I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who volunteered over the weekend. The event literally couldn't have run without you all helping on the front desk and scorekeeping.
There were 100 volunteer tickets sold, and on the Friday alone there were 72 slots (with 3 volunteers on each bank and 4 on classics) - so it definitely would never have gone ahead without everyone who took on extra shifts. I know some of the shifts were definitely busier than others but everyone worked hard and took the busier shifts without complaint - the Saturday night in particular was really busy, but I was so pleased to see that people were never waiting long for their scores to be taken and this kept queue times lower as well. It's not an easy job (high accuracy and high stress at times) so everyone did really well. And fortunately - no 2 strikes, so no one had to be asked to stop scoring, which I was quite relieved about!!
I want to say a special thank you to a few people - Sophia, Nick
@mufcmufc and Nancy who helped out on the front desk, which meant I could check scorekeepers were okay and take part in the ladies competition. David
@David_Vi also helped to cover the volunteers while I was in the ladies finals which was a big help!
On the scorekeeping front - thank you so much to Chris
@Fantazia2 (10 shifts!), Nick
@Nickoss II (6 shifts!), Andy
@Andy B (5 shifts - and helped Matt with taking games to and from the club on Sunday night until 4am). I think they all win the Blue Peter badges for most volunteer hours! Darren Smith also did several shifts and didn't want any tickets for it - really amazing! Plus, George Bennett, Ethan and Lucy all offered to do scorekeeping shifts too - they did a fantastic job and seemed to really enjoy it!
But a big thank you to everyone who did extra shifts on top of their volunteering ticket - Martin
@SPLITKING, Jeremy
@StandUpAndFight, Ben Leigh
@Benleigh250, Dan Pike, Ben Pike, Tony Greenwood, Stewart
@Judderman, Graham Swaffield, Gene
@Genotime, Chris
@Lebowskis Rug, Dan Pocklington, Martyn
@cyberkryten, Nick Clark, Sean Fitzpatrick, Will Beynon, Sarah Vince, Andy Campbell, Emma Campbell, Alan Irving, Brad Attwood, Peter Blakemore
@Moonraker, Armen Lloyd and Vin Jauhal
@thelab
And of course - the event really couldn't have happened without James
@MajesticPinball, Bob
@pinballtoys, Clive Bush, Kirk
@Tilt_Birmingham and Mike
@Mike Parkins who were flat out all weekend fixing stuck balls, repairing games and making sure we could all play.
I didn't get to play many games at all, but I did manage to qualify on my first ticket for the ladies with a crazy score of 132 million on Led Zeppelin - 2nd highest on the bank, so I was really excited about that! Just a shame I couldn't get close to that in the Ladies finals, but I guess I had a lot on my mind
Thank you again everyone, the pinball community is amazing <3