lot of time to make this happen. And that's not compensated. But, you know, we just want to put on the best event we can. And we feel really strongly that Southern California is a great place to do that. You know, we're proud of our pinball scene here. And we hope it's reflected in the event. As someone coming from Canada in January, let me just tell you, Southern California is very, very welcome. Thank you for doing this and not doing it in July. Appreciate it. So, Carl, let's go over the roster of tournaments you're going to be able to see because there are a lot and there's some fun ones, too. All right. So we've got the sold out classic target match play. That's the day one. And actually throughout all the days, we've got qualifying on high stakes and the open the world championship. Then on day two, we'll have classic target match play finals. And that's new for this year, as we mentioned earlier. And that was so that, you know, in the past we've run first person to reach a score finishes the tournament. But the added finals gives that extra stress for the players during qualifying. It's not something that's done everywhere. And I really like how when you're close to the goal and you're trying to reach that final target, it changes the way you play. So, Carl, 120 people in this Classics Target Match Play. To make the playoffs, do you have to reach a certain threshold before, obviously, the other players? And how many people in the playoffs? Or is it when the first person reaches the threshold, you just take the top, whatever? How does it work? We're going to take 24 players to the playoffs. And it's once you reach 30 points. It's not the first person to reach 30. It's when you reach 30, you qualify. And that's your seeding. And that's your seeding, right. So first person to reach it, seed one. Second person, seed two, and so on. and of course high is broken in between as needed. But it's a different beast when you're sitting at 29 points and you just need that final point to qualify. Yeah. Knowing the pressure on you on one game just not to get last is something else. It's something very unique because of this format. And is it Swiss pairing too? So everyone in that group needs that one point and you're like, oh gosh. Exactly. It starts as tiered Swiss and then by round 11 it's pure Swiss. So, yeah, it gets harder and harder as the tournament moves on. Okay, that's day one. Oh, that's nice. I look forward to that. But I know there's a wonderful women's event. There's absolutely a women's event that's qualifying all three days, or two days as well, and then finals on Saturday for women's. We also have a youth tournament on Saturday, and kids 12 and under are free to attend the event and join that tournament. Oh, that's great. You had a great turnout last year for that. In fact, why can't I remember the poor kid's name? I saw him in North Carolina at OBX, the little guy who won, and he was such a good player. In fact, Liam. Liam, Liam, thank you so much for remembering that. I saw Liam in North Carolina at OBX, and I remember him winning the youth tournament, and he was a big fan of Keith Ellin, so I brought Keith over, and we got a nice picture of Liam and Keith. But I also remember Liam made the playoffs in Classics. Yes, yes. That is crazy. Anybody can do it. Good player. He's a killer. I mean, we'll see him again, I'm sure. Oh, yeah. So you've got the youth. You've got women's. We haven't really talked about what the classics is going to be. We alluded to that a little bit earlier, but it's a little different, more qualifying time, and I like the change. Right. So we did that so everyone would have more time, more time to, especially, like, if you speak to many of the women, you find that it's really hard to play in everything. You know, if someone wants to play in high stakes, the open, classics, classics target match play, and women's, it's nearly impossible to play in all those events. So that's why we expanded to two days to give people more breathing room, more time to qualify. You can play in the other events without having to worry about sacrificing something else or only putting one card in classics. You know, you'll have a chance to put in more than one card now. Very nice. So there's classics and then, of course, the main bank. How many games do you have, Jim? in the main bank? 18, as usual. Wow. It's going to be a card of 10. No, I'm just kidding. Oh, jeez. Did Jermaine get a hold of you? What's going on here?
    16:13
    Not double. Yeah. Double five. Yeah. My joke for the day. Yeah. No, that's good. We do know some of the games in the main bank, don't we? And it won't be four plus Rusty 911 like it was the one year. Oh, that was heaven. That punched my ticket.
