I wanted to officially announce that a location has been secured on the eastside of Madison (location annouced at a later date but it is a nice place and ideal for pinball) and we will have 4 pinball machines of good playing condition arriving in early April!!!
This is a joint effort by some local pinheads to try and bring pinball back on location in Madison and to have a spot with enough good playing games to hopefully increase play on a local level!
The slated starting lineup is STpro, TAF, SpaceShuttle, and FunHouse. Our intent is to keep all machines playing well like they would in our personal colelctions. We also intend to rotate machines once or twice a year to try and keep things fresh (one of the benefits of having a few collectors work together on this is more machines that we can rotate when needed).
This is done out of the love for pinball and a hope to get pinball into the hands of people that do not get to experience our private collections as well as to get those of us that are private collectors out into the real world and meeting new pinheads
. What Jon and those guys have done in MKE is really cool and I hope we can get something similar happening in Madison. I am pretty excited that this has come together but we still have a ways to go and I would appreciate your feedback. As part of the deal to secure a location, I have promised to host a monthly event at the location in an effort to get people in the door and show the bar owner that pinball on location is not completely dead! I appreciate that the bar owner is taking a risk and giving up valuable space, so I am hoping we will get folks to come out and have some fun while also buying a drink and some food to say thanks to the bar for giving us this opportunity.
I wanted to pick your brain on what day/time would be best to hold a monthly event and would you be likely to attend?
Basic idea is that it would be something like "the first Monday of each month" or the "2nd Tuesday of each month" but actual day of the week/week of the month is yet to be decided. Are there certain days you would suggest avoiding? I think I should avoid Mondays due to MNF during football season... Are there days that bowling or volleyball typically happen where I should avoid those days also?
The bar owner is open to me deciding whatever week day so long as I remain consistent after it starts. My gut tells me "the 2nd Tuesday of each month" is good because it avoids football and most holidays during the year? It will also avoid the MKE stuff (not sure how many people would come over from MKE?) I also tend to feel Mondays are bad becuase people are stressed getting back to the work week?
The general format would be more social in nature (but still competitive in a fun way) and my best guess is we will get 12-20 people on avg (hoping?). People would be put in 4 packs and play through each of the 4 games together and record scores as they go. The top scores of the night would be used to do a top 4 or 8 playoff. My best guess is that it will take 2-3 hrs on any given night to play. IFPA would be reported monthly and seperate from the bar build up tracking of points for prizes.
People would be awarded 'bar' points for position and attendance? each month and all points would add up over the year (as an incentive for people to come more often). We would then do some sort of yearly capstone on the last month of each year and award the big trophy (maybe even one that stays at the bar and has your name permenantly engraved?) Is there a time of night to start that you would suggest? 6pm start? earlier or later? why?
other suggestions onf format? I want something that has less wait time and more play time. I also like events that get people playing with others as it means you learn more and possibly meet a new friend.
There is no fee to play besides the coin drop for the games and I am hoping to find some fun prizes for each month and hopefully a cool annual trophy and prize.
I appreciate your input on this and want to try my best to help bring pinball back in Madison which means we need to appeal to both the novice casual and more competitive players.
thanks in advance for your constructive input, Hilton
That being said, both Monday and Wednesday would work out best for me. As far as format, I personally feel that it should be something that:
