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FUNLAND PINBALL TOURNAMENT: THE SEQUEL

FUNLAND-LONDON

FUNLAND-LONDON

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Joined
Jun 15, 2023
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22
Location
london
Hello all & a happy new year

I am pushing for a pinball tournament for the end of January.

I would like to gage numbers/interest and if someone is able to referee etc.

We will offer the venue of course and 10 machines: STRANGER THINGS; TNMT; MANDOLORIAN; GODZILLA; VENOM; 007 60th; DR. NO; BEATLES; LED ZEPELLIN; FOO FIGHTERS.

Ideally to be held midweek. Anyone opting to organise/referee will be given perks, such as free entry and playtime on the house.

I'm initially thinking £10 entry.
PRIZES TBC but can include STERN merchandise such as keyrings that we have, FUNCOINS to use and play here at FUNLAND; pretty cool [if i may say so] scroll posters of STERN pinball games and plush toys.

Anyone with ideas, advice, suggestions please let us know. Come in store, write me here, all welcome.

Yuen and crew were amazing last time.

Many thanks all
 
FUNLAND-LONDON said:
Hello all & a happy new year

I am pushing for a pinball tournament for the end of January.

I would like to gage numbers/interest and if someone is able to referee etc.

We will offer the venue of course and 10 machines: STRANGER THINGS; TNMT; MANDOLORIAN; GODZILLA; VENOM; 007 60th; DR. NO; BEATLES; LED ZEPELLIN; FOO FIGHTERS.

Ideally to be held midweek. Anyone opting to organise/referee will be given perks, such as free entry and playtime on the house.

I'm initially thinking £10 entry.
PRIZES TBC but can include STERN merchandise such as keyrings that we have, FUNCOINS to use and play here at FUNLAND; pretty cool [if i may say so] scroll posters of STERN pinball games and plush toys.

Anyone with ideas, advice, suggestions please let us know. Come in store, write me here, all welcome.

Yuen and crew were amazing last time.

Many thanks all
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End of January has the UKCS tournament at PBR, and also a league meet, so may affect numbers. Midweek may also affect the amount of people that can attend. Just my thoughts
 
Den - aka Wolfgang said:
Just a thought, but with all the top players competing at UKCS, a tournament at Funland might be a good opportunity for us less than than super human players to compete in a tournament we have a chance to win?

*and without waiting ages between games for the top players to finish their games
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Come to TIMSAT/Birthday tourney 13/14th Jan and/or Tilt 21st Den. Or there's 2 places still available for this Sunday at Pinball Office I believe. Always plenty of tournaments to play ;)
 
Genotime said:
Come to TIMSAT/Birthday tourney 13/14th Jan and/or Tilt 21st Den. Or there's 2 places still available for this Sunday at Pinball Office I believe. Always plenty of tournaments to play ;)
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Happy new year mate 👍🏻🎉

Will likely be at the Saturday TIMSAT (details on the callender here aren't working/link doesn't work?)
Re; 21st - Birmingham and back on a Sunday night with work the next day isn't appealing for a poat xmas skint Londoner who doesn't drive :-( (do want to get to tilt one day though)

This Sunday tubes aren't running (strike or whatever until next Friday) and even when they are, pinball office is a ballache to get (always seems to be maintenance works and such)

More central London tournaments and maybe tournaments which don't last 10 hours plus please! :-) - the Hobby/obsession won't attract as many new players very fast if tournaments aren't very accessible.
I love a long tournament as much as the next person at times, but imho comps (where Ifpa structure isn't a concern?) which include more skill/experience tiers and don't take so long would attract/retain more players outside of the hard-core crowd (not that comps I've been at tend to have attendance figures problems)
 
Matt Vince said:
This is what the leagues are for!
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I realise that Matt, but not everyone has the time to travel to Croydon/Kent and back every Thursday night:-) Hoping to start doing some Thursdays at the new pb republic when it opens, but will find it hard to make every week after work - 1.5hr journey home and train tickets are expensive.
New PB republic membership price+1.5hr train journey to Kent every Thursday and back = £110 a month (and that's totally excluding tube fairs and any weekend visits to the club)
 
I'm not knocking shorter form competitions, every comp is a great thing in my opinion. Was just suggesting a way to get what you was asking for at present.
 