    16:28
    I love that. but you do have some unique games in there. Let's spill the beans. So far we have, what, X's and O's, Valley. We have Flintstones. Our casino is making a comeback. Okay. With fans, right? With fans on the flippers. With fans. Lots of fans. Fans everywhere. Yes, lots of fans. Pin Monk is supplying us with a lot of fans for a lot of games. Pin Monk, great sponsor. Absolutely. That's it for the main so far. Okay. We got Tommy and the Women's. Yep. I saw Mystic. Mystic is in classics, yeah. Of course, on my station. Mystic, I just ran a tournament in Ontario here, and I debated putting Mystic in the pump and dump because you can be whaling away forever, and then you've just got this mixed board that doesn't have any lines. And it's just such a frustrating mess where you can also, oh wow it was always on the whites and I bang bang bang bang bang and look at that 72 bonus That an evil game for a card format Well done Yeah, thank you. We just played a really evil one at the Capitals last weekend. That mystic was super evil. So, looking at mine, it's going to be as bad. What do we know is in the high-stakes bank? Because I know it's an expensive ticket, but, again, great payouts, too. $500 gets you 10 cards there, and some people want to know, okay, what's going in there? Here's my $500. and there's, I think, only less than 20 spots available. Yep, and it'll be exciting because all seven games are God Leaves. Yeah.
    17:56
    Oh, come on, Gladiator. I need to try one of those. I haven't tried that game yet. Oh, please don't. Don't give me my ideas, Jeff. Pop, pop. Outlaying $30 million. What the what? Congratulations, you win. No. I don't own one of those, so I guess they're lucky. If you want to find out some of the games, the best place to go to is Discord, and there's great trivia. First of all, all the in-disc information you need there, lodging, all that kind of good stuff. It's a great community. It's huge, in fact, especially this time of year when you're doing trivia. And we've been able to do this a few years on Pinball Profile where we have an exclusive Pinball Profile trivia. By the way, the winner, how are they going to reach out to you? Will we do it on Discord? Yeah, didn't we do that last year? Sure, just under the... We have a special channel, I think, right? Yeah, we have a special channel. Yeah, I'll duplicate the channel. Yeah, got it. Okay, we're not going to repost the clue here. You have to listen to this podcast, so first one in could get it with this clue. Go ahead, Jim. Okay, well, the first clue is my hands are cold. My hands are cold. That's it. Okay. Your luck is always. I have no idea. My hands are cold. Jim, while I've got you, I do know this is going to be a crazy year for you. I think of how big InDisc is and how long it takes to put this together, And I know it's a machine now and with what you and Jay and Carl and everybody else involved do, but you've got two big events this year. Jim, like people are going to be staying in Southern California, oh, I don't know, for the big event, the World Championships? I think I heard something about that. Yeah, you better have. Is that next year?
    19:36
    It's six months away. I hope you're ready. So you come back to California in the summer? I've already looked. The Angels are playing and the Padres are playing. I'm bookending the World Championships with those. Oh, that's right. Oh, yeah. That's right. You got it. I'm just curious because I know how much goes into InDisc, and I don't know what your involvement is with bringing other people in for the World Championships, or is it just you and some help or some guidance from IFPA? Which is the bigger weight on your shoulder right now? Oh, InDisc for sure. InDisc is such a massive tournament, and as far as, you know, there's a lot more involved with getting things ready, moving things around, at least with, you know, I have a lot of work to do still for IPA. I'm not going to say I don't, but I still have to get the facility fully finished. But, you know, at least a lot of the games are already there. Yeah. So it's definitely easier. InDesk is definitely the big monster. So I am super, super excited to, you know, I think I brought it up to Josh years ago. I was, hey, you know, sooner or later I'm going to build something. And I went, you know, whether how old I am, if I'm playing or not, I'd love to be able to host, have the best players in the world come to my place and play some really fun games, good working games, of course, and have them all there. It's just a great group of people, and I'm excited that they're coming my way. It's been circled on the calendar for a while, so we look forward to that. But in the meantime, InDisc, and Carl, I have to ask, I know you have a big staff there and a lot of volunteers. Are you still looking for volunteers? I know you've got even a volunteer