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#78 Pinbrewfest 2022 - The Classic Pinball Podcast

The Classic Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 0m·analyzed·Mar 1, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.027

TL;DR

PinBrewFest 2022 details: April 7-9 in Girard, OH; 100+ machines, 6 breweries, tournaments, no COVID restrictions.

Summary

Keith Campanelli discusses PinBrewFest 2022, a three-day pinball and beer festival in Girard, Ohio (April 7-9) featuring 100+ machines, six local breweries, food trucks, tournaments, and vendor exhibits. The event operates under normal pre-COVID conditions without restrictions. Keith details logistics including beer sales (proceeds to local charity), food options, hard top showcases, judging procedures, and tournament format (match play with A/B divisions).

Key Claims

  • PinBrewFest was the first pinball show pulled off since the pandemic

    high confidence · Keith Campanelli claims they were first post-pandemic show; stated as factual assertion

  • First PinBrewFest consumed 700+ gallons of beer (20+ barrels)

    high confidence · Keith states from memory; specific quantifiable metric

  • Event will have 100+ pinball machines across 30,000 sq ft venue

    high confidence · Keith states directly; confirmed from first year experience

  • All beer pours are $5 per full pint

    high confidence · Keith states as confirmed pricing structure

  • Beer sales profits donated to charity (Project MKC this year, Ulster Project last year)

    high confidence · Keith explains 501(c) structure; confirmed for both years

  • Outside Edge hard tops cost approximately $350

    high confidence · Keith provides specific price point from his knowledge of the product

  • Outside Edge has ~17 hard top titles available

    medium confidence · Keith states from recollection; approximate number

  • Tournament format is match play with 5 matches, scoring 7-5-3-0

    high confidence · George confirms reading from official tournament website; Keith validates

  • PinBrewFest receives pre-ticket sales from Maryland, New Jersey, Arizona, and surrounding multi-state region

    high confidence · Keith references email inquiries and VIP ticket sales data

Notable Quotes

  • “We claim, and I don't think anybody can beat us on it, that we were the first to go out there and say, we're going to pull the trigger and have a show.”

    Keith Campanelli @ ~01:30 — Establishes PinBrewFest's claim as first post-pandemic pinball show; key differentiator

  • “Attendees can expect a normal pre-COVID show. There's no social distancing. There's no requirements for masks or anything along that line.”

    Keith Campanelli @ ~06:00 — Clarifies policy shift from 2021 to 2022; important for attendance planning

  • “Every beer, their full pint pours are five bucks.”

    Keith Campanelli @ ~14:30 — Confirms competitive pricing for craft brewery partnerships

  • “You can take their beer outside and they can sit out there for the ones that want to just sit and enjoy the sunshine or the fear smoker. You can just bring the beer in and walk around anywhere.”

    Keith Campanelli @ ~23:00 — Describes unique venue layout permitting beer throughout facility; differentiator vs other shows

  • “It's a 030 plastic with the artwork of the play field... you sand it, clear the inserts, and you lay this down. It's never touching the artwork and it has a scratch resistant coating on the top.”

    Keith Campanelli @ ~31:30 — Technical explanation of hard top product; demonstrates expertise and innovation in restoration

  • “I'm hoping that things will start lightening up, we still have another six weeks but you just don't know.”

    Keith Campanelli @ ~48:00 — Reflects uncertainty about Canada border travel restrictions affecting cross-border attendance

  • “I originally thought this was more of a just a local show. But I call it local. You know, we're hitting Buffalo, we're hitting Pittsburgh, we're hitting Cleveland and Cincinnati and Columbus.”

    Keith Campanelli @ ~65:00 — Shows event is attracting wider regional attendance than initially expected

Entities

Keith CampanellipersonGeorgepersonDavepersonPinBrewFest 2022eventThe MetroplexvenueBirdFish Brew CompanycompanyMarvinpersonTommy BeasleypersonJohn TonsichpersonMark SalaspersonOutside Edgecompany

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: PinBrewFest 2022 confirmed for April 7-9 in Girard, Ohio; 30,000 sq ft venue with 100+ machines, no COVID restrictions

    high · Keith directly confirms dates, location, venue size, machine count, and policy changes from prior year

  • ?

    event_signal: Cointaker, Tilt Amusements, and Chicago Gaming confirmed bringing machines; Outside Edge showcasing hard tops

    high · Keith names specific vendors and their planned contributions

  • ?

    community_signal: Event attracting multi-state pre-sales (Maryland, New Jersey, Arizona) beyond expected local/regional scope

    high · Keith references VIP pre-ticket sales data showing geographic diversity of buyers

  • ?

    product_strategy: PinGulp commemorative cups ($10 deposit, returnable) with year dating; collectors collect as series across years

    high · Keith explains cup program design and collector incentive model

  • ?

    design_innovation: Outside Edge hard tops (0.30 plastic with underside artwork, scratch-resistant coating) at ~$350; ~17 titles available; discussion of major manufacturer (Stern, JJP) potential adoption

    high · Keith provides technical specs, pricing, catalog size; mentions manufacturer conversations about switching from painting/clear coat to hard top approach

  • ?

    community_signal: PinBrewFest 2022 adds specialized roles (Marketing Director, Awards/Trophy Coordinator, Judging Crew) to decentralize responsibility and reduce founder burnout