Den - aka Wolfgang said:
I realise that Matt, but not everyone has the time to travel to Croydon/Kent and back every Thursday night:-) Hoping to start doing some Thursdays at the new pb republic when it opens, but will find it hard to make every week after work - 1.5hr journey home and train tickets are expensive.
New PB republic membership price+1.5hr train journey to Kent every Thursday and back = £110 a month (and that's totally excluding tube fairs and any weekend visits to the club)
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Matt was probably also refering to the UK league.

UK Pinball League - Schedule

Schedule of league meets.
www.pinballleague.uk www.pinballleague.uk
It's not every week or in the same location each time.

All our Pinhaus comps only last around 6hours (unless you make the final then add another two). I haven't been to many that last 10hours 😲 I think that's rare except pbrs two day one
 
I've suggested a couple of dates to the folks at Funland:

Friday 16th February - this would be a 7pm start, finishing at 11pm latest
Saturday 24th February - 10.30am start

As by then there will be 6 pins available, I was thinking that a Max Matchplay / round robin plus a finals would be the best format, to maximise everyone's playtime.

If you're interested, let me know what day you prefer and we'll make it happen ;-)
 
Bit sad they are dropping the number of pins available, although no surprise really as they don’t make much money.

I’d be up for the Saturday date if it goes ahead, thanks Claire 👍🏼
 
Chris P said:
Bit sad they are dropping the number of pins available, although no surprise really as they don’t make much money.

I’d be up for the Saturday date if it goes ahead, thanks Claire 👍🏼
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Not that surprising unfortunately, luckily the owner likes pinball but economics are brutal

Chatting at the last tournament, one kids ticket machine takes way more money than all nine pins together, so be thankful they’re prepared to take the hit to keep any in place
 
Den - aka Wolfgang said:
More central London tournaments and maybe tournaments which don't last 10 hours plus please! :) - the Hobby/obsession won't attract as many new players very fast if tournaments aren't very accessible.
I love a long tournament as much as the next person at times, but imho comps (where Ifpa structure isn't a concern?) which include more skill/experience tiers and don't take so long would attract/retain more players outside of the hard-core crowd (not that comps I've been at tend to have attendance figures problems)
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Thank you for saying this 🥰 🥰🥰🥰 Those long tournaments are pretty-much impossible for someone with a chronic condition and young kids (esp. as at least one has SEN, which reduces babysitting options).

It's hard to book childcare covering such a long period. When I did the UK Open, I ended up having to book two types of childcare (grandmother and a babysitter). I can't bring my older son to a tournament that lasts that long either - he just wouldn't manage.

Also, as someone pointed out on the Robert Gagno documentary (I'm currently watching with my son), competing for hours at pinball is a physical activity because of the need to stand up for long periods, which isn't exactly practical when you have two (at least) of your internal organs painfully stuck together. I'm sure I'm not the only person with pain, health or mobility issues involved in the UK pinball scene either.

Not to say you can't have long tournaments (of course), or that they're not an important part of the UK pinball scene, but just to bear in mind when organising :)
 
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Den - aka Wolfgang said:
Just a thought, but with all the top players competing at UKCS, a tournament at Funland might be a good opportunity for us less than than super human players to compete in a tournament we have a chance to win?

*and without waiting ages between games for the top players to finish their games
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There is another Pingolf comp running at the same time as the UKCS at PBR, for just this reason
 
VeeMonroe said:
Thank you for saying this 🥰 🥰🥰🥰 Those long tournaments are pretty-much impossible for someone with a chronic condition and young kids (esp. as at least one has SEN, which reduces babysitting options).

It's hard to book childcare covering such a long period. When I did the UK Open, I ended up having to book two types of childcare (grandmother and a babysitter). I can't bring my older son to a tournament that lasts that long either - he just wouldn't manage.

Also, as someone pointed out on the Robert Gagno documentary (I'm currently watching with my son), competing for hours at pinball is a physical activity because of the need to stand up for long periods, which isn't exactly practical when you have two (at least) of your internal organs painfully stuck together. I'm sure I'm not the only person with pain, health or mobility issues involved in the UK pinball scene either.

Not to say you can't have long tournaments (of course), or that they're not an important part of the UK pinball scene, but just to bear in mind when organising :)
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Yo Vee, respectfully, I think your view of comps is misinformed.
The recent PBR ones have been long but most aren't like this.

