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Closed: pinball party location - poll last night

do folk want the ukpp at merthyr again?

  • yes, merthyr again

    Votes: 18 35.3%

  • no, somewhere more central

    Votes: 33 64.7%
  • Total voters
    51
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I drove right past Daventry on my way to MT, which meant a 4 hour drive rather than 2 hours. Never-the-less I had a great time. The staff were fantastic, the extra space was very welcome and there were far fewer people. I was able to play a lot more machines than I did at Daventry last year. All machines were available on the Saturday night from 11:30pm-3am including the tournament tables but I guess cost and time are a big turnoff for many for that session. The factory tour was good fun and I would go again if it were in MT but it needs a more central location as only the real die hard enthusiasts will make the effort for such a provincial location.

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Firstly a big thank you to everyone involved in bringing this event together. A lot of effort and time had been spent by a lot of people so others can enjoy themselves:)

With regards to the question about location I personal have mixed feelings about it. Took 5+ hours to get there (which is pretty much the same as it would take me to get to North Yorkshire). God only knows how the folk who came by train got back today with the train strike on.

Pros (for me)

Liked the bigger space. Airflow was so much better than the last couple of years

Bar was reasonably priced

Chairs! Good amount of seating for the amount of people there.

Alien reveal was great

Cons

Being stranded without a car for the weekend really brought home that it was being held on an industrial estate with no where to nip out to for food etc (not helped by my hotel being on another industrial estate at the other end of town)

Catering at the venue during the day was pretty dire. On Friday night I made a mistake and thought I could grab something at the show. Firstly problems with the power supply meant there was only sausages available and then later when there was power again there was no vegetarian option so given that there didn't appear to be anywhere near by to nip out to meant a liquid only diet (events after 9pm are a bit hazyo_O).

Wading through water in the toilets wasn't great.

Got the impression that there was significantly less "walk up" people than in the last couple of years


Merthyr on Saturday night in town looked like total carnage. Sat in the pub watching a succession of flashing lights and hordes of ****ed people. Didn't have any hassle myself but got the impression it would be easy to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Found this quote on Wikipedia "A Channel 4 series ranked Merthyr the third-worst place to live in Britain in 2006.[17] In the 2007 edition of the same series, Merthyr had improved to fifth-worst.[18]"

Anyway thanks again for all invovled
 
Think that whoever makes the decisions/organises what happens need to consider whether it is the UK Pinball Party, for all, with a tournament & league finals or is it the UK Pinball Tournaments with some machines for general play? :)
 
First time I've taken the family to the party and thought the venue was good overall. We live up in the North East so it was a hell of a drive... The highlights were the HP staff - all amazing, factory tour was great, Alien reveal was fantastic, vendors were all good and it was brilliant to meet the Pinsound team. Really enjoyed the Joe Balcer talk on Sat night and chatted with him a few times, lovely bloke.

We stayed at the Premier Inn at Aberdare which was a 20 minute drive, would not do that again tbh... that and there would be a few other things which would make me reconsider next year:

balance of tournament games vs. normal games - there was way too many games in the tournament, the attitude of some people involved in the tournament was also off (edit: players, not organisers). Could really do without all that hassle especially with the kids being around that. I had two run ins and talking to other people they had more, almost like non-tournament folks were the poor relation... I would at least ask that the games list shows what is tournament vs. normal and make my decision to go based on that. This one for me would be the deal breaker whether I go again or not.

a lot of machines down - I know valiant efforts were being made to keep the games running but there seemed to be more machines out of action this year? I thought so anyway. Also noticed that NLP were not actively present where they were at Daventry, not sure if this was related.

sound balancing - some games seemed to have zero sound which was not too good, I know it's a big echoey room but would love it if something could be arranged for hearing the machines better. Funny that you can always hear BK2000 though...

Really enjoyed the event, Andy and the team did a great job but there is always room for improvement.
 
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Agree about the sound, why do people leave the sound off/low? Pinball without sound is ...well...boring to me. Still, BK2k sings above all others as always as you say Kris :)
 
As a supporter of the UK Pinball Party, we believe it was a great success.
Hard work from Andy Heighway and his team was the key.
As for location, may seem local to us (35 miles), but still travelled over 200 miles with collections and drop offs. Took 2 days off work, helped after work too. Played about 20 games in total. Complaining? No.
Need more people to give up some of their weekend time to help out. Just an hour. Anyone can put credits on machines, pick up litter..
Great weekend.
Dave & Lynda
Pinballdaze
 
kevlar said:
Agree about the sound, why do people leave the sound off/low? Pinball without sound is ...well...boring to me. Still, BK2k sings above all others as always as you say Kris :)
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When you setup a machine, and adjust the volume, with no other ones on, it will sound loud. As soon as you turn on 100 machines, whatever volume you had it set at is now inaudible and it needs turning up loads.

I keep getting told "it's too loud" when I am working on one of the pins at arcade club, but as soon as the place is open and everything is turned on, what was previously too loud is barely audible.

So anyway, the volumes just need re-adjusting once the place is full, or setting very loud during setup. I tend to go round at the NLP show and adjust any I come accross that are too quiet, so someone needs to take on that job at the pinball party ;)
 
Would like to start a list of machine donators. Sorry if I miss anyone, please add.
Martin Ayub, Steve Pagett, Peter Blakemore, Andy Foster, Kettering Keith and Sam Cullis, Matt Vince, Robin Kemp, Andy Netherwood, Kevin Donovan, Mike Parkins, Eric Evans, Dan Bradford, David Mainwaring, Ian Wallace, John Croxford, Mike Kindler, Mission65 (sorry, real name req,) Dave Willcox and the Heighway Pinball team machines.
Dave
 
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You missed Dave Wilcox :p

Seriously though the guys bringing machines made the party the success Andies team designed it to be.

