it's time for another pinball profile i'm your host jeff teal so you can find everything on pinballprofile.com we're on twitter x instagram at pinball profile great facebook group as well you can email pinball profile at gmail.com and if you'd like to show your support that would be wonderful don't worry the show will always be free but thank you to those at patreon.com slash pinball profile a big shout out to ken g lua w tony v jerry s john l and more 41 years incredible it happens next week and you'll want to be a part of it pinball expo to find out what's happening Let's go right to the source. Here's Rob Burke. Hey, Rob, how you doing? I'm hanging in there, buddy. It's getting closer to the big day. I'm getting the phone calls like crazy and text messages and e-mails, but it's all good. 41 years. You know, when you had the big 40th, I thought, well, if he were to go out, what a bang. But no, you just go bigger. Well, you know, it's a great question, Jeff, because even myself, I said, there's no way you could top the 40th because I did everything I could to make it very special. And even with the attendance, I figured, you know, it would drop considerably. But to my amazement, the vendor halls actually filled more this year. And the attendance is, I'd say, equal, if not even a little bit higher. So, you know, I think what's happened is a lot of people had a great experience, like yourself, at Pinball Expo 24, the 40th. And, you know, I realized that we give it our all out and we do our very best to give you guys the best show we can. And everyone seems to have a great time. You've got a great staff. You've got incredible vendors. You know, we don't talk a lot about the vendors. We talk about, oh, it's great to see all these machines and certainly the seminars and everything. But that aside, you know, we probably should pay more attention to your vendors because if you're looking for anything pinball related, whether it be art, pieces, parts, anything unique, things from yesteryear, your vendors seem to have it. And it's such a huge, huge area. So shout out to you and your team for getting so many great vendors on board. You know, Jeff, consider this. In the early years, we'll say like five, six, seven years ago at the last hotel, it would be like 25,000 square feet of vendor space. Now we're up at 100,000 square feet and we're filling up the show. So it's been really wild for me. You know what I get the biggest kick out of is all the international vendors we're getting in. The one guy coming from Hungary is selling playfield glass. He's an actual glass manufacturer. So to me, that's pretty cool. And then we have the guy from Italy again. Ivan was showing his tricked-out playfields and machines. He does a wonderful job of restoring them to amazing abilities. And then we got Pinson again out of France. and this year we have a second French exhibitor. It's called Hexa. Hexa is a manufacturer of pinball machines. They'll be coming. And to not be outdone, we have a homebrew coming in from France. The guy actually flew the game in from France. It's called the Invaders. So it's crazy what's going on, man, but it's all good. There's a lot of positive traction at the Expo, and people just enjoy having a good time. and a very positive energy at the show. And between the international exhibitors as well as the attendees, it's all good. It's funny you mentioned HEXA. I was in France, and I didn't see a Space Hunt, but the only time I've ever played Space Hunt was at Expo. So that's the place to see it all for sure, and it's going to be good. You mentioned homebrews too. You hit my sweet spot. That is my favorite thing. There were over 40 last year, And I know so many people that are going to be showing their games for the first time and some of the ones you love from the past, too. So when people are working on homebrew games, you know, there's a great online community. They help each other out and all this kind of good stuff. But the showcase, really, it's almost like their Super Bowl, if you will, to come to Expo and have that great experience with the homebrew section. Well, you know, with the hope of Emoto and with Jack Janzik, these guys and Aaron Davis these guys have worked so hard to really promote the homebrew area but Emoto with the help of Marco they have really let it all out this year and they getting a booth 80 feet by 80 feet one booth 80 by 80 So what they doing is they're putting all the homebrew games in there, but they're also doing something that I've pushed them for years to do for me, and they're finally doing it. But they're going to put a supermarket of parts and supplies in there. So basically it's scratch and dent parts, discontinued parts, overruns, and it'll be A to Z of parts and supplies. It's like going to the supermarket and getting the parts there. So to me, it's going to be a blast just to see what these guys do. You mentioned Jake Danzig and his Dukes of Hazzard Paragon game is great, and Emoto with what she does with Marco. I've seen kind of those homebrew starter kits that Marco does, but it sounds like it's going to be a huge expansion. And Emoto, I think if anybody has come across Emoto, easily one of your favorite people in pinball. And she's going to be a big part of a seminar that I've got kind of flagged here on Thursday night. It's the women of pinball, the women working in the industry. You've got Rebecca Hinsdale. She's at Stern, of course, Emoto. You've got Elizabeth Elizabeth Gieske, the Kentucky programmer, if you will. She worked on Jaws. and Rachel Best, which we know very well, doing a wonderful thing in Arizona at Electric Bat Arcade. So that'll be one of many great seminars. I've said this to you before. The nice thing about your scheduled event, and again, go to pinballexpo.com, and you'll see everything. Map out what you want to do because there's a lot. You're going to want to go to the vendors. You want to play the new games. You want to go see your own collection that you bring. But these events are just spectacular. and again, well done