Episode 334: Joe Fox – Delaware Pinball Collective

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·26m 16s·analyzed·Feb 16, 2022

Analysis

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TL;DR

Delaware Pinball Collective opens as nonprofit venue after 5-year journey from basement tournaments.

Summary

Joe Fox discusses the formation and launch of the Delaware Pinball Collective, a nonprofit arcade venue created by five passionate collectors (Joe, Chad Hastings, Mike Veith, Rodney, and Paul Pratzner) to fill the void of location-based pinball in Delaware. After hosting tournaments from home basements for five years with growing attendance, the group secured a second-floor space, moved 45+ machines, and officially opened January 1st as a members-only social venue with leagues, tournaments, and licensed alcohol service.

Key Claims

Delaware has no location-based pinball except occasional machines on the boardwalk and one bar with half-working EMs
high confidence · Joe: 'I'm not aware of any actual on-site pinball that's not in somebody's home.'
The Delaware pinball community grew from zero to 50+ tournament participants over five years through private home tournaments
high confidence · Joe: 'we were selling out 50 spots in 38 seconds for these tournaments'
The collective founders pooled approximately $25,000 to establish the venue
high confidence · Joe: 'We had raised about $25,000 between the five of us to put into this'
The five founding members brought 68+ games total to the collective (Joe: 28-29, Chad: 18, Mike: 22, Rodney: 8, Paul: 6-7)
high confidence · Joe itemized game counts: 'Chad's got 18 games. Mike had 22 games. Rodney had eight games. Paul had six, seven games.'
The collective is located on a second floor without elevator access, requiring members to manually carry games up stairs
high confidence · Joe: 'we were not ever thinking about the fact that we would be on a second level and even more importantly, a second level that did not have an elevator'
The collective currently has 68 members with an additional 20-30 added since opening three weeks prior
high confidence · Joe: 'We currently have about 68 members already... we've added probably about another 20 or 30 even since we've opened three weeks ago'
The collective is raffling two new Stern machines (Mandalorian Pro and Star Wars Comic Edition) as inaugural nonprofit fundraising
high confidence · Joe: 'we are auctioning off two new in-box Stern Mandalorian Pro and a Star Wars Comic Edition pin'
The collective holds Delaware First Aid Flippers functions (8-9 events yearly) and Stern Army events (one per month)
high confidence · Joe: 'We are still running all the Delaware First Aid Flippers functions... We're also a Stern Army location, so we'll be having one Stern Army event per month'

Notable Quotes

“I'm not aware of any actual on-site pinball that's not in somebody's home.”
Joe Fox @ ~3:45 — Establishes Delaware's complete lack of commercial pinball presence, the core problem the collective solves
“we were selling out 50 spots in 38 seconds for these tournaments, and we've got to find a better way”
Joe Fox @ ~8:20 — Demonstrates explosive growth demand that forced the collective's creation
“I was not thinking, oh, man, people are going to need to pee. That just blew my mind right there.”
Mrs. Pin (host) @ ~16:10 — Humorous but underscores often-overlooked practical constraints in venue planning
“If you do a yearly membership, it takes about one to two months off of what would normally be a monthly bill.”
Joe Fox @ ~38:20 — Explains membership structure and incentive to sustain the nonprofit
“We are a nonprofit. We are looking to pay the bills, bring in games, have fun... we're looking for it to be a social thing”
Joe Fox @ ~40:10 — Clarifies the collective's mission as social-first, not profit-driven tournament venue
“Find good people to do that with. That's the number one advice I could give.”
Joe Fox @ ~46:30 — Core wisdom on launching a collective: partner selection and shared passion matter most

Entities

Joe FoxpersonChad HastingspersonMariannepersonMike VeithpersonRodneypersonPaul PratznerpersonPaul FrypersonClark FraleypersonLaura FraleypersonDelaware Pinball Collectiveorganization

Signals

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community_signal: Delaware Pinball Collective officially launched January 1st with 68 members within three weeks and 88+ total members, establishing nonprofit pinball infrastructure in underserved market
high · Joe: 'We currently have about 68 members already... we've added probably about another 20 or 30 even since we've opened three weeks ago'
?
event_signal: Delaware Pinball Collective hosting inaugural raffle with two new Stern machines (Mandalorian Pro and Star Wars Comic Edition) to fundraise for nonprofit
high · Joe: 'we are auctioning off two new in-box Stern Mandalorian Pro and a Star Wars Comic Edition pin at the first and second prize'
~
sentiment_shift: Shift in pinball community toward social/recreational value of venues rather than tournament-only focus; insight from Paul's daughter catalyzed this realization
medium · Joe: 'Paul's daughter said, this sounds like this would be just a place I want to go hang out. And we're like, wait a minute, we never thought of the social aspect'
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technology_signal: Emergence of pinball collective model across multiple regions (Delaware, Richmond, Rochester, Connecticut) as sustainable alternative to commercial arcade venues
high · Joe discusses consulting with Richmond Collective founders and references Rochester and Sanctum as peer models
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business_signal: Delaware Pinball Collective leverages specialized member expertise: electrician (labor cost reduction), former Williams employee (technical knowledge), 40-year veteran technician (major repairs), custom builder (bar construction)