Ours run from 11am to around 5pm. That's 6 hours, with a 45min to 1hr lunch break.
It's really hard to have any meaningful comp be much shorter unless it's a part of something else. Four player Matchplay you're looking at 20-30mins a round an

How long do you think they should be?
If you'd like shorter comps you could run them.
We didn't have any pinball events in East Anglia (except Swavesey once a year but it's more a show), so we started our own, as complete novices!
 
But there already are quite a huge mix of comps - from the UK Open, which was intended for serious competition play and ran over multiple days, to casual league meets that last just 3 hours or so. This accommodates lots of people with medical conditions, who need to organise care for loved ones, or who might have other reasons to not attend for a whole day. All venues have lots of seating so you can wait between rounds if needed. If you can only stay for half of the day, that's fine - just let the organiser know. People left early at Greg's Robotbash for example, and Ben had to leave early at the Pinball Office at the weekend.

There were only three comps that I can think of that ran over multiple days in 2023 (rather than a weekend event with a new separate event on each day, like at Medway). The UK Open and Pinfest - and these events were ticket format, so you didn't have to be there for the whole qualifying period, plus the Classics were single day events - and the Turkey Fry Up at PBR, which was 7-11pm one evening and 10-3pm the next day. The only comps I've seen that lasted 12+ hours were only if you got into the finals - and again, if you have to head off early, that's fine, just let the organiser know.

I don't know what else organisers can do to make events more inclusive. If you have ideas of how to do that, then you are more than welcome to organise these events yourself - everyone loves to complain about the events that are available but no one ever wants to step up and do it 'better'. ;)
 
After speaking with a few people, it seems Friday 16th is the most popular option as there are lots of comps and events coming up on weekends (such as league meets) and so getting another Saturday off would be tricky, and 11pm finish isn't so late that people can't get home after. So let's give it a try.

I'll check in with Funland and submit to the IFPA to get the ball rolling. More details to follow!
 
David_Vi said:
Yo Vee, respectfully, I think your view of comps is misinformed.
The recent PBR ones have been long but most aren't like this.

Ours run from 11am to around 5pm. That's 6 hours, with a 45min to 1hr lunch break.
It's really hard to have any meaningful comp be much shorter unless it's a part of something else. Four player Matchplay you're looking at 20-30mins a round an

How long do you think they should be?
If you'd like shorter comps you could run them.
We didn't have any pinball events in East Anglia (except Swavesey once a year but it's more a show), so we started our own, as complete novices!
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I was thinking about the recent PBR ones... I'm a PBR member so like to attend as many events as I can, it's a close/convenient venue for me, and I was disappointed that those events weren't as accessible as they could be. Obviously, it's fine for some events not to be designed for everyone, especially due to the need for the best UK players to maximise their WPPR points.

As I wrote, it's a note to future organisers (generally) not a criticism of anyone. I thought it was just me and I was happy someone else popped in to mention this was a *thing* for them too, that was all :) It's slightly off topic for the Funland event, but I thought I'd flag it up. I never know how many people are aware of other people's situations, so it's always better to speak up, just incase... :)
 
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Lecari said:
I don't know what else organisers can do to make events more inclusive. If you have ideas of how to do that, then you are more than welcome to organise these events yourself - everyone loves to complain about the events that are available but no one ever wants to step up and do it 'better'. ;)
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This is exactly it, and the reason I stepped back from many of the pinball activities I was involved in.

You try and put on a comp, show, whatever to the best of your ability and for the enjoyment of others - knowing full well that it won't please everyone, but at least hoping it will appeal to some.
Different formats are trialled, some completely new and never seen before in the pinball world, others new to the UK and others just to step away from the ubiquitous matchplay format for variety - the complaints from people who I suspect couldn't run a bath without supervision, let alone run a competition, then flood in - sometimes even privately, and others put their 'expertise' in.
People should really come to understand that not everything is about them - if a comp doesn't appeal or fit your needs, so be it. That's unlucky, it's nothing personal.

The complaining along with, quite frankly, downright abuse and bullying I got from certain individuals on here made me think "f*#k this".

(I'll be going in to much more detail about this in the UKCS thread after the finals have been held)

Anyway - sorry to derail the thread even more than it was - and good luck to Claire in running this comp in particular, but all of the others you are involved in. It's great to see someone with the passion, time (and skills) to do this. I don't think people who are located nearby realise how lucky they are.
 