to you, Rob. Thanks, Jeff. And I'll say what else is going to be happening this year. If you know or are familiar with the name Joe Kamenkow. Oh, yeah. Joe doesn't come every year to Expo, but he's coming this year. And Joe, for those who don't know, he, with Gary Stern, started Data East Pinball back in the mid-'80s. And they're going to give a talk at all the games that they made at Data East as a team. And later they went to Sega, but they'll be talking about their games. But what's so crazy is Joe Kamikow is a dynamo. And when Joe Kamikow sets his mind on something, watch out, people. So a good example of that is Joe Kamikow, among everyone else in the pinball hobby, has always mentioned about wouldn't it be great to have a Beatles pinball machine. So Joe, under the umbrella of Kapow, they produced the Beatles pinball machine through Stern. But according to Joe, and this is something he shared during the COVID years when we had the expo via COVID through the Internet, but he spent a million dollars out of his own pocket to pull off that Beatles title. So the reason I mention this is Joe Kaminkow is a great guy to meet and mingle with and talk to, and he'll be giving the talk with Gary Stern. But what's even crazier is Joe Kaminkow has got together with a bunch of guys that work at Williams, Eugene Jarvis, Ken Fadestin, and some others, and he's got a little group together called the Homebrew Judging Team. So just to add fun to the whole flavor of Expo, they're going to go around and they're going to judge. all of the homebrew games. And he's got, I don't know, it's either 40 or 50 trophies that he made up. And these trophies could say best artwork, best cabinet, best theme, best flow. I mean, it goes on and on and on. So he's got enough trophies. He could probably give everyone at least one trophy. But he'll be doing that Thursday and Friday with the final presentation Friday night. So that should be a lot of fun. I agree. His seminar, the early years of Dead East and Sega, Joe and Gary Stern, that's Thursday at 1.30. So again, go to the schedule of events on pinballexpo.com to find out more. And don't be discouraged, by the way. When you're looking at hotels, having been to Expo so many years and coming from out of town, there are so many hotels walkable from there. So if you're flying in, if you've got a car, don't you worry. You're going to find lots of places in and around Expo, and it's very, very convenient too. So I know Stern's pretty excited with their latest Star Wars machine. They're going to have a massive display. And all the manufacturers, Jersey Jack, everyone's going to be there. And it's amazing to see. I don know if you ever released numbers and maybe you have and I sorry if I forgotten but I would imagine the number of people that you come to Expo every year grows because of everything you got there the size of the hall, the different games, the seminars, the tournaments, the homebrew, everything we've discussed too. And I assume attendance just keeps climbing. It does, Jeff. You know what's really crazy is Cliff Schoen out of Chicago, if you recall several years ago, He was the first guy to be a vendor there at the 1930s game. So at the time, everyone just kind of walked by and, oh, that's kind of cool. Well, something happened, and the interest in the 30s was kind of growing and exploding to the point, if you recall last year, Jeff, if you saw it, we had the 1930s hall. It was like a speakeasy kind of look. But it was huge. They had furniture there, you know, and the 1930s decor, and his wife was dressed with a flapper. I mean, you just thought you were going to go back in the day. And it went over so well that he's going to do it again this year, only even on larger, larger scale. And they're going to have the 1930s tournament again, which is a blast. You know, most people just don't think much of these 30s games. But the more you look at it closely, you can appreciate this was the beginning of pinball. So it's really cool to see how the mechanisms have developed over time and the gadgets and so forth. So you'll see all this at Expo. And I was going to say something else. But, Jeff, I want to give you a quiz. Okay. Who designed Twilight Zone and Addams Family? Lawler. Pat Lawler. Yeah. So the reason I mention this is for those that are listening to the podcast today, not everyone goes to seminars, and some people might take one or two. But in my opinion, this is one seminar they need to go to, and that's Pat Lawler. He's giving a seminar with Larry DeMar. But Pat has told me, actually, he mentioned it last year, and I somehow talked to him this year into coming back. But this most likely will be his last appearance at Pinball Expo. So anyone that is an Added Family fan or Whirlwind, I mean, the list just goes on and on and on. But this will be a chance to meet, talk to, me, get a picture with Pat Lawler because, you know, when the guys get older, sometimes they get up and go, it's gone up and went. And Pat's giving me one more year, but I'm not sure, guys, how many more years we'll give it. So he'll be at the autograph session, too. But I would suggest anyone who comes to Expo, there are some seminars you must see. He's one of them. Of course, Joe Kamikow. But also, I would suggest seeing Steve Ritchie. He's going to have a talk on the history of all the games he built, starting with the game with Atari. Airborne Adventure. Yep. And then ending with Elton John. So, I mean, the guy is a wealth of information. And you've got two powerhouse designers between him and Pat Lollard that have created so, so many games. that it's really worth checking these guys out, guys. You know what? I want to give a plug to one seminar because, first of all, he's somebody I really admire. I admire all these people. Definitely go see Lawler. Go see Richie. You've got a seminar. You're going to be there with Jersey Jack, Roger Sharp, Emoto talking about expanding the pinball audience. That's coming up on Saturday at 3 o'clock. But Saturday night, it's fun. And Dwight Sullivan, one of my