Transcript

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0:00

Hello everybody and welcome to another fantastic episode of Pinball Profile. I am not Shmef Shmiolis. I am Mrs. Pin and I'm here with my much, much, much better half, Dr. Pin. Not true, but hello everybody. How are you? Before we begin and we jump into today's episode, I would just like to say that you can find everything on pinballprofile.com, past episodes, subscriptions, etc., etc. We are on Twitter, Instagram, at pinballprofile. Check out the old Facebook group, folks. And you can also email pinballprofile at gmail.com. We are honored to be asked to help host this episode by Jeff Teolis or Schmeff to his close friends. And we're going to try really hard not to mess this up. The show is dedicated to a topic that we are both super excited about, the Delaware Pinball Collective. And we get to talk to one of our favorite pinball people all about it, the fabulous Mr. Joe Fox. Welcome to Pinball Profile, Joe. Hey, guys. Thanks for having me. How are you? We're fantastic. This isn't a two-hour super awesome pinball show, and it's not even a two-minute episode of Mrs. Finn's Pinball Podcast, but we've got 30 minutes to pick your brain about the DPC. So we're going to jump right into it. Joe, we've been to Delaware. We've been to your house. They've Got some amazing beaches in Delaware. We've been to Zelke's on the boardwalk, played a few games there. But as amazing as Delaware is, your pinball scene is not the greatest. No, I would say that's an understatement. We do definitely lack. I'm not aware of any actual on-site pinball that's not in somebody's home. The few exceptions, like you mentioned, on the boardwalk, there is one local bar that's got maybe 10 or 12 EMs that are half working, half not. But yeah, definitely no location pinball in Delaware that I'm aware of. Tell us then, Joe, kind of how you got started. Because, you know, specifically at private homes like yours, the pinball scene really took off in Delaware and went from, you know, not really having any pinball to having a huge pinball scene. Can you, before we kind of talk about the collective, can you talk us through how that happened? Sure. I'll try to keep it condensed. So about five years ago, somebody shared, one of my friends shared a post from Pinside about Delaware putting together a tournament. And I had not played in the tournament at that point. And this person had said, hey, check this out. This might be a good start for you. So me and my son, we signed up, joined up, and I met Chad Hastings. And you guys know Chad and his soon to be wife, Marianne. And we basically We created this friendship that has lasted for five-plus years. But essentially, Chad wanted to grow pinball. He knew there was no location pinball here in Delaware either. He wanted to start off. It was his first tournament that he ever ran, first tournament he ever played in. We held it at one of the other board members, Mike Veith's house down in southern Delaware, and it went really, really well considering that 60% of the people there had never really played in a tournament. Chad had never run a tournament. And it's kind of just continued to grow like a fungus for five years now where we've eventually just outgrown working out of our basements. I mean, you guys were here at tournaments that are here that we had at some point 50 people up and down out of my basement in the backyard. And at Chad's house, the same thing. At Mike's house, the same thing. And we just got to the point where we said, this is getting too big. We're selling out 50 spots in 38 seconds for these tournaments, and we've got to find a better way. Yeah, and let me just say, before we continue talking about the Delaware Pinball Collective, that you guys did not just throw a tournament. You threw down a tournament. I mean, I am talking full-on hardcore press, pulled pork, beef pit barbecue, space heaters, and like hand sanitizer stations and the whole nine yards. I think you even rented a tent to put outside of your house so that you could have a social distance thing during COVID, which is just above and beyond. Like your collection and like your tournaments, Delaware does it right. Yeah, I mean, seriously. So honestly, I think that this Delaware Pinball Collective is something that I wanted for you guys so badly because I knew how much work and effort and money it took to run this out of your homes. So is that kind of how this started was just like to appease your poor wives who really wanted to have a little bit of space in their basements or what? Yeah. I mean, aside from, you know, Chad's lucky with Marianne because she's really into it as well. Some of the other spouses aren't so much. You guys know my wife and she, I will say, nicely tolerates it. And she really does support me and what I want to do. And she has no problem in opening the house and having the people here and trying to control the dogs when they got to get let outside and all that that goes along with