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.182

0:00
I like beer because it is good. I drink beer because I should. If there was a song to sing, I'd sing it and beer you'd break. I drink beer when I am sad, because the beer, it makes me glad. Now there's nothing left to say, so let's go drink beer. Beer is good! Beer is good! Beer is good! Let's go drink some beer!
0:33
Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! Hello and welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George and I'm joined by my co-host Dave. Hello Dave. Hello George. and back for a second time keith campanelli from pin brew fest welcome keith hi guys thanks for having me back great to have you back keith keith i'm gonna let you run with it for a minute or two give the audience a brief overview of what pin brew fest is where it's located the dates and we'll get into more specifics. I got a whole load of questions from the last time we spoke. Okay, great. Well, so this is the, we'll call it round two. We actually successfully pulled off the first pinball show since the pandemic. We claim, and I don't think anybody can beat us on it, that we were the first to go out there and say, we're going to pull the trigger and have a show. So we had one last year. It went very well, considering vaccines were just coming out and people were still a little gun shy, but it went well enough. We decided, heck, we're doing it again. So Pin Brew Fest is three days in April. This year, it's the 7th, 8th and 9th. It is a pinball show slash festival. So anybody coming out to Northeast Ohio where the show is at in Girard, Ohio, We are at the Metroplex. We have 30,000 square feet. We'll have well over 100 pinball machines, some arcades. We will have vendors. We will have the different, gosh, I'm drawing a mind blank, competitive. of uh they're going to be doing their tournaments um out there uh we have food we'll have food trucks out there we'll have food people inside the building also everything from barbecue to pierogies to pizzas and um not to mention there'll be a few beers there a few b okay i'm gonna i'm gonna stop you there that's a good intro okay you already took one of my first questions and i'll let Dave jump in in a sec. You've got the entire Expo Center again. I believe you did that last year as well, correct? We do. Last year, originally, we were supposed to only do 15,000 square feet. And with social distancing and everything that was involved, they were kind enough to give us the entire Metroplex, which was 30,000 square feet. And we were able to spread the machines out. So you had social distancing and all the things that the state of Ohio required at the time. Well, the good news is it worked out great.
Bikers Brew House
company
Noble Creaturecompany
Modern Methodscompany
Missing Fallscompany
Madcapcompany
Project MKCorganization
The Ulster Projectorganization
Cointakercompany
Tilt Amusementscompany
Chicago Gamingcompany
Rilla Pinballperson

high · Keith names John Tonsich (marketing), Mark Salas (trophies/awards), describes three-person judging crew separate from organizers

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: Beer sales structured through 501(c) nonprofit partnership (Project MKC 2022, Ulster Project 2021); proceeds to charity after venue/expense costs

    high · Keith explains Ohio state requirements and charity structure explicitly

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Match play format (A/B divisions, 5 matches, 7-5-3-0 scoring) designed for accessibility vs. card/timed formats; head-to-head scoring provides instant feedback

    high · George confirms details from official website; Keith/George/Dave discuss format philosophy and player psychology

  • ?

    venue_signal: Metroplex layout broken into distinct zones (dance floor/dining area, game areas, outdoor courtyard) with beer circulation permitted throughout and table seating integrated

    high · Keith describes layout structure; hosts reference photos; emphasis on machine spacing and congregation areas

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: Canadian border restrictions delaying game imports (Keith's friend holding Joust in garage); six-week uncertainty as of February 22, 2022 taping

    medium · Keith discusses ongoing attempt to retrieve Canadian-held game; testing and entry anxiety cited as barriers