favorite people in pinball, he does this thing that maybe a lot of people don't recognize or notice, but please go to it. It's going to be Dwight. It's going to be Corey and Tanio and Jerry Thompson and Mark and Dwight's kid, David. Kyle Spateri will be there, too. It's their Let's Make a Deal event. It's so much fun. People dress up. It's all kinds of trivia. It's games. And they give away so many great prizes, too. So that's Saturday night at 930. I love that he does this Let's Make a Deal. It is fun. You know, I hadn't been to it. I read about it, but I didn't go to it. We finally made it two years ago. And I'll tell you guys, I went into business since. It's really, it's the last event of Expo, but it's a great way of ending up, you know, a great week of insanity. There's a company that's coming out of Canada that makes guitars, electric guitars, out of playfields, pinball playfields. So I don't know if you're on my homepage or if you can go to the homepage, but you will see the name of this company. And I talked to Ed Ed Robertson. He actually bought a guitar from these guys. He got a Quicksilver. I've seen it. So it's a really cool thing. They're going to have, I believe, eight games or eight guitars on the floor that they produce. And, I mean, these guitars aren't cheap, guys, but they're really great looking. It just a very special part of pinball for anyone who comes to Expo just to see these guys You know Jeff there so much going on You know I kind of bouncing around from place to place and topic to topic but there so much happening at this show anymore that it almost like you don know where to start first Like you're suggesting, you know, you're best to sit down and look at the seminars and look at everything going on and kind of map out what you want to do because, you know, for even the first time to walk into the vendor hall, it's like, wow, the wow factor. And it's cool in a cool way. You know, what's fun is to meet all these people. Even to meet you, Jeff, it's always fun. It's always great to see you too, Rob. That's Dan Clark from Canada coming in with his Sahara guitars. That's the guy, Sahara. That's it. Don't forget about the Pinball Scientist too, kind of a workshop, kids' high score contest going on there. Excuse me one second, guys. He's doing something different this year. He's got – he picked up some – I helped him out and acquired two dozen. It was like a pinball toy. It's like you would get in the toy section, but basically it's a kit on making your own homemade pinball machine using gumballs as the ball. But he's got, I believe, maybe it's a dozen sets of these things, and kind of first come, first serve for the kids that come to his booth, and he'll walk through the steps on making the pinball machine from this box toy. So that's for the kids. There's something for the kids, too. There's something for everybody. Plus, if you're into the tournament, there's a lot of tournament action going on. Lots. And fun ones, IFPA ones. You've got it all. You've got Pinball Pinups debuting at Pinball Expo. Our good friend Don's Pinball Podcast hosting a topper competition. A lot to do. Again, go to pinballexpo.com, and you will really enjoy this family fun atmosphere at the convention center there in Schaumburg. And it's going to be so nice, too. So I know you're busy. Thank you for taking the time out. And I wish, well, I'll see you in a few days. How about that? Good. And hopefully we see all your base of listeners, too, that show up. I think they'll really have a good time. 100% too. And by the way, if you happen to be in Ohio, like in Girard, make sure you check out Past Times, too, because, again, it's great to go to Expo and see all these machines, but Expo is only once a year, whereas Past Times, it's all year round. And I love that you've got your collection there. It's growing, the activity there. So thanks, Rob, for you and your family for doing that as well. Yes, if I could, two minutes on pastimes, Jeff. You know, this is a collection that just kind of passionately got out of control. And I kept buying everything I could buy. I remember during COVID, I said, what could I buy? Because I was bored just sitting around doing nothing. And then I thought to myself, what manufacturer did people play the least, at least when I was growing up? And it was the Bally games of the 60s. It had the mushroom bumpers on them and so forth. But the games were very odd designs through Ted Zale. and no one really played them. I mean, the reason that the production numbers are so low, assuming the model is because no one was really crazy about that manufacturer or those titles. So what did I do? I started buying as many ballet titles as I could. So I have a whole row at pastime to all these ballet titles from the 60s. Crazy. So that's part of it, plus I have all the international games, which is really nuts. And by the way, Deb, since you're sitting down, we have one of the vendors called Europin. EuroPin is one of the guys that I buy my games from for overseas games, the European games. He is bringing a container load of games to Expo. So you're going to see titles of games that you'd never see here in the States. And he's also told me that he's got one other special game he's bringing, and that's Q-Bert's Quest, which you'd never see, the Gauntlet game. Yeah, that's fun. It will be for sale at Expo. It will be for sale. Yeah, check out everything at pinballexpo.com. It's coming up October 15th to 18th in Schaumburg, Illinois. Rob, I know you're busy, but thank you for your time, and we'll see you in a few days. Thank you, Jeff. All the best to you and the audience. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com. We're on Twitter, X, Instagram, at pinballprofile. You can email pinballprofile at gmail.com. Join our Facebook group as well. And if you'd like to show your support, don't worry. The show will always be free. But thank you so much to those Patreon subscribers, including GME Law, Jake C, Bart V, Erica's Pinball Journey, and more. Have fun at Expo. I'm Jeff Teels.