event, too. We are absolutely looking for volunteers, and those sign-ups will be coming online shortly. And, yes, we do have the exclusive volunteer gauntlet on Sunday where any volunteer can play in that and win prizes, including a classic StarCraft match play entry for the following year. That's big. It's big, yeah. That gauntlet is so much fun. I did my first one last year at InDisc, and I just watched Deb Tallman do it at Pinsonati, and she was the winner there. It's so much fun, the stress. I love and I wish, wish, wish, wish, this is the one thing in pinball I wish we could do more of is speed runs in a way. Because IFPA, you know, they want you to play forever and ever and long, long and lots of games. That's all fine and dandy, but there's something special about how good can you do in two minutes or in five minutes. You know, the heads-up challenge, which is obviously easy to do all the time, But your gauntlet is similar in that aspect, too. It's just, I don't know. Jay, what do you think of the gauntlet? It looked like a great time. I didn't get to play because I was working, but everybody had a blast. And this was hilarious to watch people, you know, on a timer trying to hit something over and over and missing or trapping up when you probably shouldn't maybe so much. And so, yeah, it was a lot of fun. I could really tell people enjoyed it. I think it'll be a blast to get in this year for sure. One thing I like about IndyStore, really traveling to any event, is you've got to book the hotel rooms in advance. They're really good prices with what you've got there in Riverside. When you're staying the Saturday night, you want something to do on Sunday. Well, not everyone's going to make the playoffs, but that doesn't matter because you've got a real fun event on Sunday, and I think this is great that you do things like this. What's going on on Sunday, Carl? We've got the Sunday Strikes tournament again this year. The difference this year is it will not be an IFPA certified tournament, so it's for fun. We'll have a small entry fee of $10, I believe, and we'll have some prizes to give out. I just hope that people stick around, have a good time in that, and then watch the finals in the open. Yeah, I like that you're doing that. And the reason it's not IFPA endorsed, for those wondering why, isn't it? It's a new rule in 2024 about simultaneous tournaments and this and that and the opportunity to play in both. And I'm glad you're still doing the tournament. Let me just say that because it is a lot of fun and it gives people something to do. Because one thing about this big tournament, Jay, I know you see it. You get to see people that you don't normally see. It's maybe been a while or maybe they only do one big tournament a year. And InDisc seems to be that tournament. And you see people, you might not have seen them in a year since last InDisc, but it's always nice to reconnect. And I remember just watching around all the tables because you had such a huge, huge area. and free play area too, by the way. And I remember seeing the Hot Nudge Girls, they were working on a puzzle on their table and just everyone was mingling. It was a lot of fun. I love that aspect about pinball tournaments. People listening think, oh, it's all about the tournaments, tournaments. No, it's actually a huge social aspect too. Wouldn't you say, Jay? Absolutely. I think one of the reasons I got hooked on pinball and pinball tournaments in general was just how much fun it was to just hang out with like-minded people and have a good time, play some games, maybe not play some games and yeah, just enjoy the atmosphere. And, you know, we, we do what we can to try and make sure that, you know, the atmosphere is great and everybody has plenty of space and the River Tide Convention Center again has been just been great for that. Yeah, it's awesome. So, and I remember the puzzle. That was the first thing I thought of when you started mentioning it. So yeah, it was cool. You talked about the space. I remember going last year in January, 2023, and I looked at it and I said, Jim, is this a different hall? Like it looked way bigger than it did the year before. It was bigger, wasn't it? It was bigger. We had two smaller rooms combined last year. We're also sharing the facility with the, there was like Game Lab's e-gaming event, which he does at his own facility now. But now we have the big room and the small room, kind of like the little L-shaped pattern. So more space. We all thought it worked out pretty well, and we did exactly the same thing this year. Great. So it'll be good. It really means a lot as a player to have that kind of elbow room, if you will, and just not have people breathing down your neck. That's not the case at InDisc. You've got so much space, and it just makes it so much more comfortable, too. The lighting is great in there, too. That's another thing that