Hello and welcome to the Wormhole and our podcast called Wormhole Pinball Presents. My name is Jamie Burchill and today I'm so happy to be joined by two very, very busy individuals, Robert Harris and Paul McKinney, the organizers of the 2024 Texas Pinball Festival. Gentlemen, thank you for taking time out of your extremely busy schedules. I really appreciate it. You bet. Happy to be here. So today is March 1st. We're two weeks away from TPF. How excited are you both? You know, it's always, I get real excited the minute I walk into the show on Wednesday afternoon. I mean, it's just like an adrenaline rush and it kind of goes through the whole show. And all the organizers have kind of been that way. And then it usually a few days after the show, it goes, God, my feet are sore. Yeah, you walk in that hall and you remember how far away it is to the back door. and you make that walk 100 times in that show and it's just unreal how big that facility actually is. I mean, it really is. The Texas Pinball Festival, if you do not know, is going to take place on Friday, March 15th at 4 p.m. until Sunday, March 17th at 3 or after the awards has been held. I read. It has been held at the Embassy Suites Hotel and Convention Center in Frisco, Texas since 2014. So, the hotel has been a really good partner for you guys, right? absolutely uh city of frisco is uh an amazing amazing place and it's so nice to be close to a lot of other things and have our association that we have with national video game museum they really work well with us too they do a lot of things that i think other places wouldn't necessarily do for us and it helps make the show run a lot smoother this is the first year together as organizers is that correct uh after kim and ed retired well not not really i guess in an official capacity but you know robert when when did you come in like 2005 uh it's been a long time i don't know exactly it's on my bio it's been i know it's said 2009 yeah as with the tournament um it's been at least um 10 years working on the registration booth working all the database all the software all that good stuff and paul when did you get involved with tbf Day one. Yeah. I mean, that's incredible. In fact, with this being our 20th show, when you get the program this year, you'll get a little story on the history. I saw the floor plans this morning, and it does look a little different than last year. Can you guys kind of go into some of the differences? Well, a few things. We wanted to try to make some more space. and so we you know we had a we had a registration area on the outside and the inside so we uh we've always had this little alcove that we haven't used a lot in the lobby so we decided to move our gift shop there so that kind of freed up some more space and then we've uh we've just moved the main door to kind of the middle of the building which is where most of the other shows that use that facility put it um and we'll we'll see how it works i i think it's really going to be a very open room uh i mean i'm super excited our wormhole booth is going to be like right at the new entryway really and actually you're at the special entryway okay okay for those people that brought games that are collectors and for our exhibitors that have a booth uh we have a exhibitor collector entry only that's the one closest to the hotel and right by where the tournaments are and where where you guys are going to have your booth. Well, we're real excited about that. We can officially announce it. I was just telling Robert, we're bringing five games to TPF. We've got a Bally Kiss, German Kiss, that's going to be in the Wizards Tournament. And then right next to our booth will be a Cosmic Princess from Allied Leisure, the Australian Subsidies of Stern and Andromeda. And then in our booth will be a trailer, which is a 85 Playmatic, Playmatic, and then Future Queen, which will be in the booth, which is a bell game. Okay. Pretty good stuff there. With TBF, everyone's excited to see some of the newer pins. Can you guys list a few of the great pins that are going to be there from all the great manufacturers? Robert, I'll let you go with that. Well, Elton John, obviously. That's probably one of the newest ones that's been announced, and Jaws from stern those are the two main uh main ones and then spooky's bringing um what the texas chainsaw massacre and the looney tunes i believe and then um trying to think if there's anyone else that's i think no barrels is going to bring a labyrinth uh and then uh you've got multi-morphic princess bride i'm assuming that's playable it should be at the show um nothing from pinball brothers i think and nothing from haggis well there are going to be a couple of there there will be a few aliens there from pinball brothers and people right but nothing new there's nothing brand new and the only the only unknown is american pinball right well we heard there's going to be making a big announcement there in the in the room so we'll look forward to that and you can look at the schedule to see when that's going to be on uh you also have a ton of exhibitors from the from the the game preserve to the history of the pinball booth. I mean, it really is something for every single pinball enthusiast there, isn't there? And I thought, I actually enjoy a lot of the, a lot of the older EM games. Okay. And Bob Herb is one of our original organizers I mean he specializes in those and Ken Head does as well and restores a lot of those And you know I would guess they probably have a you know a half dozen to a dozen of those in their booth. I'm bringing a couple of older EMS. I don't know if it's like, I'm not as good with the three level flashy light