I want it all, I want it all, I want it all, and I want it now. It's time for another Pinball Profile. I'm your host, Jeff Teels. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com, or on Facebook, or on Instagram and Twitter, at pinballprofile. You can email pinballprofile at gmail.com. And maybe, just maybe, you can sign up for the Pinball Profile Played in America Tour. But if you happen to be outside of the United States, there are other things going on, and that's why we bring on our next guest, Neil McRae. How are you doing, Neil? I'm doing great, Jeff. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. Love talking to you. I usually see you at many events. You are probably, I don't know, if I had to name five people who travel the most for pinball or at least find their way to get to pinball when they do travel, you would be near the top of the list. Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of lucky. work takes me abroad and I can kind of align it with pinball events but sometimes I'll just get on a plane and come to an event because we're really lucky in pinball, we've got a great community, we've got lots of people that organise brilliant events and you just want to be part of them really. There's been a burning question I've been dying to ask you here we are, July 20th the anniversary of allegedly Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin apparently landing on the moon I'm just kidding, I'm trying to get your goat We know how much you love space and travel. So, Neil, I had to talk to you on this date. The important question is, why have you not signed up with Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin yet? What's going on? Why are you still on this earth? Luke, I was actually asked. They asked me early. Seriously? No. Shatner, move aside. We've got Neil. I thought there's far better, more risky people that I'd love to see go to space and explode before I go. No, I mean, look, those guys are doing fantastic stuff, paving the way. I was actually in Florida at the Blue Origin plant there. It's massive, what they've built there recently. I've been there for a couple of years because of COVID. But, yeah, it's very exciting. As a space geek, you know, space has never been bigger since the 60s, so I'm very excited about it. And, you know, long may it all continue and long may it all go well. I'm looking forward to a big NASA launch later this year, hopefully our early next year in Florida, SLS, which is kind of a space geek's dream come true. But I could talk about that for hours, and we probably don't have that long a time. But it's great to be a space geek right now. Well, that launch will be something. And the thing that you're launching is really why we're talking to you right now because, yes, you travel everywhere for pinball, but I don't know if you've run out of plane credits or what the case may be, but you've said, you know, enough is enough. I want people to come here to the UK and play pinball. And boy, have you ever set up this massive event. The UK Open is happening just south of London in Croydon, correct? Yep, that's right. It's coming at the end of September, early October. And this is a massive event. And I know how much you are inspired and love, like we all do, InDisc. And I think you've kind of modeled what you see at InDisc here at the UK Open. Want to explain what's going on? Yeah, look, I mean, you know, I've been to Indisc last two events and watched it kind of desperate to go there prior to that. When you see the effort that Jim, Carl and the others, there's three or four other folks that are involved in it. You see the effort and hard work they put into it and the quality of the tournament and the scale of it. And, you know, it's just amazing. And the last one, really, you know, coming out of COVID, it was quite risky for them to run it. They put all their chips on black and it came up black for them. And it was just an amazing event. And I just said to myself, you know, there's only two of us from the UK there, me and Kirk. And I kind of said to myself, I'd really love for people to experience this back home. And actually in Europe, we don't really run tournaments like in this. All the tournaments here tend to be ran as a different format. So I've been inspired by what those guys did. And I'm trying to run something similar. If it's half as good as InDisc, I'll be celebrating because those guys nailed it. I just want everyone to come to Croydon, spend three days playing pinball, and go away looking forward to the year after. Hopefully that's the mission. There are many reasons why I love InDisc, but probably at the top, once you get past how well organized and how well timed it is and thought out in the text, the machines are great. After that, it's the variety. and there are several tournaments you can play in that Indus weekend. The same can be said for the UK Open. You've really done an amazing job here with six tournaments and a few of them being certified. Yeah, so again, this is the inspiration. We're running two classic tournaments. We'll have a bank of about 20 to 25 machines. We'll try and swap a few of them between the two classics tournaments. I'd love to have done the match play, but we just don't have the games, unfortunately. But that's something I'm going to look forward I'm going to try and do in the future But the classics I really love the classics In this, they're phenomenal set of games We've got some of those games Some similar, some slightly different Ones from out of Europe We've kind of grabbed a few new Old games and really we're Looking forward to doing two great Classic tournaments on some great machines And then we've arranged it So we've got two certified tournaments One is the UK Open, it's the main event, it's got a first prize guaranteed minimum of £5,000. That about today exchange rate And then the prize pool will be similar to Indisc in the way that it set up for the rest of the