really matters for tournaments, too, and I know that means a lot to you, Carl. It absolutely does, and the lighting's so good in there, I don't feel like I need additional lights for the stream, which is fantastic. Yeah. The L-shaped pattern was better for lighting this year, I think, also in the first, a little bit of issues with the first year. when it was just two small rooms. But this year was, and this coming year, the lighting is definitely great. When you're running a tournament, and I've never run anything as big as InDisc, it's always smaller scale, but to whatever you run, you think of everything that has to be done You try to think of that before the tournament starts or else you scrambling But it hard to sit and enjoy running the tournament while it happening Like the big weight off your shoulders is when it's all done and you go, oh, you know what? That turned out all right because you're thinking of all the little things. To you three, and I'll start with you, Jay, what, when it's all said and done, makes Indus a success for you? I mean, just the event in general. Seeing everybody show up, have a good time, and you know we always I mean there's always people that are going to have some feedback but I would say that this event overwhelmingly has positive feedback and when people when they tell you how much they had a good time or they enjoyed the event or you know that you did a good job all those things just really you know it just makes it it makes it worthwhile in the end and that's what you know always keeps me going every year is when the event's over and I see everybody come in and what we put on, and all the people come from all over the world and have a great time and then leave with a smile on their face. Or maybe, depending on how well they did in finals, maybe not a smile, but a week later I think they probably are pretty happy, and they tell us that for the most part. And, yeah, that's what does it for me. Jim, I know you take the responsibility very serious. You joked about Rescue 911 and stuff, but the prepping of the games is very important. what determines the success for you for InDisc when it's all said and done? Well, yeah, I'm the games guy. That's what I spend most of my time on. So, I mean, a lot of things that Jay said, but the biggest thing for me is getting the comments that come in, and it's like, ah, these are the best games we've played for a tournament in a long time. You know, mean but fair, and they just play so well. That's always been the best thing. You know, it's like, you spend so much time when you're like, we all, I mean, Jay, myself, and other people spend so much time tweaking a game and making sure that it's tournament worthy, it's great to hear those kind of comments. Just going back to this amount of time that gets spent on certain games. I could have someone all shop about a game and then we had someone shop about Flintstones and a friend of mine, and it's like I end up spending another seven hours after that tweaking it to make sure that it's playing the way I want it to play that I think everybody's going to enjoy. So it's great to hear all those comments and it makes it worthwhile because there's so much time to put into it. I try very hard to, and Jay and I, we both try very hard to make sure that it's a fun experience and not just a bastardized game that no one's going to have any fun with. Yeah, it's a big tournament, but all the games were so hard that it wasn't any fun. You don't want to hear that. So it's good to hear people enjoying the games and saying, oh, these are my favorite games to play. Mean but fair. I like that analogy. Mean but fair. And that can mean, really, I think you and I have talked about this, Jim, things like slings. Make them tight. That's the number one thing you can do, right? I mean, it's not about removing all posts and rubbers and you can't breathe on the machine without it tilting, the slings are such a big factor. Oh, absolutely. That's the biggest thing that makes a game hard, I believe. And I think a lot of people do that too. I know, you know, no one likes sneeze on tilts. That's always been super annoying for me. It's like, you know, you flip hard and it's like, okay, well, that's not cool. I've never been a fan of taking like a little rubber. There's some games you have to, but pretty rare. I like to leave like little mini post rubbers between the inline outlands on. It gives you a little more control. It's trying to bounce and nudge through there. and it's not just like, oh, you hit a steel post and the ball is, you know, you can't do anything with it. So there's ways to make games harder without making it where it's like, well, you know, that's not fair. So that's what we try to do. I'll never forget being in Vegas at Pin Masters and playing with Jason Werdrick, and he plunged, just plunged Black Rose. Well, that's definitely a tilt.