    • 3:49
    The bad news is they're not giving it to us for free this time. We had to pay for the extra, but we knew there was no going back. We had plenty of space. Everybody loved the venue. I had a ton of compliments on how the place was laid out. we were laid out a little different than other shows because it breaks into different areas. There's the dance floor area. That's in the building is, is where everybody eats. And then you go into this other level area where there's, we just mixed everything up. It's, it's, it's not a conventional layout and a lot of people said they really, really liked it. So. Well, for those, for those who are interested, Keith, go out onto Pinside and look at the pictures. it was very I thought it was well laid out given the number of machines you had you know all the things that were in place but let's let's get rid of the elephant in the room and I'll let Dave comment on this Dave and I have been to two pinball shows since we last spoke to you last spring we went to the Allentown show in Pennsylvania and most recently we went to the show in Massachusetts. Both of those had no requirements whatsoever. So I'll ask you, has that changed for this year? And what, as we stand today on the 22nd of February, what can attendees expect? Attendees can expect a normal pre-COVID show. Yee-haw! But you can do what you want, but there are no restrictions. There's no social distancing. There's no requirements for masks or anything along that line. So it is a pinball show like a pinball show should be. That's great news. Awesome.
    6:12
    Dave, I'm going to let you jump in here. Ask a question. I don't want to dominate. Yeah, no, no worries. Yeah, because, you know, some of the powers that be in the pinball world are, you know, kind of your papers please kind of thing going on. And I don't know, I'm not so happy with that precedent that's being with some places. And I know that the pinball shows we've gone to haven't had any of that. And I'm glad yours is kind of, you know, going to pre COVID stuff. And if people, like you said, want to wear stuff, Hey, go ahead and knock yourself out. But I'm glad you're going with a, you know, you know, the way it should be, you know, back to normal kind of situation. So that's great news.
    6:53
    Yeah, we're pretty excited. Ohio's been pretty good about, you know, easing their restrictions. We've we've had a lot of them have gone away a long time ago and now it's just to people's comfort level. So it's it's nice to be getting back to normal.
    7:10
    Let's get into the good stuff. All right. We all we all know that you're going to have pinball there and we'll talk about that in a minute. But let's let's go down the beer road for a minute. I had a feeling you were going right there. You said, let's go to the good stuff. We all love pinball, but hey, beer?
    7:27
    If you noticed the last time we did this a year ago, there was feature-rich pinball or feature-rich beer songs and beer references. So I want to keep going in that regard or vein. So last year, I believe you said you had five different breweries. Now, I'm probably going to botch the one. Bird Dog, Birdland, Bird something. Birdfish. It's one of the beer companies. What bird is it? It is birdfish. It is basically a penguin. So Birdfish Brew Company is out of Columbiana.
    8:08
    They're kind of the guys that helped me the most to make this happen. I met them years ago and do coin op at their place. I have pinball machines down there, and they were kind of the ones that held my hand through the first year. How many cups do you order? How much beer should I expect? What do we order from who? So they're just a great bunch of guys who make some fantastic beers.
    8:33
    So they are one of the ones joining us. I am bringing back all. There were six last year. I'm bringing all six breweries back. talked it over with my partner and we decided we're not adding any more this year because we feel we had enough and one of the things we realized with these guys they're all close enough in relativity that everybody brought two flavors of beer so we had 12 different beers on tap well this year we're probably going to have more like 18 to 20 because some of them are going to be bringing a couple different things we're going to put new stuff on tap one day here maybe birdfish one day is going to bring out a barrel aged porter or something along that line. We're going to mix it up a little bit, but we just didn't feel the need to add more breweries at this time because we can adequately distribute as much or sell as much beer and keep people happy. I believe, and I hope I'm not going to misquote, but we added last year, I think we went through 700 gallons of beer last year. that's a pretty good feat and that's a party that's that's uh over 20 barrels of beer yes that's that's a lot um can you uh can you from memory tell us uh for those who are around the country and around the globe who those six brewers are yeah so we have birdfish out of columbiana we have bikers brew house which is out of austin town um we have noble creature out of youngstown modern methods out of warren missing falls is in the canton akron area and madcap which is out of kent it's missing balls or missing falls waterfall missing falls oh geez missing Balls, George. Missing Balls. I thought that was pretty good for a pinball show. Never mind. Oh, boy. Yeah, you know me, Dave. I know.
    10:40
    I'd butcher names. We'll go through that at the end of the show. I've done quite a few mistakes in the last couple weeks. But anyway, that's for later.
    10:49
    Dave, any questions about the beer breweries? Yeah, so are all the beers the same price? What do people expect to pay for a beer there for a nice, that kind of thing? That's the nice thing. Every beer, their full pint pours are five bucks. That's a deal. Wow. That's a great deal, actually. I have a question around the micro brews versus what I would call the mega beer companies. Is there a distinction in the type of license that you need to obtain in order to sell beer at the Expo Center?
    11:32
    Yes, for us, it's based off of each state's ruling. And here in Ohio, for us to sell beer, basically, we are tied in with a 501c. So we find a charity that we're going to donate the profits of the beer sales to. so technically we don't make any money on the beer that all that money is going to outside of paying the expenses of the hall and things like that but what's left goes to whoever we choose for our charity last year the first year we did um uh we did the ulster project which would dealt with kids from northern ireland this year we're really proud of the fact we have Project MKC, which is a local charity out here in Northeast Ohio. They're in, I think, six to eight counties, and they basically help moms with little babies. More or less, the biggest thing they do is they raise money and get diapers to these little kids and food to these kids. And it's a children's charity, which is kind of up my alley because I work in pediatrics on my day job.
    12:42
    So we're just excited that they jumped in and said, we'd love to do it with you this year. Nice charity. That's great. You're drinking beer and you're helping kids all at once. I'm good at that.
    12:56
    That's a win-win. Excuse me. Yes. Let's talk about the food trucks. You mentioned quite a few different food varieties.
    13:09