places and then we have another tournament I wasn't confident about doing a high stakes tournament although I think one day we'll get there so I wanted to run something else mostly for the folks that are left on the Sunday when we run the main finals having something for them to do and what the idea I had was bring your game, we'll put it in the bank if you bring a game, we'll put it in the bank, we'll knock some money off your entry, and we'll have like a people's bank of games. Now, it's both risky and questionable. One, no one might bring a game. That's one of the dangers, although I've got quite a few people stepping up already, which I'm pleased to see. And then two, you know, what's the quality of games? But we've got enough games here that, you know, we'll have an open bank of about 18 to 20 games. We'll have a classics bank of about 20 to 25 games we're hoping And then we'll have the people's bank of about 20 games as well So a lot of games Hopefully they'll all work And work well but I kind of wanted to Have something else for folks to Keep playing on whilst we run the open final On the Sunday so Some have said are you crazy Why do you want to do so many and I'm like Well if you're going to do this and Running an event like this At a place like the Hilton and it's not cheap, there's a lot to do, and I just thought, let's go big. There's also a junior tournament, there's also the ladies' tournament, so you've really covered a lot here. Yeah, look, again, I go to the events over in the U.S. a lot, Jeff, and the ladies' pinball has really stepped up, and there's some phenomenal players that have inspired me, and actually, ladies' pinball is not so big in Europe. There's a couple of events that happen, so I thought, look, I'm going to put this on the schedule, And even if we get five ladies turning up, we're going to run a great event for them. If we get 50, even better. But my kind of shout-out is, ladies, if you're looking for a great event, I'd love to have as many of you as possible and run a really great ladies' event and really try and kick the ladies' interest over in tournament pinball here in Europe because it hasn't quite got the momentum that you see in the U.S. I'm sure this will kickstart it for sure. And there's so much that you can see at the UK Open again, starting September 30th to October 2nd in Croydon, just south of London at the Croydon Hilton. So it's a wonderful facility. You've got a lot of people bringing pinball machines there. And it's nice, too, for the people in the UK and also Europe because it's easy to travel. You mentioned Kirk Sadler came over with you to Indus. Andrew Foster came over and did very, very well. I saw him just recently at the World Championships. And then, of course, there's so many other great Brits that are just wonderful at pinball. Peter Blakemore I got to see not too long ago in Germany. I assume Martin will be there from Pinball News. Hopefully we can get him to play. Yeah, well, I mean, absolutely. I think all those guys are coming Craig Poulin is coming And a load of Brits are coming That are all excited about this sort of scale of tournament And what I'm really impressed about And actually inspired by Indus But also when we announced the UK Open There was a much bigger interest from Europe than we expected So normally we would run this as a It's not a gigantic tournament But a decent small event in our club But we got a lot of interest from Europe we've got a couple of really top players registered Arvind Flygear, Vigo and Robert Petroni from Italy there's some really big players coming over we thought, OK, let's make this a much bigger tournament give them something really to fight for but the Brits are super excited because we never really had anything of this scale I was amazed by how many people registered when we opened registration And actually, the biggest fear you have, Jeff, when you run an event like this is, are enough people going to come? And I'm pleased to say we crossed that boundary within about eight days. So it wasn't a pinberg, but it moved quickly enough that we're all really now looking forward to it. So this is a capped event. So what are the numbers we're looking at? We're probably going to go up to about 150 per tournament. So we probably do more. it's about 60-40 60% Brits and 40% folks from overseas Levi Neyman signed up from the US which is great to see he comes over to Europe a lot and it's great to see him come along and you know we're really excited to have a really wide and diverse crew of folks coming from all over the world and you know now my mind's turned to putting on the best show for these guys because we've got a real group of great players. I want everyone to be talking about this for years. I want it to be that event that, you know, has got some massive games in it, some excitement, maybe even some controversy. That's always exciting in a pinball tournament. But certainly I want everyone to go home. You know, Jeff, I've said this to you before, but if everybody comes and plays one game but loves it, that would be enough for me. We're going to play a lot more. But the name of the game is to play some great pinball, So spend some time with your friends. Have a great time. Go home and look forward to signing up the following year. There are some people that don't understand some of the customs in Robert Englunds. And we have a lot of pinball players from around the world. So if you play maybe a Dwight Sullivan game at midnight, you know there's midnight madness. Well, when you play pinball in the UK, at 4 o'clock, all the pinball machines shut off for about 20 minutes. So we all have to stop for tea. Is that correct? That's what I've heard. Hell no. No, I think there would be a riot if that happened. There'll be plenty of tea, there'll be plenty of beer as well. We in a great venue there lots to do around and we 20 minutes from the centre of London British culture it kind of the queen So if