Wayne J said:
This is exactly it, and the reason I stepped back from many of the pinball activities I was involved in.

You try and put on a comp, show, whatever to the best of your ability and for the enjoyment of others - knowing full well that it won't please everyone, but at least hoping it will appeal to some.
Different formats are trialled, some completely new and never seen before in the pinball world, others new to the UK and others just to step away from the ubiquitous matchplay format for variety - the complaints from people who I suspect couldn't run a bath without supervision, let alone run a competition, then flood in - sometimes even privately, and others put their 'expertise' in.
People should really come to understand that not everything is about them - if a comp doesn't appeal or fit your needs, so be it. That's unlucky, it's nothing personal.

The complaining along with, quite frankly, downright abuse and bullying I got from certain individuals on here made me think "f*#k this".

(I'll be going in to much more detail about this in the UKCS thread after the finals have been held)

Anyway - sorry to derail the thread even more than it was - and good luck to Claire in running this comp in particular, but all of the others you are involved in. It's great to see someone with the passion, time (and skills) to do this. I don't think people who are located nearby realise how lucky they are.
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@Wayne J I wasn't criticising you or @Lecari or anyone else on the forum, or the Funland event. I appreciate everything everyone does - it is a tonne of work that is gratefully received 🙏

I was literally casually responding to the other person who'd noted the recent weekend PBR events have been super-long. It was just a gentle reminder to make sure that, if possible, venues in the same area have a variety of events on different days, which is what is currently happening. I wouldn't want the new PBR, for example, to have wall-to-wall multi-day WPPR maximising marathons and nothing else (except Thursday night league) :)
 
VeeMonroe said:
Also, as someone pointed out on the Robert Gagno documentary (I'm currently watching with my son), competing for hours at pinball is a physical activity because of the need to stand up for long periods, which isn't exactly practical when you have two (at least) of your internal organs painfully stuck together. I'm sure I'm not the only person with pain, health or mobility issues involved in the UK pinball scene either.
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I took something like this to Pinburgh 2019 to help with the constant standing around, maybe consider it:

 
windoesnot said:
I took something like this to Pinburgh 2019 to help with the constant standing around, maybe consider it:

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I more needed to have taken one of these...


Would have been nice if the unused machines no longer in competition had been left on, for casual play, although I understand there was time pressure to clear up the venue - so, that might have been why they'd been switched off and packed up. As it was, there was a little queue around TBL in the outside corridor (and not just because it's good) :)
 
Wayne J said:
Anyway - sorry to derail the thread even more than it was - and good luck to Claire in running this comp in particular, but all of the others you are involved in. It's great to see someone with the passion, time (and skills) to do this. I don't think people who are located nearby realise how lucky they are.
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Thank you so much Wayne. That's really kind of you - and sorry you had so much abuse and hassle over the events you've run. It is a big effort to organise and run these things - a lot of organising and logistics go on behind the scenes that people don't really see, especially for league events over several sessions and involving lots of different people.

David and I have worked together to create some fun events, different formats and try some new things. Some ideas have worked well (like Max matchplay seems to be a winner!) but others like the 'randomised best game' didn't go down so well (mostly just because it was less social). I enjoy running events and so I'm glad people want to come along - and very pleased that we have managed to attract so many people new to the hobby as well. :)
 
Lecari said:
Some ideas have worked well (like Max matchplay seems to be a winner!) but others like the 'randomised best game' didn't go down so well
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These are the joys of trialling something new.

Successes
  • Flip Frenzy (Max Matchplay)
  • 4 player double elimination (Xmas Cracker)
  • Card format (Pinfest & UK Open) where the main successes, for differing reasons.
  • Predetermined games finals (Pinfest)
  • Perfect opponents, playing every person EXACTLY once (League Finals & UKCS Finals)

Not as successful:
  • Format exactly as World Cup, not so much - mainly because you could be knocked out after only 3 games.
  • Best game format with pts per game awarded based on percentage of the average. It actually meant that a massive game on WH2O by someone meant they virtually qualified due to that game alone, rather than the other 7 games - it probably didn't help people's views on the format because I won it as well - one of my first ever wins.
  • 3 Group round Robin. Having to change the format of the comp on the morning, due to drop-outs, and then having to change the rules midway through due to an oversight. Both of which meant I won that comp as well after I'd declared that I wouldn't be able to qualify for the finals.
 
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