    can you tell us the number of food trucks? Are there some new additions? Are there some subtractions from last year? What was well received? What wasn't? You know, kind of go through what people should expect when it comes to the food situation. Well, the food is going to be very similar to last year, also just because it was very successful. And the comments we had from the people that came to the show was the variety was really awesome. basically on Thursday there's food inside with the one Bob chose she does homemade pierogies and things along that line and so she's inside and then outside on Thursday we have one of our food trucks our Amita Kachinas is doing these killer sandwiches the the godfather chicken sandwiches stuffed peppers things along that line and then Friday and Saturday we're bringing in an additional vehicle on each side. So there's going to be three options right there. You can either have the pierogies, you can have the barbecue, or you can have the chicken sandwiches, the stuffed peppers. We do have one change up this year. We're still working on our one pizza lady will not make it because Fridays are kind of tough with high school football. And so we're filling in that spot and we're looking at, we have quite a few to choose from. Luckily the guys at the breweries have all these food truck people available and we're trying to decide who we want to get in there for something new okay okay so you got all the food groups uh nailed um the one thing that i thought was unique to your show uh and i'd like you to expand on it a little bit not only can you drink beer but you can walk around and drink beer at this show correct correct correct so we have the entire Metroplex and the outside courtyard area which the food trucks are up against the fence too So people can take their beer outside and they can sit out there for the ones that want to just sit and enjoy the sunshine or the fear smoker. You can, you have that area. And then you can just bring the beer in and walk around anywhere. Talk to the vendors with the, with maybe a nice IPA or depending on what you want to porter or anything along that line. Yeah. anywhere in the place and we have our signs up telling everybody, you know, enjoy the beer, but keep it off the pinball machines. And we have cup holders for people and yeah. So it's, that's what I wanted to ask. How do you prevent that? Are you going to have, you know, tables nearby where people can keep the suds away from the pinballs? You know, how's that going to work? Because I, you know, certainly people would be concerned to have people, you know, with beer around a pinball machine. And that was my biggest concern last year outside of, you know, keeping everybody safe, obviously. But when I looked at the logistics of I personally bring in over 20 of my nice games, I don't want people setting beer on them. So what we do is we actually offer pin gulps to anybody bringing a game in. We basically have a commemorative cup and we charge them ten dollars for the cup. and when they bring the cup back, they get their $10 back. Or if they want to keep it, it's dated. It says pin group and a year on it. And people will collect those as the years go by, different pin gulps to put on their machines. And the way that's laid out at this, in the Metroplex, there's plenty of table seating around. And the way we broke up the machines, like you said, if you go to the photos, things are, they're broken up in such a way. There's a lot of places just to congregate and set your beer down underneath if there's not a pin gulp. But everybody was really good last year at respecting the machines, which made me very happy.
    17:14
    George is requesting he wants to do a keg stand this year at the show. So will that happen? Absolutely. We'll make anything happen.
    17:23
    Yeah. Nice try. Nice try, Dave. so you mentioned that you're bringing games um the one thing i noticed in the pictures from last year there were you know our sweet spot dave's and mine the bally games that were brought to uh the show there were quite a few what are you bringing and i saw the the list so far uh you got some of the newer games as well can you uh talk a little bit about what people should expect as far as games? I'd say a variety. We do have both Cointaker and Tilt amusements coming, and they're each bringing a slew of new games. Mostly, I think obviously Tilt is going to be bringing Stearns, but Cointaker is going to be bringing some American Pinball. We are truly expecting, I'm thinking we will have some stuff from Chicago Gaming there. We're going to have a lot of the newer games because we know a lot of the people want to play the newer games but we're trying to get that selection of older games also if you look at the list of games being brought so far that's really marvin myself and a couple of friends that's not anybody that's planning on coming those people don't tend to put their games in until last minute so those games that are in that list are mostly the stuff we're bringing i'm going to try to get a few more of my unique stuff together. I picked up a Centaur. I'll probably bring that if I can get my Stargazer going. I'll bring that. I have a Cosmic Gunfight. I want to bring some of the unique stuff also, but we do have a bunch of guys this year going to be starting to bring EMs, so there'll be some really nice EMs there. We have a couple collectors locally that are coming this year. so it's just good i would say like most other shows you're going to have just a slew of different things out there i figured you would ask this oh this question oh oh yeah yeah okay so best in play best in show oh yeah so one of the nice things this year is i've realized try not to do it all yourself and i had a bunch of people that have offered to help and we've added a marketing director this year. John Tonsich is our marketing director, and Mark Salas is in charge of all the trophies and awards we're doing. He's compiling the list. It's very similar to last year, best of show, best modern, best EM, things along that line, and he's setting up a judging crew of three that doesn't involve myself or Marvin. We're trying to spread it out a little bit it's made it a little easier for us to focus on the things we need to focus on and knowing other people are taking care of the things that need taking care of somebody needs to order the trophies and last year we were running around it was my first year i was running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to make sure this was lined up and that was lined up and luckily i have enough great people out there that want to see the show successful and they're jumping in and we're adding them in as part of our crew so there will be the awards bit there also be the awards for all the tournaments. I'm not sure, honestly.
    20:39
    Tommy Beasley's doing the tournaments. I don't know if it's cash prizes this year or just trophies. I read through your tournament section. We'll get to that in a second. So I think I have. I knew that you weren't responsible for that last year, so I went out and did my own research and said, you know, maybe I should talk a little bit about it. That was the nice thing, that we have different people doing different things, which is making the show a little easier for us to do. And each year we're looking at adding new ideas. I have a couple I'd love to share with you, but I unfortunately, until I get it signed on a dotted line, we're trying to do a couple new unique things that they don't do at other shows. Last year, we had the Hard Top Homecoming there. I think we're going to mix that up a little bit, but I do a lot of work with the guys at Outside Edge. I've prototyped about 60% of their hard tops for them. We're good friends. They're coming in, they're setting up, and we're going to have a hard top row again. I'm going to ask you to stop for a second, Keith, and explain to some of our audience what a hard top is again. Hard top is basically a, it's a, people try to call it an overlay, but it's not. It's an 030 plastic with the artwork of the play field. So you'll take a blown out play field on a game and you'll purchase this hard top for around $350.
    22:08
