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Your 2020 Pinball Activity

kevlar

kevlar

Site Supporter
Joined
Apr 11, 2013
Messages
6,571
Location
Newport, South Wales
Alias
Kevin Donovan
It's that time again, time to reflect on another year in this crazy hobby! As is tradition I'm typing this from work, nights on Christmas Eve 🤬 , but this will be the last time I type it from work, redundancy and retirement are just days away 🙂. Usually this thread is full of events and comps everyone went to, obviously this won't be the case this year. I did manage a skiing trip in February just prior to the apocalypse but no pinball events at all, although I did manage a quick visit to Tilt and a boozy night at Electric circus both of which we very much enjoyed. It'll be interesting to see if the majority of people bought more or less machines than usual during this very trying year, I'm sure some will have bought more with a **** it attitude, got to have some enjoyment this year, while others less due to financial concerns, job loss etc. For me, I've bought more than last year but less than the previous years..

Previous annual posts here for you to compare ...2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015

In - 5

Munsters Pro
Rick & Morty ( Still the only one in the country ;) )
GOTG Pro
Avengers Pro
JP Premium

Out - 4

The Getaway
Ghostbusters Pro
Whitewater
AC/DC Premium

Thanks to @Paul and the moderators for the awesome forum, we may not have been able to meet up this year but the forum has always been there for us to keep in touch.

Here's hoping for a much better 2021! 🤞

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all!

Here's Homer riding a T-rex 🙂


 
Merry Christmas to one and all.

2020 has been my best year in pinball by a very long way. I've made some new friends and made contact with people I'm certain will become friends in the future.

This forum has been a library of help and information and has become the website that I check every day without fail.

There are a few on here who have helped me enormously and been generous with their kindness, time, money, pinball machines, homes and collections. I've had invites from so many on here and even though I only have a small collection I'd like to extend the invitation to others.

Because of Covid and an unfortunate accident I've been forced to wind down my plumbing business and make my part-time job of videography and podcasting my full-time Job. Since I have a studio for my work it would be rude not to produce a pinball video or two so I'll soon be releasing videos on AIQ, Champion Pub, Elvira, Congo & IJ with many more to come. As well as my own work I'm pretty chuffed to be reviewing pinballs for Phil at Pinball Heaven which has given me an opportunity to play games I'd never usually get my hands on so a massive thanks to Phil, Jon & Chris.

I'm also thinking of starting a one on one getting to know you pinball podcast for forum members which should hopefully be interesting and slightly different.

I'm hopeful that 2021 will get back to normal and would love to think that I'd be enjoying a beer with many of you at Pinfest.

All the best, stay healthy and enjoy Christmas
 
I always love this thread. @Gonzo That podcast certainly sounds interesting, will be looking forward to seeing how that develops.

It's been a bit of a weird year for me, hosted my yearly meetup in January which was the busiest yet, and little did we all know it was going to be the only pinball event for us of the year. Lots of new games joined me at Majestic Towers including: Monte Carlo, Mystery Castle, Moonlight, Magic Castle, Spooky & Wheel of Fortune. And sadly I had to wave goodbye to my beloved Stargate and Meteor.

This year gave me an opportunity to really focus on my own business, I started offering home repairs and services, got myself a workshop and now have a waiting list that's going well into the summer of next year, built my website and rebranded my social media, met a bunch of wonderful customers and I honestly can't wait to meet more of you in 2021. Hopefully within the year I'll be earning enough to be able to go fully self employed and finally be able to leave Namco for good and live the dream of a full-time pinball tec.

Looking forward to hopefully kicking C-19s rear in the new year so all the usual pinball shinanigans can resume. Merry Christmas everyone and let's hope that next year is a killer year for all of us, and pinball as a whole!

James
 
I kinda have to write two of these one for the games at Home and one for the games at the club

Events did manage a couple; first was INDISC back in January me and Kirk had an epic time at an amazing facility and can’t wait until 2022 to head back.

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And then the March event at my place which we literally run the weekend before lockdown locked in.

Games at home:
Out: Indy 500 to the club
Out: Star Trek TNG on loan
In: Stranger Things LE
In: Xmen Magneto LE
In: Turtles LE
In: Elvira Premium
In: Avengers IQ LE
MIA: GNR LE
MIA: R&M BE

Club Games
Out: Met Pro
In: Met LE
Out: LOTR
Out: TWD Pro
In: TWD Premium
In: Indy 500
In: GoT Premium

But then TPF cancelled, NYCPC Cancelled, Pinburgh Cancelled, EPC cancelled,Expo Cancelled, FPF cancelled and of course pinfest cancelled and a pile of events at the club and at my place.