games, but you know, there's a lot of the older games I find great enjoyment out of. So I'm always happy to see those. yeah it's always fun to have some off non-pinball necessarily or just maybe pinball adjacent booths we've got a comic book vendor we've got the doom chocolate which everyone seems to love every year every year that place sells out my son cannot uh get get to inside the room to whatever the vendor is that has the plush for like sonic the hedgehog or anything video game related he always seems to get something out of there every year. And so it's nice to have those kind of booths as well, besides just the people who bring parts and other playfield-type accessories. Let's do a quick shift to the tournaments. How long has the TPF Classics and Wizard tournaments been going on? Well, this format is, I want to say, 8 to 10 years. You know, the original format, which is when I got involved, and this goes back to what's really great about pinball you know they're used to only be stern and so typically with the fall with the the spring show there was a game that was coming out that year and we'd get like eight of them and they would all be you know right at the front where the registration was recently and that was the only game of the tournament and you just went up you got x number of plays and once you were done with that you could buy tickets to get more plays but it was that one game it could be uh mustang it could be whatever it was that year well now with so many different vendors coming out with new new games we've split that into classics modern um different eras and so the wizards turn up being the one that pays out the most 160 players get to play in that and uh it sells out in like about 10 minutes we let everyone know ahead of time when it goes live and we sit there and watch it and it sells out somewhere about 10 to 12 minutes every year the classics has like 240 people to it and it sells out after about a month and a half and then we've got the women's tournaments on sundays um but it's uh when ifpa came around and they kind of restructured the way that you should run a tournament to not just be one machine, unlimited plays. It becomes more of a challenge to say, I've got only 20 plays and there's 10 machines up there. Which machines am I going to try and increase my score on and get the best total points to qualify into the finals? And so the tournament's really changed once that structure came in place. I'm real proud to be your partner. Wormhole Pinball is proud to stream the tpf uh wizards classics and women's tournaments this will be our third year in a row for doing it give a quick shout out to elizabeth johnny and dick curtis for running those because that's a lot a lot of work uh kevin kevin stone will be there this year helping out since colin is not going to be able to be there and uh ken kemp in whatever capacity he can he's going to be helping out as well let's uh go to awards and prizes lots of awards from best antique to best newcomer and then you have your grand champion. When did you guys start? Did you start doing awards right in the beginning? I'm trying to remember if we did machine awards that first year, you know, if it wasn't the first year, it's certainly by the second we had started doing that. And the reason that I remember that is because we would have to do the judging. Okay. The organizers and there were, there were nine of us at the time and we'd all run around and it's, it's, it's a deceptively difficult job. Okay. Because it's like, oh, I know I saw this great barricora, but you know, it, it, it, it had a, uh, the wrong bumper pop bumper caps on it. And then it's like, oh, no, it didn't. And then you go for five minutes and figure out you're talking about two different barricoras. So, you know, it's like, and you're doing that at, at, at, at four in the morning on Sunday, you know, so you can get the awards all together. So I do remember doing that. And I was I was so delighted when we got to a group of guys that were like, you know, we restore games all year long and we really would like to give back to the community and do the judging. And, you know, so, you know, Rich Whiskey and, you know, we've added Michael Lube that pulls together the whole PowerPoint and everything. And, you know, Bill Morrison, Keith Holbrook and Scott Martin are our judging team. And this year they even have special TPF shirts that say judge on them. So you might see them walking around at various times doing the judging, but it's something they spend all weekend on. Well, the prizes are up to $150 per plus plaque ribbon per category for the winner 50 and a ribbon for runner ups. And the grand champion is going to get 300 and a beautiful plaque. So exciting stuff. In addition, one heck of a raffle you guys are doing. You want to talk about that for a minute? That was just the most amazing stroke of luck. I don't know if you noticed, but to me, it's over this shoulder on the wall right up there is what was the origination of our theme this year. And I met Bubba Flint, the artist. I walked into a thing called the Artist Collective back in 2016, which was an art shop down in the Bishop Arts area in Dallas. And I walked in and I saw a couple of pieces of art there and I knew Ted that ran the place and I go oh my God that the first artist you had that I could sell his stuff at the Texas Pinball Festival People would love that And so you know Bubba and I met for lunch and I was like you got to try this He like man, I've never done anything like this. I do like, you know, magazine ads and stuff, but you guys sound like a good group of guys. And I collect old Volkswagen. So, so it sounds like it'll