    And you basically just take everything off the top of the play field. You sand it, clear the inserts, and you lay this down. and it is a thick, for lack of a better word, they're going to yell at me, but it's a plastic with the artwork is on the underside. So you're never touching the artwork and it has a scratch resistant coating on the top. So you're taking these old games like High Speed and Pinbot and for $350, you can make these things look amazing and they play fast and they hold up really well. And he's very successful. I believe he has like 17 titles out now. And in fact, they're so nice that there was talk in the industry, I don't know if they're going to do it or not, going that way at some point, like Stern and Jersey Jack and whatever, instead of going the route they're going with the painting and clear coating is just do hard topping. because it's that nice. It does look really nice on there. It's way better than the overlays of years ago, which just they were kind of piss poor, as I'm concerned. But I've seen the hard top stuff. It looks pretty close to a new old stock play field. Yeah.
    23:23
    And I know they've had conversations with some of the people, some of the major manufacturers about that. I don't know where that's at, but I know they've been talking about it. You are correct.
    23:36
    Is it similar to what Haggis is doing with their Kelts and their New Fathom? Is the process or the product similar to that? Because I've never seen a Kelt, so I can't comment. I'm not sure what they're doing, to be honest with you. I know that they had somebody banging on a hammer, banging on a play field or something, but I never looked in to see what they were doing. So I couldn't even compare if it's the same type of product or not. Yeah, I've never seen one. So, you know, there's so few of them. The only place to probably see one is at a show, hopefully at some point. I want to go back to the best in show or best in play. I happened to be watching a Twitch broadcast, I don't know, a couple weeks ago. And I think this person won the best solid state pinball at your show.
    24:35
    Rilla Pinball, do you know who this is? What was the name again? Rilla, like gorilla, R-I-L-L-A. I guess he had a Marilyn Monroe play field and back glass for some game, and it won the best solid state. I had never seen the game before, so I just scratched some notes in my notebook, and that's all I got. So either you're familiar with it or you're not. I do remember it. Yeah, it was very unique to what he had done to it. What game was it based on? Do you know?
    25:13
    I can go back to my photos maybe and think, but no, it all happened so fast. Okay, that's okay. We'll save it for another show. I'll do some research.
    25:24
    That's one of the things that's nice about having other people do stuff now too. As much as I want to judge everybody's games and be part of that, I like separating that out and giving it to someone. that there's no, we don't have to be bothered with that piece of it. It just seems a little more easy to get through because it's tough. All these people are bringing games and you're hoping everybody, you're judging everything properly. And that was one of the things that was difficult to get my partner together and find time to go around and do all of that on top of everything else we had going on. So I'm glad that it's going to be a little more focused upon this year. Dave knows all about that, don't you, Dave? I sure do, George. it's like herding cats it is yeah um yeah not anything i'd ever be interested in doing um you did mention in the last show and i'm wondering if it ever made it across the border did you ever get your game from canada still there oh wow wow right what was it a joust was that Yep, it's still sitting at my friend in his garage.
    26:36
    And he talked about possibly coming down to the show, depending if they lift restrictions in Canada, and he was going to bring it down. So it will not be there for this year.
    26:49
    It'll definitely be there for next year. If I have to fly across the border in a glider, I'm going to get it. but things just become a bootlegger and bring it across the water, you know, in the, in the middle of the night. I mean, it is just, I know just, uh, just get it trucked down. Right. Oh, wait a minute.
    27:12
    Yeah. Let's open up that can. Oh gosh. Yeah. I reached out a couple of times over the year. I reached out to a couple of buddies in Buffalo and then reached out to him and the person that has the game has been just so wonderfully holding it for me. And he's a good friend to do that. And I appreciate it. But last I talked to him, he had said, we're just opening up our bars. And I said, you gotta be kidding me. We've been open for a year and you poor guys are locked down tighter than locked in like a tick. So. Well, the tough part is, and I heard this from my wife who just traveled recently. She said it's the anxiety of people coming from other countries and having to take the test, you know, within 24 hours and do the hoop jump in order to get back into the place where you live. And whether it's here in the United States or Canada, that seems to be the biggest rub is that, you know, testing piece that hangs over everybody's head, whether they're going on vacation, business, etc. I don't know if you're expecting anybody from Canada again I don't keep up with all the news from all the different you know crossings but are they able to even travel freely across the border now I see that I don't think they are yet but I know about the anxiety level of that I honestly just got back from vacation we went down to Aruba you had to test to get there you had to test to get home so you can speak to it you tell me How much fun was that trying to get out of the country? It's not bad, but it's brutal anxiety. We plan an entire vacation. And the day before you go, you know, your planes are laid out. Your rooms are laid out. You're packing. And you go test. And if you pop a positive, you're done. So you're not going. And then worse, we were down there. And, you know, after at the end of the vacation, we're ready to come home. We're ready to see our family. And we're with other people. And you test to come home. And if one of you pops a positive, the rest of you get on a plane and you leave this person in another country for five days and they stick you in a house somewhere. And I mean, you're OK, but it's the anxiety is it's terrible. Luckily, it's you know, the United States is big enough and we're not doing that here. But, yeah, I don't know what the guys in Canada would do. We have some really great friends that could make it down to the show. And literally, it's a three hour drive, some three and a half hours to the border. so I'm hoping they'll be able to come I'm hoping that things will start lightening up, we still have another six weeks but you just don't know I think here's a good spot to introduce the tournament, I went out to your website and it was pretty well laid out long and short of it is from what I could see there's an A and a B division it's going to be match play which I thought was great five matches you would play scoring being seven five three zero I believe So that four out of five would be 35 points I'm guessing if you're in either one of the divisions, those who have the highest number, i.e. 35 points or, you know, thereabouts are going to move into the finals on Saturday afternoon.
    30:39
    You say, if anything, Do you have any idea other than what I just said about the tournament? You know more about the tournament.
    30:49