you want to come and say hello to the queen she just down the road If you're thinking about coming from overseas, and Jeff, you've been to London plenty of times, you know, there's a lot to do here, and you're literally a quick train journey away from it all. So I think a lot of people are kind of extending the week, spending a few days in central London, seeing a few of the sights, and then coming down to play some great pinball. But we're a friendly bunch. You know, we kind of say things a bit more Canadian than American, things like pound and hound and ground. But we're a friendly bunch, and we're looking forward to playing some really great pinball. Really looking forward to having our European friends here as well, although nobody thinks we've been kicked out of Europe. But fortunately for us, Europe's just still across the water. So I'm really looking forward to seeing some of my buddies from Europe that I haven't seen in a couple of years owing to COVID. And again, the whole COVID thing, you know, a lot of folks are concerned about that. You know, we're going to run a safe event. We'll have all the usual procedures and processes around. You know, we've got a really big room. We're going to space things out. We'll have all the usual hand cleaners and sanitizers. and everyone will be following the kind of now-norm COVID procedures. And actually, one thing from those from the US, now you no longer need a COVID test to enter the US now if you fly abroad, which I know for some US players was a bit of a concern. So it's much easier to get back home than it was a few months ago when you had to do a test. And you don't need a test to get into the UK. It's pretty straightforward. We've got a great health system here that's on top of it. And so I know for some, COVID's been something to be worried about. Let me tell you, there's nothing to worry about. It's very under control here, and everyone can come here and play pinball safe to the knowledge that they can play safe. Yeah, London's easy to travel to. Great airport, unbelievable transit system. If you are going, honestly, and if you're just staying in London, if you're not really expanding outside of the city, you do not need a car. So that's one expense you don't need to look after. there's so much to do in just an incredible area. I think that's one thing I was blown away by when I went to London. It was just that I was there for quite some time, and I didn't even come close to seeing all of it. It's such a massive, beautiful city. You certainly want to do all the tourist stuff if you've never been before, but you're going to want to make a trip out of this. Certainly that carrot at the end, the UK Open, is going to be wonderful, and you've got to be proud that this is all coming together. And I've seen you grow over the years too. Years ago, it was called Flip Out Pinball, but that name got changed a little bit. What happened there? Yeah, so I'm going to lead in the UK Open, but it's been put on by what we now call Pinball Republic. So we're a co-op. We were originally called Flip Out London. You'll have heard me talk about that in the past. Unfortunately, Flipout was a trademark name, and we were asked to stop using it. So about, I want to say about six months ago, we changed our name to the Pinball Republic in London. Same place, same game, same people. What was the threat to stop? Were they going to put you in the Tower of London and put you in the stocks? How does it work there? So a couple of things happened. We were renting the space and the landlord changed and the landlord wanted us to set up a company. And I think that's what triggered the fact that we were using the name Flipout. So we got a letter saying, please stop using this and please promise us you'll never use it again. Typical lawyer's letter. I've seen many of them in my day job. And, you know, we decided, yeah, OK, we'll change our name. We're not going to, you know, we don't have the money to go fight a big legal battle. And we'd rather spend money on pinball machines than lawyers. So, me, the founders, there's about eight or nine of us We kind of collected a bunch of names And then by process of elimination We came up with Pinball Republic Actually, Flipout, I mean, it's kind of funny We probably still say Flipout more than we should But the place hasn't changed except for the name We run a lot of events here In fact, I'm here today, we're open We've got about 65 games here now everything from an EM called GG to the latest Godzilla. And the great thing about it is we were shut for a lot of COVID. We're reopened. The membership's growing. We're really busy on a Thursday night when we run league here. And we're really pleased that Pinball Republic's growing and back, moving forward, because there was one or two moments through COVID where we weren't sure we were going to make it. And then having to change our name was not exactly what we were hoping to have to do. But we've done it and most people, at least in the UK, have adapted to it. We were able to migrate so that we didn't lose any links or stuff like that. So it's all good now. And the guys that help run Pimble Republic, they're all heroes. We do a lot of work. We've got a great crew. That great crew is putting together the UK Open. We couldn't do it. If Pimble Republic wasn't here, I couldn't do it. We couldn't do it. So I'm really excited to have that group of guys and girls to help put on the UK Open. Okay, so we understand how the name changed. Was Pinball Republic the first choice? Because for me, I would have called it something like Royal Pinball. And I say that knowing that it would have upset so many people in the UK. And I'm going to give you a story here. Back in the early, early 1990s, my father built and created a golf course just outside of Toronto called the Royal Woodbine. And he actually got a letter from the Crown, from Her Majesty, suggesting that it was frowned upon that they use the name