At the moment I’m two more games than I’ve got space for - works ok with just me playing them but can’t get glass off easily on 4 games so won’t scale for events.

At home I’ve put all the games on US coin doors with headphone sockets installed Scorbit on all my Stern games and TNA, waiting for support on CGC games and JJP games. I swapped all my games round so all the stern’s are together which looks great and I won Stern’s gameroom of the month!

105915789_10158668363849244_822635452133098352_o-4.jpg

6fc2d8c17ece0d2c76933b0f13b4c58e.jpg

My big question is what goes to make space for the two inbound games and no space at the club might have a few more out in loan! Fortunately I’m not in any rush for LZ although that Centre ramp shot looks sweet as!

Have to hand it to the community it’s been great Ina tough time and Stern getting out a few games over the year has helped massively. Pinclash was epic even though I didn’t qualify I super enjoyed it.

Most played games - Elvira, JP2, Nine Ball and NST.


Cheers,
Neil
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I thought my list would be small this year but larger than expected....

Out:
Family Guy
Star Trek: TNG
Hobbit Smaug LE
Alien
Lord of the Rings
Funhouse
The Shadow
Jurassic Park
Ghostbusters Prem
Ripley's Believe it or Not
Dialled In

In:
Ripley's Believe it or Not
Batman '66
Houdini
Dialled In
Twilight Zone
Creech
Hot Wheels
Oktoberfest
Monster Bash Remake
MIA: Guns 'n' Roses

I'm 2 over with 1 inbound, so not too bad... Some really fun machines that have left, but I don't really miss them from a reasonable sized collection. Most of the machines that have exited are because people have asked for them, a couple because of the usual space issues. They're all great and fun in their own right, but none will stay forever (except maybe Iron Maiden and TAF - the latter which I've had for 22 years I think, but mostly to annoy @Neil McRae :D).
 
A good year for home pinball but a terrible year for public pinball about sums it up

A roller coasters of emotions. Arcade and bar bottoms out in the winter - January/ February which is how the hospitality trade is . Some great publicity in late February plus some newer video coin munchers put the arcade on the up and w/e March 15th is the best since opening THEN shut down "indefinely". Bar becomes a workshop , Courtney gets jukes and pins up to speed including Bride of Pinbot from a plastic tub of parts and scrap Dr Who cab. Over 50 trays of parts sorted , playfields stripped , 200 plus items on eBay. Surplus machines including a lot of extreme projects out the door. Hard choices as Back to the Future and Cirqus Voltaire are gone. Machines loaned out. Upside of lockdown is demand for home pinball has increased. 3 month lockdown becomes 16 weeks. Reopening but all the casual players have vanished. Bar 90% down arcade 80% down on pre covid average. July and August starts to pick then 10 o'clock curfew = back to square one. Regulars keep up support but on November 5th its shut down again and here we are on Christmas Day (our 5th busiest day in 2019) the building is silent. But we are still here. Played TAXI this morning as I have done for the last 15 years. We are unlikely to be able to open before Easter. The arcade side is now self sufficent with a coke machine and a notes to 50p change machine. It has new toilets including disabled and baby changing facilites. We have ripped up the stage to fit in more machines! It MIGHT be able to open before the main bar but without alcohol. Retro gaming is popular. People are missing arcades and shows. We are renovating the main bar and rebranding with an emphasis on live music. I thank our loyal customers , our hard working staff , Andy Mania for his help with repairs and resurrecting basket cases , Phil Palmer for sourcing some missing links, my friends who have supported me without any interest in pinball whatsoever, the Music Venue Trust for their hard work and help. And finally Courtney for keeping the faith and the dream alive .

Pinball low - selling Deadpool
Pinball high - finding a Solar Fire , my grail machine (thanks Tobin for keeping it in the UK!)