    I happen to like that kind of format where you're playing head-to-head with people and you know instantly whether you've done well or not. The, you know, cards as I call it, you know, you're playing against everybody at the same time and you can spend gobs of money to qualify. Dave and I did a card when we were at the Sturbridge show and I didn't even get to play my last game because time ran out so the timed format in that kind of play I'm not as interested in but you might see me at the show we'll see I do know after you explain some of the things about the tournament that my partner who deals with that end of it Marvin uh he's working with Tommy and they did want to open things up and make it a little more of an even playing field I guess and you said something about you know you spend more money to get higher up and um in in some of these tournaments which I don't personally understand as it's just it's you know not in my wheelhouse but I do remember they were discussing they were trying to make it a little more user-friendly for everyone well you're you're basically playing head to head you know four players on a machine and you know you're playing head to head one two three four and you get points accordingly when you're playing in you know what i call uh you know the card format it's you need to be number one or at the top even to get considered to go in and dave played well enough to make it into uh the final tournament at uh at the starboard show which was nice and you know he could talk a little bit more about that but you know time is finite and there's lines and everything else when there's a match format you know who you're going to play you know when you're going to play and it goes fairly quickly i've played in a couple and and i happen to like that better a little bit more interaction with people the other way it's you're it's you you're standing in line or waiting in a queue to play a pinball machine not quite as social so So that's my take. But, Dave, you say? I kind of liked it. I kind of liked playing myself, just me versus the machine. It got rid of the anxiety of now I'm playing against the machine and the player, at least for the qualification rounds. And I really liked that. I snuck in that last game right, you know, like a minute left, and I got in and got the last game in. So I made the cut.
    33:23
    But as I'm playing, you know, I don't really play many high-end turns, a lot of high-end players. although I'm a decent player, but it's a whole other psychology of playing as well with someone else that you've got to factor in. So when the qualifying runs are kind of easier because it's a little more you in the game, and when you throw in the match play, now you're throwing another piece in there to contend with. So it's interesting. I like it all, but I find it more relaxing when I was just qualifying. I'm assuming there's going to be Whopper points for this particular Tournament Do you have any idea Keith? Nope Let me ask another question How close are you to Chicago?
    34:09
    We're about Six hours Drive Not close but not far either I'm wondering how many High concentration tournament players In Chicago That's why I ask yeah i i that i i don't know i know i've gotten a couple emails from people and i've some people i've had one from he's coming in from arizona he wants to know what time the beer's on saturday so yeah okay hard to say and i know just on some of the pre-ticket sales we've opened up the vip and pre-ticket sales on the website um and some of the addresses i'm getting are maryland New Jersey. So we're getting an influx of people from other states, which surprised me because I originally thought this was more of a just a local show. But I call it local. You know, we're hitting Buffalo, we're hitting Pittsburgh, we're hitting Cleveland and Cincinnati and Columbus. So it's not as local as I imagined. And I'm more for it. I'm happy to have as many people come enjoy the show as they can.
    35:20
    I looked at the pictures of last year's, you know, Bravo. It looks, looks great. I like how all the games laid out. I like the facility look really nice in there. And again, you're, what you're doing this year is the same size. And just refresh my memory from when you said earlier, you're going to have like the same kind of spacing as last time. So everything's kind of like pushed out, And so more room to move around kind of thing. You got to keep that same feel or you're going to add more games in. Well, we know we'll have more games or we're assuming we'll have more games. We had, I think last year there was maybe 115 to 120 pinball machines.
    35:58
    We know we'll hit over the hundred mark again. I got to leave it up to see. We had a lot of people that said they wanted to come last year, but they just were not ready to, you know, go and venture out. So it's hard to say where we'll be this year with that. We can fill and put in more machines. We are keeping the layout very similar to the same. But I know like the rows of pinball machines that are going to be in the main hall, we might tighten those up a little bit to get more in. Sure. But we did like the feel of the other area, which the games were in the round, around the poles. And people like that because you're playing a game and your buddies are around you and they're on the sides of the game. and it's kind of your own little party and you move to the next game. Whereas when you're playing in rows, it's a different feel. You know, you've got two guys on top of each other to see what's going on. So we're trying to keep it that way. Everybody just seemed to enjoy it. It made it just a nice, easy flow to the actual show. But we also have more room this year that we can put them down the hallways if we need to and tighten up the rings a little bit.
    37:07
    Go and see how it goes. This is really last year was a test being that it was in COVID. I didn't even know if we'd survive it, you know, financially. And we came out great. We were happy with the results. And, you know, we can only do better this year. So.
    37:24
    Nice. You guys survived and thrived. Well done. I have to ask the obligatory question, Keith. So you went through your first show a year ago. So what did you learn from that show? And what are you doing differently, if anything, in your approach to this year's show?
    37:47
    Differently? Probably the only thing that's different now is being a little more organized time frame, knowing certain things have to happen sooner. We've already acquired our permit. I did that way ahead. The permit didn't physically show up until two days after the show. and I had to call the state of Ohio and they sent me copy of it to make sure we had something on file that but it was convoluted and it was very frustrating. So certain things we just made sure we got out of the way. I've also I'm trying to be very open to listening to the people that were at the show. Hey, do this, do this. My marketing guy, he's got a million great ideas. I like listening to him say we should try this or we should do this. So we're just adding different features to the show we think that'll make it a little bit better um he told me today he says you know did you see the new uh multimorphic um weird al yankovic um thing that came out um yesterday i think they announced it so he said contact the guy we have somebody showing up that's a distributor for multimorphic and he says contact them and find out is it going to be at the show and i'm thinking of this stuff like well maybe well maybe it's not he says no people want to know and the guy just Tech Mises, most likely we will have that at your show.
    39:06
    If I could make a suggestion with the P3, make sure they bring two of them because they have the one head-to-head game that you can play against an opponent on another machine. They time together. So I played it in Houston with my wife, who was not much of a pinball player, and even she thought it was fun playing interactively against somebody and watching the score go back and forth. So I thought that, you know, the P3 is a unique system, but that's a pretty fun game. I will do that. I'll mention it to him. I do know he was planning on bringing two to three, so maybe he has that same idea, but I will pass that on.
    39:49
    And, yes, I did hear that Al Yankovic has a game, which is kind of strange all in itself, but wait to see what it is. Sounds interesting. Yep. It'll definitely be good.
    40:04
    I'm excited. We're getting close. I think we're, what, six weeks out? That is getting close. Yeah. Wow.
    40:13
