As Editor of Pinball Magazine, I have attended several editions of the Texas Pinball Festival (TPF). Usually, Martin Ayub and I host our So You Think You Know Pinball?-quiz at the event, and we travel together as well. As last year, we’re joined by Marcel van Kessel, the main organizer of the Dutch Pinball Open Expo. This year, we decided to fly into Houston and visit some Texas-based pinball manufacturers on our way to Frisco, TX, where TPF is held. As Martin is writing his own, extremely in-depth report on TPF, Pinball Magazine’s angle below is writing more of a personal diary of the entire trip.

Monday, March 16: Travel day of more than 24 hours due to delays and rebooked flights. We arrived in Houston too late to do anything.

Tuesday, March 17:

On the way to Barrels Of Fun, we visited the Delorean Motor Company in Humble, TX.

We arrived at Barrels of Fun around noon and got a short tour from CEO David van Es. Since our last visit last year, the factory has expanded, and several areas have moved to different rooms in the buildings, gaining more space.

David explained some of the challenges he faces daily regarding dealing with vendors, finding the right personnel, expanding, and building games. Most of that was off the record, so I can’t get into any specifics, but it’s clear that running a pinball company involves many challenges. He also talked about how, after the mild reception of Dune, they didn’t see it coming that Winchester Mystery House would be such a hit game for them. The game was intended as a filler to keep the factory line moving. So they’re now building both Dune and Winchester Mystery House simultaneously on two different lines. David was kind enough to sponsor our So You Think You Know Pinball?-quiz with a Dune playfield. Much appreciated!

Following the tour, we played Winchester Mystery House for over an hour in the entrance area of the factory. What a great game! The entire sound package is just a perfect fit for the theme.

Wednesday, March 18:

Last night, Martin received a heads-up from Turner Pinball about a new game they would be revealing today. So Martin had been up most of the night to work on his article about this game.

The game is called Yukon Yeti, is designed by veteran pinball designer Dennis Nordman and can be considered an unofficial follow-up to his White Water game. Please note that Dennis Nordman’s career in pinball has been covered in-depth in Pinball Magazine No. 2. Dennis will also be a special guest at the Texas Pinball Festival.

So, while Martin hadn’t slept much, it was still a travel day and he was driving the car. We planned a detour via Round Rock, TX, to visit Multimorphic. We arrived around noon and got a tour of the factory by founder Gerry Stellenberg. Obviously, Multimorphic’s latest title, Portal, was in production.

We sat down to record “What’s Cooking With Gerry Stellenberg” for the upcoming episode of the Pinball Magazine & Pinball News PINcast, which will be published around April 1 and cover the most significant pinball industry news, as well as the Texas Pinball Festival.

We arrived in Frisco around 7:00 PM. After checking into our room and unloading the car, I went to see what was happening in the TPF hall. As it was a tech day, about 20 games were already set up in the back of the hall. I was able to play two homebrew games: Monsters Inc and Tiki Tapu. Both games were fun to play, had great artwork, and surprising sound packages.

Thursday, March 19:

Following breakfast, Martin, Marcel, and I headed to The Vista Mall in Lewisville, TX, to visit Pinball In The Mall. This is an arcade with mostly pinball machines, but there are also video games. Jim Bu and his wife, Cindy, run the arcade—very nice people. The photos below speak for themselves. Note that about a dozen games have been removed from the location to appear at the upcoming Texas Pinball Festival. So, usually there are more games to play.

As we had to return our rental car, we could only stay about 45 minutes, but we managed to play a few games. Jim kindly offered to pick us up at the rental car facility and drive us back to Frisco, which we gladly accepted.

In the meantime, the show floor was taking shape, with many vendors and exhibitors arriving and setting up games in their booths. I had a meeting with a local flyer collector, for whom I brought some European flyers.

When I got back to the show, things really started taking shape.

Spooky Pinball brought at least 19 BeetleJuice pinball machines.

American Pinball has a large stand with many of its previous games, including a Houdini with new cabinet artwork by Christopher Franchi. Only 100 Houdini games with this artwork will be produced.

Stern Pinball has a large booth featuring Pokémon and Star Wars pinball games, among others. I also had a nice talk with Mike Vinikour, who collects vinyl records, just like I do.

Marco Specialties is continuing to support the homebrew community by exhibiting 15 homebrew pinball machines at the show.

I also received a press kit from Hexa Pinball under embargo, about The 3 Musketeers, their new game, which they plan to reveal tomorrow. I ended up having dinner with the Hexa Pinball team as well.

Friday, March 19:

With the show opening today at 4:00 PM, all vendors have arrived, as have many visitors. By now, it is becoming harder and harder to keep track of who you run into and to find the time to write a report like this. Basically, every ten steps you run into a familiar face and have a little chat. Today was no different. Especially since many visitors discovered there was little security to keep them from entering the showfloor before 4:00 PM, so many entered earlier.

Turner Pinball started building its booth with two new Yukon Yeti games and two Merlin’s Arcade games. I was one of the first to play Yukon Yeti, and this sure looks like a fun game to me. Chris Turner explained the background of the game to me: Dennis had started this design while working at Deeproot Pinball. After Chris had bought the assets from Deeproot, Dennis reached out to him as he wanted to finish the game.

Hexa Pinball was supposed to reveal The 3 Musketeers this afternoon, but the three games sent to the show were held up by customs for 10 days and only released today. Although the team did their best to have their courier deliver the games to the show today, they were informed that this would not be possible. The team improvised by showing a video of the game in their booth and also featuring a Gottlieb woodrail Three Musketeers game from the 1949 setup.