OUT

Terminator 2 project
Terminator 2 project
Twilight Zone
Twilight Zone
Twilight Zone project
Shadow project
Shadow project
Gorgar project
Gorgar project
Pharoah project
Firepower project
Robot project
Dirty Harry
Star Wars DE
Star Wars DE
Star Wars DE
Tales from the Crypt
Bram Stokers Dracula
Deadpool
Theatre of Magic
Cirqus Voltaire
Vector
Medusa
Silverball Mania
Tron
Tron
Avatar
Elvira Party Monsters project
Flash project
Monster Bash
Kiss (Bally)
Vulcan
Zankor
Dr Dude
Apollo 13
Alice Cooper
ACDC Pro
Back to the Future
Family Guy
Game of Thrones
Addams Family
Addams Family project
X Men
Fireball 2
Pinbot
Big Guns
Big Guns
Revenge from Mars
Countdown

OUT ON LOAN

Scared Stiff
Elvira Party Monsters
Road Kings
Fireball
Star Trek 25th

BACK OFF LOAN

Star Trek (Stern)

IN

TMNT
Guardians of the Galaxy
Monster Bash Remake
Metallica
Kiss (Stern)
The Beatles
Vulcan
Space Station
Bride of Pinbot
Swords of Fury
Xenon
Funhouse
Banzai Run
Robot
Zankor
Dr Dude
Apollo 13
Simpsons Pinball Party
Wizard of Oz
Star Wars (Stern)
Twilight Zone
Twilight Zone
Star Wars DE
Star Wars DE
Star Wars DE
Tales from the Crypt
Bram Stokers Dracula
Vector
Silverball Mania
Tron
Tron
Avatar
Alice Cooper
ACDC Luci
Shrek
Addams Family
Black Hole
Mr and Mrs Pacman
Solar Fire
Big Guns
Big Guns
Countdown

MISSING IN ACTION

Guns N Roses
Rick and Morty

WANTED
a SENSIBLE priced Fathom!
 
Learnt how to do a playfield swap and restencil a cab. now got a very nice paragon

did my first playfield overlay and brought a wrecked Centaur back to life and looking really nice

Learnt tons about how bally and williams ss machines work and tackled some nasty hacks and board repairs.

Acquired a growing collection of Bally ss with star trek, centaur, fireball II, space invaders added to paragon.

grappling with a nasty pinbot project but got it going. next to learn about is fixing its sound card

made a good start on sorting out a hacked about and poorly gold ball.

held the last league meet in march (our 1st), just prior to lockdown. really missed meeting up with folks and gutted Daventry was cancelled.

Looking forward to 2021, getting out and about, and playing pinball with you guys (although looks like latter part of 2021) and receiving rick and morty and gnr


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I became a Stern fan boy this year. Their deeper codes really have me hooked, QC issues aside, 2nd hand you know what you're getting...

In.

Sw pro
Nst Pro
Maiden pro
Gotg pro
Elvis
Ofest

Out.

JD
Hobbit
Potc
Gotg pro
Tommy
 
In.
Monster Bash

Out.
Nothing (These buggers stick to me, I just can’t shake them off!)

Finished a Fish Tales restore which was started 2 or so years ago.
 
One pinball meet for us this year
In
Arena - thanks jmp
Bk2 k - thanks Chris Morgan
Out
Nothing


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
In
Dirty Harry
X-Men pro

Out
TSPP
Dirty Harry
X-Men pro

In out in
The Shadow

Wanted an X-Men for the last 2 years
Played it. thought it was meh

Bought a Shadow to do up .Sold Shadow instantly regretted it . . bought a nicer one.

Sold Simpsons for a good price . Took most of the mods off sold them separately.
 
MartinY said:
I thought my list would be small this year but larger than expected....

Out:
Family Guy
Star Trek: TNG
Hobbit Smaug LE
Alien
Lord of the Rings
Funhouse
The Shadow
Jurassic Park
Ghostbusters Prem
Ripley's Believe it or Not
Dialled In

In:
Ripley's Believe it or Not
Batman '66
Houdini
Dialled In
Twilight Zone
Creech
Hot Wheels
Oktoberfest
Monster Bash Remake
MIA: Guns 'n' Roses

I'm 2 over with 1 inbound, so not too bad... Some really fun machines that have left, but I don't really miss them from a reasonable sized collection. Most of the machines that have exited are because people have asked for them, a couple because of the usual space issues. They're all great and fun in their own right, but none will stay forever (except maybe Iron Maiden and TAF - the latter which I've had for 22 years I think, but mostly to annoy @Neil McRae :D).
Click to expand...
how come you sold your Alien?
 
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