    It'll be here before you know it. In fact, I looked into rooms, too, and the rooms look very reasonable price-wise. It's just one hotel, correct, or are there more hotels? Yes. Last year, I had three hotels in there, and we kind of split it up, and we found that the one hotel was very accommodating and really wanted to get our audience. And they reached out and said, we will give you X amount of rooms at this price. And I said, we'll leave you exclusive for now. If we fill up the hotel, we'll go to the second one. They're right across the street. The place is beautiful. Which one is that? It's the Comfort Inn, and it's on the website, and there is a link on the website. under make your plans where you can click on and you can book your room right there.
    41:01
    If you want. How far is that from the expo center? Oh, you could walk. It's across the street. Literally. That's cool. Oh, wow. Okay. Well, walk or stumble.
    41:11
    Hey, you can't answer that question. He's serving out the hall. Don't answer that question. Well, I have to comment though, because the other hotel is literally on the same side of the street, almost the same distance. It's a little bit smaller. We haven't done anything with them. But, you know, for those that are afraid of stumbling across the street, there is the hotel that you can walk to without crossing the road. So, you know, if they're if they're tired, that's all, you know, it's been a long day and it's. Yeah, right. And things like that. Sure. I was I was very happy. I mean, I always had the concern, you know, when you bring beer, alcohol into any type of environment, you always have to be a little concerned. even though we insure everything and you just worry. Everybody was great. Everybody that came last year, we didn't have anybody got out of hand or just made a total fool of themselves. I was just really impressed with the entire pinball community and the beer community, especially the breweries. It's a different group of people. These guys are out there just to have a good time. And it was fantastic to see everybody enjoying themselves and nobody getting hurt. so i know you can get a three days it looks like right three hotel nights yes all right if you want to go for more can you still get the same price if say you want to get there a day early um yes you you can you'd have to call in they did say that they would do that also okay and if anybody uh you know decides to do that and they have an issue just drop me an email and i will get it taken care of. My contact information is on the pinbrewfest.com website, all the way at contact us. So I'm thinking of doing that, since it's going to be driving so far, I'd go like a day early just to kind of chill out and the next day be fresh for the show. Are there any other things to do in that area? I know you don't want to detract from your show, but any other sites or things that people should experience in Girard, Ohio? I don't think so. I think this is going to be the Mecca of where you want to be. If you're traveling from out of state and you want to do something interesting, Cleveland is literally an hour away. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is out there. So you can add that into the trip. I know some people, you know, they want to come to the show, but they'd like to do a little more if they're doing that kind of traveling. That's worth going to. The Football Hall of Fame is in Canton, Ohio, which is less than an hour away also.
    43:42
    And we are literally, Gerard is an hour from Pittsburgh, an hour and 15 minutes from Cleveland. So there's all kinds of neat stuff to do in those cities if you choose to make it a longer stay. If you do a part two of the show in like two months, I could hit Cedar Point, Ohio and hit a couple of roller coasters. Yes, we could do that too. I think they're open by April anyway. No, I just checked their website. Okay. Yeah, it looks like they're like May 7th or early May they're open on weekends. Yeah, just missed it.
    44:19
    Next time. Yep. Dave, do you have any last questions? And I'll offer to Keith, he could either stay or go. I have a list of quick items that I need to go through, retractions, mistakes, etc. So you're more than happy to stay with us if you'd like. If not, we certainly understand. But, Dave, any other last questions for Keith? Yeah, I know you're not deep into the tournament stuff. Your other people that are working with you there. But do you know anything about the tournament you're doing? Are they going to be mostly new Stern stuff kind of thing or a mix of everything? Are you going to have a classics thing? I didn't really quite get all the info on that, on tournament stuff, or if you know that stuff. I know last year it was basically we tried to do more of the games that we had pairs of. If we knew we had two of one game, we had the section where they were competing and they were on the machines and we didn't want to detract from other people. It's, oh, I want to play that game, but it's in the tournament section. So that drove what we used There will be a bunch of the newer stuff I know we have a couple of rush games there a couple of Godzilla and things like that So we want to have some in the tournament for people and we want to have some out for general play. And then Tommy usually comes banging on my door and banging on Marvin's door and saying, okay, what are you giving us for the tournament? We give them a list of games and they usually tell us, well, this is a great tournament game. We'd like to have that one. So I know there's certain games that you guys don't like to play. They're just off balance scoring wise to things like that. So we kind of leave it up to him to see what he wants to put in the tournament. And depending on what we know is coming in, if we have one game and we know somebody is bringing the exact same one, we might offer that up too. So unfortunately that doesn't happen till within days of the show, usually.
    46:17
    So. And you know how many. Figure it out. In the lineup of tournament games, How many games typically in the lineup, the tourney lineup of games? Last year, I want to say they had 10 games in the tournament. Okay. And then they had, we also had the women's tournament. We had another six there. So it might've been 16 and then six were broken off for the women's tournament.
    46:41
    And, you know, some of that is we'll, we'll change up. We have a couple of different ideas of different things we want to do with like little side tournaments and things like that too. So, again, that's probably about the best I can answer. Oh, I'm glad you mentioned that. I want to talk to you about this. You have a, is it called the Brewers Bash? Is that one of the tournaments? Yeah, unfortunately, that did not happen last year. We didn't have enough people that were, unfortunately, all the Brewers got together, and they're all buddies, and they just stayed behind the tent and killed off a good amount of the beer. it was a social call it sounds like something got in the way a couple of beers so that's something down the road i know as we grow the show over the coming years we will expand and add a few more breweries um again this year i just didn't feel the need because we have plenty of beer um we will not run out if we you know kill off another half here a half there they're going to run down to their breweries and grab more for us um so they worked really well so there was no reason for us to take the chance and add 10 breweries and commit to you know 20 kegs of beer and have three or four of them sitting later i can drink beer but i can't drink that much beer so um i'm the reason i asked about the brewer uh tournament is it said if you have two people and you're loosely associated with a brewery um if dave and i happen to go i'm wondering if we had a brewery sponsor us if you would allow us in the tournament that is pretty much the way we were going to direct it i i be very honest i don't think the brewer's tournament is going to happen this year um some of that stuff on the website i need to go back and say yeah that's not where we're still developing a few things and because that one didn't transpire last year we might change that up and realistically yeah having a sponsor that's something in the future i'd like to expand because it is a pinball beer show. I think that's a perfect Avenue to have that type of a tournament. So, but I don't think we're ready for it this year. Okay. Next time.