it. But yeah, we really tried to make it a welcoming experience whenever we did something down here, whether it came to the food and the catering and the tents and the chairs and the space heaters to make sure that everyone was as comfortable as they could be pre-COVID. And then, you know, what we, I guess, in theory are still during COVID. Yeah, right. Making sure that people if they wanted to come out when there was a mask mandate in Delaware. We required masks to be here. I put up sanitizer things on my walls in all kinds of different locations. And we did the same thing at Chad and same thing at Mike's and make sure that everyone was as comfortable as possible and still came out. And we cut down the numbers and we still sold those out. And we had waiting lists that were double the amount of participants. So we knew that we were getting too big for our basements and we knew we wanted to do more. And we had sat down, had a couple drinks and sat down for some appetizers at a local restaurant on a Tuesday, Wednesday night, whatever it was in February of 2020. And we were watching the TVs and joking with each other about this, you know, COVID-19 and coronavirus and, you know, ha ha ha. And obviously the joke was on us, but that's when we first sat down and, you know, then it got put on hold and it got put on hold for pretty much a year to where we thought it was safe to start looking again for space and start having this idea come to fruition Right so I mean you know that it all starts with the space but what exactly is a pinball collective I mean I know that I heard of a bunch of other pinball collectives We've obviously got the Richmond Pinball Collective down there with the Fraley's. We've got the Rochester Pinball Collective. But it seems like for those two, not that it was easy because it wasn't, but it seems like things fell into place relatively easily. And for you guys, that just wasn't the case. No, and I think it's location, location, location. I mean, the first one that I actually know of is the Sanctum up in Connecticut is or was, I don't know if it still is the same concept as a co-op, but it started as a co-op. And then, yes, Clark and Laura down in Richmond. And that was my first conversation and first real introduction into that is when Clark and I were sitting in the hallway waiting for our turn in the tournament in March of 19, I guess it was, kind of just picking his brain on what, you know, really, same question, what is a collective? What does that mean? What are you doing? And we sat down there for probably half an hour. And then, you know, I've talked to Clark and Laura probably a half a dozen, if not more times throughout the course of the last couple of years. But essentially, to answer your question, a collective is a group, a forming of a nonprofit, in our case, organization to further the enjoyment of pinball and basically get four or five, however many people, it's good to have odd numbers when it comes to voting purposes, but four or five people to get together, co-mingle their, you know, their, I guess, funds or fundraising efforts and, you know, bring their game, you know, games from their collection into a common site that everyone can enjoy. And for our purposes, yes, it was very difficult. So, you know, Richmond's got a great space and they pay very good money for it and meaning good price for them. Bruce and them fell into a really great spot up in Rochester and even a better price than I think even Richmond's paying. And then came us where, you know, Delaware is a small state, which is a good thing. But at the same token, it then limits your amount of commercial space that it becomes a commodity. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, so I know you guys struggle to find the perfect place. Tell us kind of what your goals were for the location. What did you want as your dream space for this? So the first absolute want we had to have was a minimum of two bathrooms. You know, when you're talking about 50, 60, 80 people, you know, two bathrooms are a must, especially when you have a mixed crowd of not that our bathrooms are they're both unisex, but at least there's two to share. Another was basically we needed to make sure was something that was a big open space. You know, you don't need a space that's broken up to 16 different offices. You don't need a space that's got all kinds of commercial, any kind of things inside that need to be. We looked at a place that used to be a dress place or a tuxedo place where it had a big stage where the mirrors would be. That kind of stuff didn't work for us or we didn't need it. If you got a good deal, air quotes good deal, it was something that we had to go in there and rip everything out and start fresh. We did have limited funds. We had raised about $25,000 between the five of us to put into this, but we didn't want to blow that on taking half of that and having to renovate a space that wasn't going to be ours in two or three years. It needed to have good parking.