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    That was the setup Josh Sharp had. I'm like, come on. And it was pin golf. He couldn't do anything about it. I was like, this is nuts. Plunged softer? That's no fun. Yeah, no fun at all. Now, Carl, the perfectionist of the group, the man who's never satisfied until it's all said and done, what is the success for you for InDisc? I mean, it's all about the people, right? It's about seeing that they're having a good time and knowing that they have a good time because they're coming back year after year and seeing new faces pop up each year. Like I was thrilled when Kevin Martin came last year, that the reputation of the tournament got to him, and he came to check it out after running Papa for so many years. And then it's also the success of the stream and really showing off all the work that Jim and Jay have done on the game, knowing that everyone around the world can see all the work they've done and hopefully come one year to check it out themselves. I know when Indisc is done, there's a big decompression time. And, you know, you probably don't want to see a pinball machine for a week or two. But, Jay, do you feel satisfied when it's all said and done? Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, after I wake up from my 48-hour nap, I definitely feel very satisfied. Yeah, I always have. And that's what brings you back every year is that, you know, that, like, just that I'm proud of what we've accomplished. You know, that pride that I take in the event and I think we all take in the event is definitely a motivating factor. You see it in the people that flock to this event, Jim, and the trust that they have in the three of you and all the people that help volunteer at Indus, too. I mean, really, it's a nice legacy you guys have created for this wonderful tournament that's now a major. It's got to feel good, Jim. It feels very good. I mean, you know, we started this in 2012, and, you know, we started in a little bar with 50 people. Wow. Which, at far as we still operate with the longest-running pinball league, I think, in California. Still there. It's been there since the 90s, I mean, as far as our league. You know, we moved on to a bowling alley and grew a little bit bigger and then moved, you know, obviously to the MACA Museum of Pinball, which was, you know, wow. It was so awesome. But, yeah, it's come a long way. You know, we're very proud of what we do, and we enjoy it. We still enjoy doing it. I guess as long as we still enjoy it, you know, we'll keep this going. it's an amazing amount of work for everybody. I think people sometimes take that for granted, right? You just assume it will always be there, but it is a huge commitment for the three of you and everyone else involved. And we shouldn't take it for granted because sometimes these things go away and just whether it's the timing, whether it's stress, whether it's life, whatever the case may be. So we thank you for it in 2024 and Carl, people are going to want to find out more information where do they go they can go to indisc.com we've got all the information there or you can check out our Facebook event link event page I should say do a search on Facebook for Indisc 2024 you'll find everything you need in them don't forget Discord as well too because that's where you're going to find some trivia questions and what was the trivia one we gave Jim my hands are cold I believe my hands are cold is your clue answer it on Discord and you could win yourself a free card, I believe. Well, yeah, this one, yes. Yeah, because yours is a special one. So, yeah, you get a bonus.
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    Usually you've got to guess three to get that. There you go. Thank you. Yeah, it only takes one. Yeah, nothing like spending your money. Thanks.
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    I appreciate it. Jay, Jim, Carl, I will see you in just four straight weeks. I can hardly wait. And thank you for putting this on. I don't take it for granted because I know how much work you guys do. And it pays off because you see people from all over the world flock to InDisc because it is not just a major. It might be the major. I've said it before. I'll say it again. I have three favorite tournaments. InDisc is right there at the top. So thank you very much for doing this, and I look forward to seeing each of you. I look forward to seeing you. Thank you very much, Jeff. Thanks, Jeff. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com. We're on Twitter, X. We're on Instagram at Pinball Profile. We have a Facebook group as well. You can email pinballprofile at gmail.com. And if you'd like to show your support on Patreon, that would be very kind, patreon.com slash pinballprofile. Great people like GME Law, Lua W. Rodney C., Fox Cities Pinball, and so many others. We appreciate it. Make sure you head to Indus January 4th to 7th, Riverside, California. I'm Jeff Teolas. Team of Californication
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    Team of Californication