Royal here in Canada Yeah You are part of the Royal ship in Canada aren you For now I heard what Prince Charles said that hey do your own thing Okay. We might have our own little Brexit coming up, but no, I don't know. So not even the Royal open? Royal did come up. It was. We did kick the tires on it. And given kind of the ups and downs of the Royal family, we decided it was probably worth avoiding. Yeah. I mean, we had thousands of different combinations of London and Royal and pinball, and it literally was a process of elimination until we got to the last name standing, you know, pinballrepublic.com for our website. If you're in London, not during the Open, we'd love to see you. As I say, we're a co-op, so everyone's games here are someone that brought them and put them to share, and it's a bit like the guys in Rochester and some of the other pinball co-ops around the U.S. You don't need reasons, really, to go to London. It's a fantastic city. It's a wonderful country. And being in Europe is just so special and the history and everything. But the UK Pinball Open is going to be spectacular. But one of the reasons I want to get back to London is a little show that's doing quite well here in North America. And that's Ted Lasso from Pinhead, Jason Sudeikis, who we know loves pinball. And in fact, in season two, he even put a Wizard of Oz pinball machine in there. And a little birdie told me that that pinball machine, is it Andrew Foster's? Or does he have the high score on it? Well, I think Andrew has some relationship with it. I've heard this story kind of vaguely in the pub, but I don't know the full details of it. There is something there. Andrew Foster, his favorite game is Wizard of Oz. He absolutely loves it. Let me tell you, if that's in the bank, don't bother picking it. because if he picks it, you've got no chance. So there's something there. I don't know if they borrowed his game or if he played it, but from what I heard on the Grapevine, something happened there, but I'm not entirely sure what. I was talking about it on a stream one time, and somebody jumped on the chat, and I don't know if it was Kirk or somebody, and said, hey, that's Andrew's game. And I was like, oh, that would make sense. Yeah, I suspect it was probably Kirk. I think it might have been Andrew's game. I remember there was a discussion about it, but I can't remember the exact details. And actually, if you're going to have a game on a show, Wizard of Oz is a beautiful game for people to see pinball. No question. And I do know that about Jason, that whenever he films in different cities, I know this firsthand, that he contacts the pinball community to maybe have a pinball machine maybe in his suite when he's staying for multiple weeks. So he's not too far from a pinball machine. So it was a great little honor in such a wonderful show in Ted Lasso. So, okay, again, Neil McRae, I think you've sold me on coming to the UK. I just have to say, you know what? The funny thing is this all started because I said, my wife has a business trip in London, and it's these dates. And you said, boy, you know what's going on. I went, oh, boy. See, whenever my wife has a business trip, all I have to do is get there. I got free hotel. This is wonderful. And, of course, oh, I guess I should probably reverse that and say, great, I get to spend time with my wife and also free hotel. Sorry. Listen, everyone knows I love Anne. This is not about that. I'm just trying to be cheap here and funny. I've met your wife. She's awesome. Well, I hope to meet again in late September, in October, because the UK Open just sounds so wonderful. In fact, I'll even go so far to say is that you've put this event as maybe the biggest thing in Robert Englunds, and I'm including the Platinum Jubilee celebration for the Queen. That's nothing compared to what you're doing, Neil. Yeah, I mean, look, this is going to be one of the biggest pinball events in Europe. We've got the biggest price for the Open. It's £5,000. That's one of the biggest payouts in pinball. And if I get more sponsors, it'll be even bigger. One of the things I've been lucky is through work, I've managed to raise a huge amount of sponsorship that's paying for the room and helping with a few things. So we are really going to have a huge event. As many people come, if you want to register, go to playpinball.uk. That's playpinball.uk. and we'd love to see you there. Trust me, you're going to be blown away by some of the stuff we've got planned. We're going to have some great players there. We're going to have a great bank of games. We'll be live streaming it as well, of course, and some of the local community are going to come along. We've got news crews and things like that lined up because it's a big event in the Croydon area and the London area. So it'd be great to see as many people there as possible and we'll look after you, we'll love you, we'll feed you, we will give you drink and we will give you some phenomenal pinball. Playpinball.uk, sign up today, September 30th, October 2nd in Croydon in South London. It is going to be maybe one of the biggest events of the year and I say that in all sincerity because I know how much you love InDisc and I know how much you want to copy that format as much as possible and you've seen the execution. so I have full faith in you Neil and I know this is going to be a great show all the best my friend and good to talk to you again and hope to see you very very soon yeah look and Jeff thanks thanks for giving me this opportunity and also thanks to the Indus guys because they've given me a lot of hints and tips and advice so I really appreciate that as well and I look forward to seeing you there Jeff hopefully and seeing everyone else thanks for having me on this has been your pinball profile you can find everything on pinballprofile.com we're on Facebook we're on Twitter and Instagram at pinballprofile and email pinballprofile at gmail.com. I'm Jeff Teel.