work. And so that was the first piece of artwork that I got from him and I hung it on my wall. And over the last couple of years, people, when we were doing phone calls, they'd notice that piece of art and they'd go, that's really cool. What is that? And I started thinking, you know, this is the 20th year and nothing really defines pinball better than the idea of the national anthem we all know in our head when we walk into a show, this pinball wizard, you know? So I was like, okay, what can we do with that? How do we make it 20th? Well, I like glasses, so we'll turn the glasses into a 20. And I just threw it at Bubba, and he did it. And Bubba and Robert Blakeman Dumsnall, they work together a lot on different pieces of art. Robert Blakeman helps us every year with all of our graphics. Robert Blakeman's amazing. Does a phenomenal amount of work, okay? Yeah, he's done our logo. He's done everything. Oh, gosh, yeah. He's all over the place. And so, so anyway, so Bubba did the artwork and then he was like, let me, I really want to frame that. So let me do something. And he kind of came up with the art deco frame for it. And, you know, so that's how we got to kind of an Elton John theme. And then all of a sudden, you know, Jersey Jack announced that game and I called Jack and I said, Jack, dude, you got, you got to help us out here. How can we make this the charity, you know, machine? And, you know, we, we, we worked it out. I mean, he was very supportive, and I'm very excited to have that game on the floor and looking forward to playing it. I can't wait to play it. I can't wait to play it. And the proceeds are going to the National Video Game Museum. National Video Game Museum right there in Frisco. We're kind of good, consistent partners with them. It's a very synergistic relationship. And, you know, if you want to go over and visit, well, I lost my wristband from last year. I had one here on the desk. The dog ate it. But but anyway, you know, you just take your wristband and go jump on the band on Saturday on that little North overhang. Sorry for the interruption there. And and right over and you get into the National Video Game Museum for half price. Well, that's that's awesome. And that goes for a great cause. Thank you guys for running this. And I will be buying a bunch of those tickets because I want that out in John. So can we talk about Pan Heffern and all she's done with seminars? because I'm really absolutely I'm an iranian yeah no no we're we you know we had this concept a couple of years ago that goes back to kind of our origins which was you know at that first show I learned a lot from uh Chris Munson on how to paint a cabinet okay and so you know over the years you know with the twippies and everything else that we we kind of put in we kind of got away from some of the maker topics. So this year we decided to bring those back. You know, I may have mentioned it, Modo and I were talking and she had had the same idea. And so between her and Pam, we just rallied and put together, you know, a half dozen topics or more that are all related to kind of how to's on pinball. And so that's how that came up. And I've been so happy with all of the work that, you know, Pam has put into kind of coordinating that this year. And I think we've got a pretty full schedule put together. Yeah, I saw the schedule. It looked pretty darn full. You know, I'm pretty excited to try to squeeze in some of the, you know, a few of the behind the game series too. Those look really fun. It's been, it's been really interesting that, you know, I guess typically a male dominated hobby where the collectors and what generally are male, but a lot of the spouses of the pinball collectors have helped out in tpf i mean if you look at kim vanderveen you know the former uh person i i helped the longest time she got in the hobby because of ed and she made a huge impact on the tpf and pam's the same way you know with her husband scott uh always coming to the show as much as we'd like to think that everyone would love to sit there and play pinball for 72 straight hours uh some women don't want to necessarily do that and so uh the fact that there are other things for them to do and she wanted to get involved and we basically looked at her skill set and said you'd be perfect in our seminar room and um it's it's amazing the work that they do uh all the live streams and all the content that not only is there live but then we can cut it down and we can put it on youtube for everyone to watch after the fact and it comes out so professionally um you know even watching it on on uh on youtube it still comes across great You can hear everything, the graphics, everything. The video looks fantastic. And her and the Barnett's really turn out a great product. Well, congratulations to her. And I can't wait to go into the seminar room more. And you got American Pinball. They got a secret sauce thing they're going to announce. So we'll see what that's all about. Let's switch gears to how crazy the day is of moving on the 14th. I wanted to spend a minute on it because for those that are listening that are bringing a game or booth, they really need to go to textpinball.com and click the exhibitor collector setup instructions. People that don't pay attention to this and bring games through the glass, they've got to drive you crazy. Yeah, we don't need any broken glass. We don't need a bill for fixing that and getting someone out for that. There plenty of room to bring the machines in from the double doors where you can bring in your trucks and stuff to the side doors that are metal the loading dock There a lot of spaces you can bring your machines through that don have glass and