    48:57
    Dave, any final questions for Keith and Keith? Like I said, you're welcome to hang out. I have a short list of corrections I need to make. So Dave, floor is yours.
    49:08
    Yeah. One more question. So the, I don't know where, yeah, Colombo. one more question sir um where the uh this the street is a street between i guess the show and the hotel whatever i'm just wondering uh when i went to hotels out in uh in allentown staying there for different shows there was like a i'm a very light sleeper and there were you know trucks and so forth and the allentown show i don't know if ohio is the same way they like a big spot for a lot of 18 rules going by because uh they're waking me up in the hotels in allentown i don't that's a problem out in Ohio where you guys are uh or if that's I don't think it is the the comfort in which is really nice if you look and you pull it up on the map it's set back off the road quite a bit okay um and the nights I was there of course I was exhausted I would have slept through a mack truck by the time I got to bed each night but um I don't think it's a problem we're close to the interstate but far enough away that it's it doesn't resonate into the hotel okay that's In Allentown, some of their stuff there,
    50:12
    this was right at a four-way intersection. They had distribution centers there, so the truck would stop and then just take off all the time. You hear that. Never mind the highway stuff. It's worse than the highway stuff. You won't experience that at this location.
    50:31
    That's all I got. Keith, are you going to stick with us or are you going to split? I can stick with you if you want.
    50:38
    Good, because you can answer this first question. The Who have announced another reunion tour. I think it's like their sixth. Do you think there will ever be another Who pinball?
    50:54
    Another Who pinball? Well, Tommy the Who pinball, that's about it for a Who pinball. It wasn't officially the Who pinball. Well, I mean, you've got Rush, you've got Led Zeppelin. I mean, obviously, Who is a big seller. do you think there will ever be another Who pinball? What's the both of you? I don't have an answer. It's just something I thought of. That's all. Never say never. I didn't think there'd be this many rock and roll pinball machines, and I'm waiting for Pink Floyd. You know what I'm waiting for, which is a Motley Crue pinball. I think that would sell.
    51:31
    Okay. So we have no affirmatives on that. Are either one of you familiar with the game Last Action Hero? Yes.
    51:44
    Played it once. Okay, I'm not. Dave, explain this game to me and the crane. It was in one of the pinball tournaments over the weekend. What's the appeal of this game?
    52:00
    I've only played it like once. You don't know either. I don't really know either. That's another one. It was a cool movie, but, you know, it's like the crane in Batman. You know, it's kind of like, I don't know, not really, not a fan of it. When I was playing it, it's like, oh, this game's just okay. Okay.
    52:20
    In one of our recent shows, Dave, you and I spoke about Rotten Dog. Yes. Do you know where I'm going with this? The founder of Rotten Dog just recently passed, and don't beat Dave and I up. I had no idea that he had passed, but I guess he also had sold the company about a year ago. I know he sold the company. I know someone was selling all his stuff, all the boards for a while, I think on eBay and recently. He had some problems with some of his boards and, you know, people had mixed results with some of the stuff. So he kind of got out of it and sold it all off to somebody. But I had no idea the guy passed recently. He did. I did hear that also. Well, and not to – you guys know who passed today, correct? No. Yeah, I saw it. Go ahead. Barry Austin. Oh, wow. So that just came across the news today that he's no longer with us. It's going to be a tough year with that. Wow. What are these guys dying from? They say what they're – car crash or health stuff? No, nothing on him. Well, you heard Lyman, you know, they said it was suicide. Yeah, unfortunately. Right. Well, these past couple of years can do it to you. It's, you know, that's for some people it's, it was a bummer.
    53:46
    Yeah. Let's, let's try to lighten the mood. Sure, let's go light. Okay. So I released the show today and I didn't redo the intro. We'll see how many people pick up on it. But today is a Tuesday, February 22, 2022. In the intro to the show, I said 1922. We'll see how many people pick up on it. But I didn't want to rerecord it. I'm like, this is too good. Forget it. Just leave it. So bring that to somebody's attention.
    54:21
    In our last show, I think this is my last. No, two more items. also in the two show you know we forgot dave and we're gonna i know somebody will mention it we never talked about fireball uh yeah we never fireball you're right classic we just did that we should have known better well i had it written down but you took things out of order i'm blaming it on you so i i don't know if you listen and if you don't that's fine we did a show on games that have been redone so some of the games we talked about were Fireball, Centaur 8-Ball Deluxe I could go through the whole list but listen to the show I don't think anybody had done that show before so I thought it was appropriate given today's date yeah this this will never happen again until uh actually ever i think i don't know 3033 i don't know that's not gonna work right so i i took liberties i've seen other people uh i'll give a plug to to jeff teal is how much he loves uh josh sharp um josh i don't think has ever won a tournament he's come in second in quite a few so i'm sure it's uh poking fun at him. I saw something on TV as well. So it wasn't an original idea, but I took liberties and expanded on it. How's that? Last item.
    56:01
    I promised that I would get us an email address. I couldn't figure out the original email address. I know I own it on Gmail, but I couldn't for the life of me, figure it out. So here we go, guys. If you want to interface with us, I don't know if this is a good idea or bad, but we're going to try it.
    56:22
    The Classic Pinball Podcast, numeral one at gmail.com. So the Classic Pinball Podcast, all lowercase, with the numeral one after it, at gmail.com. So if you want to interface with us,
    56:38
    now's your opportunity. So with that said, I'm going to thank Keith and say, Keith, I appreciate you coming on again. I wish you all the luck in the world with the show upcoming next month when people hear this. And if you're in the Ohio area or anywhere nearby, I suggest you pay Keith and his band of merry men and beer tenders a visit. Dave, to you.
    57:06
    Keith, again, thanks for coming on the show. And I'm so glad the last year's show went off great. and I think this is going to be bigger and better this year. So I'm looking forward to it, and I'm really going to try to make it this time for this one. Looking forward to it. Last word to you, Keith. Thank you both for the opportunity to share with everybody the experience of last year and the fact we're having the show again this year. It's always great to talk to you. Looking forward to seeing all the pinball brethren that I see at all the other shows coming out our way, and we'll have a beer together and head out to bigger and better things.
    57:45
    Thanks, guys. All right. Thanks, guys. Yeah, thank you, Keith. That was great. Oh, hello there. I'm Newton Ames talking to you on behalf of the Monolithic Oil Corporation about today's energy situation. You know, if we all just sacrifice a little, we can pull together to beat the current problems of not enough energy.
    58:12
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    58:55
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