At the Stern booth, the games were updated to the latest software code. Pokémon also got a hardware fix by the game’s designer, George Gomez. He was adjusting the metal rails on the left and right orbit shots, which were not properly positioned. For games yet to be built, this fix will be applied in the factory.

I got to play some games on Beetlejuice and Harry Potter.

The seminar program kicked off at 7:00 PM with Jersey Jack Pinball, followed by Barrels of Fun and Multimorphic. I attended all three, partly, as I was also invited to the Stern Army happy hour with free drinks and ice cream.

Later in the evening, I ran into Melvin Brouwer Williams, the new Creative Director at American Pinball, in the corridor. We talked about his recent appointment. One of the first things he realized was getting Christopher Franchi to create new cabinet artwork for Houdini, which was realized within two weeks.

Earlier in the day, I talked to AP President Ron Lindeman, who explained that the limited run of 100 Houdini games with new cabinet artwork was already sold out for them as a manufacturer before the update was announced. AP has over 120 distributors and resellers in its network, which means some would be left out of the opportunity to order the game. Note that while AP may have sold all available 100 Houdini games to distributors, they still may have games available for the general public to buy.

While I was talking to Melvin, AP-owner Bryan Vincent joined us. From what I understand, his plan for AP is to target wealthy people who may already have a mancave but no pinball machine yet.

At the end of the evening, I briefly attended the traditional room party hosted by Game Exchange of Colorado. In the room, a Harry Potter and a Pokémon game were set up. After a couple of games, I called it quits for today, as Saturday will start very early.

Saturday, March 21:

Woke up at 6:00 AM to attend the swap meet in the parking lot. Officially, it didn’t start until 7:00 AM, but it always starts earlier. Found several cool items at a very reasonable price that I ended up buying.

After breakfast, Martin and I collected various prizes to give away later today in our So You Think You Know Pinball?-quiz, which will start at 5:00 PM in the happy hour bar. I updated the list of sponsors in the quiz’s presentation and added more questions.

I headed back to the swap meet to see if any new vendors had shown up. That wasn’t the case. I was then approached by a car salesman who asked if I was interested in experiencing the self-driving Tesla. I told him I’m not in the market to buy a car, but sure, why not? So I took a little ride around the block. It was definitely an interesting experience. It’s both great and scary to realize how far technology has advanced.

As the show is peaking on Saturday, I run into so many familiar faces, which is great. That also means I sometimes lose track of what I was doing or where I was going, and updating this report becomes impossible. So, in the meantime, the show has ended, and I traveled back home. I’ll pick up where I left off, trying to remember as much as possible.

Most of Saturday was dedicated to making sure the So You Think You Know Pinball?-quiz would run correctly. Martin, my co-host for the quiz, had added new questions. During the day, he informed me that American Pinball sponsored the quiz, offering three swag bags and three baseball caps. Michael Grant of Stern Pinball had brought a King Kong and Metallica Remastered translite, both signed by the design teams. I even added a question about Michael to the quiz.

Around 4:00 PM, I took a suitcase trolley to our hotel room to load it up with all the prizes. The quiz is held in the back of the breakfast area of the hotel and takes place at the same time as happy hour in the bar at the front of the same area. After creating a row of tables to display all the prices, each prize got its own raffle number. Setting up went more quickly this year than in previous editions, which allowed me to arrange a couple of drinks before we got started. Shout out to bartender Anna for her kind collaboration.

The quiz started at 5:00 PM, and more and more people seem to be remembering to be there to win some cool prizes. This year’s biggest prize was a Dune playfield, sponsored by Barrels of Fun. It wasn’t until one of the final rounds that a lucky winner drafted the corresponding raffle ticket.

All in all, the quiz was a great success, and we received many positive comments. Much appreciated.

After the quiz, I attempted to clean things up a bit and put the tables and chairs back where they came from, more or less. At 7:00 PM, I joined Jersey Jack Pinball founder Jack Guarnieri at Hard Eight, a barbecue restaurant a few miles away. Having learned from previous visits, I ordered the right amount of food this time, which tasted great.

Once back at the show, I was looking for someone from Chicago Gaming, as I had a special Pinball Magazine-related request. Much to my surprise, I ran into Cathy Duba, the wife of Doug Duba, who runs Chicago Gaming. We had met before, at the 2024 Chicago Gaming factory tour. Despite the noisy surroundings, this turned out to be an interesting conversation. I pitched my request and will follow up this week. We were joined by Marcel, as Doug Duba later on, so I could explain my request directly to him as well. I got the impression my request may be achievable in the not-too-distant future.

Back in my hotel room, I checked in for my flight the next day, which still took over an hour. I also started pre-packing so I would be ready to go the next morning.

After midnight, Marcel and I returned to the show floor. The show was closed to the general public, but remains open to exhibitors, vendors, and volunteers. Marco Specialties had a DJ playing dance Music in their booth, who played some really nice tunes. I have to say I really enjoyed playing pinball on a disco beat. Since there weren’t any lines, I was able to play some games I hadn’t played before.

Sunday, March 22

The final day of the show and the start of the trip back home. I had asked for a late checkout, so we had until noon to check out. I had seen a few people at the show, after which we checked out of our room. Unfortunately, Marcel and I had a flight late in the afternoon, so we had to leave the show before it officially closed. When we found out our plane was delayed, we tried to stay longer, but eventually left around 1:45 PM. So we missed the closing ceremony, but that, and more, is covered in Martin’s in-depth show report on Pinball News.

Once again, another great edition of the Texas Pinball Festival. I look forward to coming back next year.