10:22

That just blew my mind right there. That's craziness. So let's talk about the important part. You guys obviously had to pool your funding efforts, which is a huge undertaking. But how about the games? How did you guys decide which games were going where and who was bringing games? And how did you get 50 games into a building? So the game part I never was fearful of. You know, all of our conversations about people and space and who was going to join and who were going to be members and all that. The one thing we never had a I never had a fear of was games. I mean, you guys know at one point I had 42 games in my basement. I was down to, by the time the collective opened, I was down to 28, 29, something like that. So even if I gave half my collection, there was 14, 15 games. Chad's got 18 games. Mike had 22 games. Rodney had eight games. Paul had six, seven games. Like games weren't going to be the issue. And then we had a couple of people go, hey, when you get it, I got games that are wrapped up in my garage. I haven't had them open in years. Like games weren't going to be the issue. It was going to be the space and it was going to be an electricity, even though you brought up wasn't an issue. One of the five of us is an electrician. So, yes, cost money, but the labor's, quote unquote, free. How insane was it moving 50 games into the collective? Because I know that you guys aren't on the ground floor. No, we were not ever thinking about the fact that we would be on a second level and even more importantly, a second level that did not have an elevator. so we looked at this space originally in july and we just basically eliminated it once it didn't have the elevator and the landlord wasn't willing to accommodate some way to put an elevator or any kind of things and i don't blame him and that's a that's a big undertaking and he bought the building a few months before that and he got what he got so we then started the search again and we came back and i said it had to be maybe september october i said guys are we missing Maybe we should go back to First State Boulevard. Look at this again. I think our biggest concerns, honestly, were the lack of the potential of having an issue with ADA compliance. And we basically made a pact that if we have that issue, we will go out of our way. If it meant getting 10 guys to lift somebody up the 10 stairs to get them up there, that's what we will do to make sure everybody is comfortable and everyone is taken care of. That's awesome. and we basically went back to that. The price was right enough. We negotiated a little bit. We got it to where we felt like we could maintain it, and it was already been rehabbed. It was an office that had been totally torn out to four white walls. The carpet was just a matter of picking the color, and they were going to install it and we said let go That great man and the fact that you were able to get get all of that in there over the course of a day i think on facebook or at least two day and a half maybe i mean a lot of escalator action you know at the day we moved in there we had 45 games and we had started bringing games to we have like a downstairs garage that is not accessible from the upstairs but at least for storage so you know brought some games there put them in the garage staged them had them ready and And then the big move was that Saturday I rented a U-Haul. I packed up all my games during the course of the week. And that was also not knowing we had a tournament scheduled for December the 11th that was going to be here. So I had to stay in limbo. I couldn't wrap one game not knowing if the carpet was going to get done in enough time on December the 4th like it was supposed to be. And then once we knew the carpet was done, I went to overdrive and wrapped 14, 15, whatever games it was. those guys couldn't start moving their games and having them wrap but i had to wait because the tournament was going to be here and if it wasn't going to be at the collective it was going to be here and then you can't and then i want to unwrap games so well you know i've heard a lot of complaints about chad hastings night moves cocktail game being part of every tournament he has has to so did you consider maybe accidentally dropping that one down the stairs when you guys were uh were carrying this up todd tucky style so secret confession as much as i criticize that game and we all laugh about it and we talk about it. I don't think I've ever lost playing that game. So as far as I'm concerned, that game will never leave because it's my ace in the hole. I told Dr. Payne the same thing. I said, oh, my God, that game can never die. It's the only game I can win on. It's a shame. Cocktails were a great idea. You know, the fact that you could have this minimal space and still have a pinball machine and it can sit in a corner and you can sit at it and play at your leisure, even if you're watching TV. The problem was they only made, I don't know, maybe six, eight of them, and they weren't typically great games. You know, you're working with, what, a third of the space type of idea. But I actually enjoy it. I break Chad's stones about it, but that's just all in good fun. I really love that game. I'm not even joking. He had two. Oh, my God. He had a Caribbean cruise as well, but I think he ended up selling it. I forget why. It's a gem. That was crazy. So, Joe, you've got all these games in the collective now. You've got an incredible collection up there. Who the heck is taking care of these games? Oh, it's a combination. So myself and Paul Pratzner are – well, Paul Pratzner is very good. I've gotten to learn a lot over the five, six years that I've been in the hobby. I can knock out most things and usually there are always adjustments. And when I got a call on the big guns, I have one of our members who's been a good friend of mine over the years, Paul Fry, who comes and he's been doing this for 40 years with fixing games. He used to work for a vendor back in the day. Yeah, so you know some good people. I mean, I feel like that's – you can't do it yourself. You've got to have friends. Yeah, and Mike, who's another one of the board members, he used to work for Williams. I mean, he still does in the slot machine side of things, but he used to work for them back in the day. So he's got a lot of experience in it as well. So we all have our hands in