won't cause breakage. And as long as everyone is orderly and patient, last year we had 420 or so machines come through and 80% of them arrived on Thursday is by far the fullest show we had by Thursday night. And we got it all in about a 12 hour shift. And so it's doable as long as everyone is respectful and get in, get out. We've got a great crew of people that are there in the back to help coordinate that. And the way we stage it to where we're not expecting you to just get it off the truck and move it to your booth and set it up and then go get something else. You get everything off your truck, you put it over here on the side, and then you go move your truck so somebody else can put theirs in a different spot. And then you pick up your stuff and take it to your space. And that basically just gets it flowing through so much quicker. If we all just follow those simple directions, Thursday and Sunday afternoon will be so much smoother. You know what I've never figured out? It takes us a day, day and a half to move everything in. It takes us about five, six hours to move everything out, except for those last couple of things. But for the most part, move out goes pretty quick. People are ready to get out of there and get home. They are. What else? I thought I've gone through everything. It's a beautiful Friday afternoon. I don't want to take any more of your guys' time. Is there anything else that we didn't talk about, TPF, that you wanted to talk about right now? Well, I can say, you know, last year, one of the criticisms of the show, and I think a lot of us saw it, was it was really crowded. I remember walking into that hall Saturday at three o'clock and thinking, oh, my goodness, this is is enormous. and I think you know some of the biggest criticisms were you know I shouldn't have to wait an hour to play Pulp Fiction or Scooby-Doo or Galactic Tank Force you know the machines of the of the show last year and I think that's a tribute to the hobby you know in the past like I said when there was only one new machine and then we had 10 of them or 15 of them you could come play that one game and maybe you'd wait 10 minutes in line and then you'd move off and play all the games that been around forever but now we have eight games sometimes and you want to play them all and in order to play them all they can't bring 10 of each they're you know last year we had four pulp fictions right and so it's just a matter of supply and demand luckily with the new layout hopefully the uh the spacing between the hot games is going to be enough that there's going to be more more room for people to queue and uh and more time for people to play those games we've got more games in the hall than we've ever had and so um it should be as large of a show but not as crowded in the inside i don't think and and yeah a lot of our minimum mile is like 8.6 feet i know i don't know it'd be real exciting for some people but no but it's fascinating please go into it yeah yeah we we have we have several of those that are kind of still set up at that that minimum but you know eight eight feet's pretty pretty good for getting by two people playing on a game but there's there's several aisles that I tried to get set up you know like near barrels of fun where it's you know I'm expecting a crowd there so you know we've got like 10 feet on one side 12 feet on the other gives you a little more space around it and I tried to do that in several places plus we're really trying to make full use of the lobby so you know we'll we'll see how that works out this year and you know there's gonna be a few few little different things out there and We'll see how that plays. I'm excited to be in the lobby to promote what we're doing here in Houston. And just to have a really cool play out. We're going to put some big TVs up, gents, and we're going to stream the tournament there. So we'll have some TVs and people can walk by and see what's happening in the tournament room upstairs. So that should be kind of neat. Well, gentlemen, look, I've taken enough of your time. I really appreciate you both. we have less than two weeks away to one of the biggest pinball events in the world so i'm so excited i know all of your hard work is going to pay off for amazing tpf 2024 for ticket information please visit texaspinball.com and information on the wormhole uh you could just go to wormhole pinball.com gents i'll see you both in two weeks thank you so much for doing this and thank you very much stop by our booth and say hi to christine hood and my wife janine birchall they're going to be working the hell out of that booth. So please stop by and say hi to them if you would. We will do that. Robert, say one last thing about volunteers because we need more volunteers. We need more help, don't we? Yeah, the show really relies on a lot of help from people that come give up their time. We've got five or six different areas of need. We need help with backdoor, load in, load out, work in the registration booth, the gift shop booth, just general help watching doors. And so we really need people to get online, go to our texaspinball.com website. There's a post there that shows all the different volunteer links that you can go to on SignUpGenius and just grab a shift. Every shift will get you a $15 credit towards whatever you want. It can be money to spend at the food trucks, or it could be towards merchandise like a shirt or a challenge coin. But every two hours gets you $15 of credit towards something. And we really rely on all the help that people give. And so just get there and sign up and take a shift. Robert, thank you. Well said. Gents, I'll see you both in two weeks. You bet. Thanks, guys.