it. That's awesome, man. So a huge congratulations are in order because after some test runs and some tournaments in December, we hear that the collective officially has opened its doors on January 1st. Yep. And from your website, I'm seeing plans for leagues and tournaments and obviously open play. And I know it's early, but can you tell us a little bit more about what you guys are planning? Yeah, so right now the collective is a members-only sort of situation, similar to a VFW or an Elks Lodge or a Moose Lodge. You know, membership is open to the public, but you must be a member to visit. So anyone can apply and become a member until we reach our max capacity. We are still running all the Delaware First Aid Flippers functions are running out of the Delaware Pinball Collective. So that's like eight to nine events a year. We'll be holding other events through the course. We're also a Stern Army location, so we'll be having one Stern Army event per month as well as launch parties. In fact, the Rush launch party is scheduled for March the 5th at the Collective. So we'll be running leagues. Right now we have two open nights that we're doing leagues on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We are currently open Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. Tuesday and Thursday, 530 to 10. Saturday and Sunday, 12 to 6. Anyone that's a member can come up or sign up or do whatever they need to. That's awesome, dude. That's totally awesome. We're just waiting to get our memberships until the first day that we can actually come on down. When are we going to get your visit? Because that's the one we've been waiting for. We will be there. I already told Christian about it. I really did. I actually got an incredible Christmas gift as well. I opened up a box and inside were these raffle tickets. And I was like, what the heck is this? You got me some paper for Christmas. This is not like second anniversary here, rookie. But it turned out that it was two of the raffle tickets for the two brand new pinball machines that you guys are raffling off. And I was so excited about it. Yeah, we were doing an inaugural raffle as a nonprofit. it, we have the ability to do some things that the mainstream doesn't have, and we are auctioning off two new in-box Stern Mandalorian Pro and a Star Wars Comic Edition pin at the first and second prize. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. I can't even believe it. And I hear that not only that, but you're going to have snacks and booze at this pinball collective? Yes, sold me there. Yeah, snacks are still up in the air a little bit. I don't know if we want to be worried about selling the dollar bags of chips as much, but that's what we had talked about. But the biggest part of this for us is, and Richmond has a very similar setup, is that yes, we will have what Delaware calls a gathering license. Similar to what maybe if you go to a carnival and they have a little beer garden or something over there where they're able to sell alcohol, we will have the ability once we get our clearance to sell alcohol. And we're just going to keep it to simple beer, you know uh seltzers and ciders type of idea we're not going to have a full open bar but there is already a bar a true bar under construction that paul pratzner who in his infinite ability to just seems to know how to do everything has already built and i just brought in five used play fields that we're going to cut up and use as the bar top and epoxy over top of it and kind of have that whole pinball yeah it going to look really awesome i super excited about that I mean this all sounds like a place that I would want to be if I was anywhere near the Delaware scene and wanted to be a member What is your goal for membership? How do you become a member? Let people out there who are excited about this and want to be involved know how to do that. So you can go to our website, which is www.delawarepinballcollective.com. There you will see all the options for memberships. We have both monthly and yearly memberships for both individuals and family. If you do a yearly membership, it takes about one to two months off of what would normally be a monthly bill. And that gives you full access to the collective during all open hours, which will expand in the future. We currently have about 68 members already. We had a lot of early attention that we were selling memberships. It didn't actually start until the day one, but that got early attention. And then we've added probably about another 20 or 30 even since we've opened three weeks ago. So that's where you can go ahead and join and help us out from a support level. Again, I've said this a couple of times. We are a nonprofit. We are looking to pay the bills, bring in games, have fun. You know, we're looking at it more as instead of what I would call like a tournament type of area or tournament location, we're looking for it to be a social thing that, you know, even the wives that don't play pinball or the husbands that don't play pinball can come out, hang out, have a couple beers while their significant other plays or sits in a tournament. And we'll have, you know, we have TVs up there that we'll watch whatever, you know, the sports attraction of the night is or maybe the bachelor or the bachelorette, whatever is going on on a Tuesday night. and everyone to just kind of hang out and have a good time. You know, we initially looked at this, and we were always talking about how many members could we get, and we were only thinking about the tournament people. And then, funny enough, Paul's daughter said, this sounds like this would be just a place I want to go hang out. And we're like, wait a minute, we never thought of the social aspect of all this. Well, and especially now during COVID, I feel like this has become something where we've clearly, in past years, taken the social aspect of pinball for granted, you know, And now we have the ability to kind of get back together and do so safely, and it's something that we're just dying to do. And I think everybody else out there is as well. So I feel like the timing of this could not have been any better. And it's a shame because, I mean, we've known each other for three, four years now, right? And when we go to these shows, we play very little pinball, and we go out and hang out and socialize and drink and have a good time.