Thanks guys for a great weekend..
 
BigIan said:
You missed Dave Wilcox :p

Seriously though the guys bringing machines made the party the success Andies team designed it to be.

Thanks guys for a great weekend..
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Thanks Ian and the rest of our Irish contingent Leo, Gary and Keith.
I will add myself.
Hope you all enjoyed.
Dave
 
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I don't have much to add other than to say I had a blast as a first timer, thanks to Andy and his crew, the tour and alien reveal were a great insight into the vision Andy has for the future, he is clearly passionate about what he is doing and it is up to us as fellow passionate pinheads to get behind him. I have a few ideas, connections that I will be putting forward, if it help great and if not, no harm no foul.

Was the location remote and should it be more central U.K? Yes. Obviously. The visit has served it's purpose but is too biased to the SW.

Was the allocating of pins off balance? Yes. I'm in hospitality and basically host a party every night and have done for 11 years and I'm still fine tuning the processes. I'm sure if a small comittee form and discuss this a formula can be ironed out to create the best experience for both competition entrants and casual visitors. Smaller time windows for the stages to take place so people don't bugger off and eat, shop, take a stroll whilst others wait for them to return to play. Clear hours where the machines are for the tournament and several times throughout the day where Joe public can have a turn. Sharing is caring after all.
 
If the venue is moved to a central location, I doubt Andy and his team will organise it. They need to concentrate on Pinball production.
Do we have anyone who is prepared to take this over? Would need to collect machines and return them after the event. Probably lose money too. Believe this was discussed before.
Will be visiting Andy soon and think he needs feedback of any kind.
 
This is the first UK Pinball Party I have been to since the POA events in the mid to late '90's that some on here will remember :thumbs: so I never went to Daventry last year .I like the idea of accommodating and hosting all in one venue , so to have to get to and from one's hotel was a little tricky , but the sacrifice was worth it to be there ...as for the location of the venue , it's never gonna be easy to satisfy everyone .
Thought that this pinball factory has amazing potential , Andy Heighway is UK pinball's answer to Willy Wonka :clap:and although the first time I heard about the idea of a UK pinball manufacturer I was skeptical, I came away after the factory tour feeling like Andy and his team have something going on and I really wish him all the very best and every possible success....

It was a great buzz to see so many pins under one roof . But yes , I have to agree with the general sentiment expressed here already with regards to the Public's inability to play the tournament machines :mad: I was in the tournament and if me & my opponent drew a machine that someone was already playing from the public we waited for them to finish their game . it wasn't made clear that the tournament machines weren't available for public use, so yeah , if i had paid to get in as a member of joe public and seen Walking Dead free i'd have jumped on it too. Especially as the ' public area' had so many broken or not working machines .Maybe the solution (as already posted above) would be to have time windows where ALL the machines are available for public play ?

Big thanks and gratitude to the venue host and his team , to all those that bought , set up and maintained machines,the tournament organisers and desk crew ,all the stall holders/catering crews etc.... thank you sooo much for making it happen ;););) well done :D
 
PinballDaze said:
If the venue is moved to a central location, I doubt Andy and his team will organise it. They need to concentrate on Pinball production.
Do we have anyone who is prepared to take this over? Would need to collect machines and return them after the event. Probably lose money too. Believe this was discussed before.
Will be visiting Andy soon and think he needs feedback of any kind.
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Wherever it is located you aren't going to please everybody but reading the posts on here and other forums I think the general consensus and feeling is that a central location is fair to everybody.

I have only ever been to Daventry shows but pre those i'm sure I heard or read somewhere that the initial idea was to have it centrally based?

Having it in a factory great and if it has to be there next year so be it but won't Andy be in full production and not have the space?

Serious pinheads will go to wherever the event is, whether for the world ranking points or just the social side of it, but location may struggle to attract joe public and non competition pinballers.

Think other questions that need to be asked:-

Whoever organises it relies on the generosity of, mainly private owners, loaning their machines so should they not be considered re. location? Could be that you will get more if centrally based?

Some local to this years event may not take any or take less but others may take more.

Tournament and availability of free play machines seems to have been more of an issue this year, as did the usual non-working machines. Flyer advertised event as "more than 100 Free Play machines!" Maybe but what it didn't say was that you can see them but you can't play them as they are for 'tournament' only :eek:

Big :thumbs: to the guys who loaned their machines and stated for general play only but over on the yahoo board it was stated that

"Something perhaps people don't realise is that a significant number of the machines used in the five tournaments were brought to the Party *purely* for use in the tournaments. That is, if they weren't going to be used in the tournaments, they wouldn't be there at all. I know, as I transported a few of them."

Rough figures only but with tournament, non workers, etc then probably 50'ish for paying punters to play on. So you can understand some of the comments from some people.

Just my 2p worth :)
 
Ok, I'll add my 2 pence worth seeing as it's all my fault with the selection of the tournament games that denied the general playing public their chance to go on them.

First off, the tournament - the UK Open was the driving force for the UK pinball party to happen. There were behind the scene discussions in planning for the UK open as we knew that Daventry was out this year and looked at alternatives. The answers we found were very expensive and would probably have been a minimum £30 (probably more like £50) entry to make anything viable. The Andrew Heighway offered use of the factory for the tournament (for which we were very grateful as it meant the UK Open could go ahead) and then it became the UK Pinball Party once again. For me personally it was the same distance and length time wise to travel to Merthyr as Daventry, however I have been known to drive to Scotland for the Scottish Open before now…

Tournament games are expected to be a certain standard if at all possible (clean and fully working) and as we set up before the show opens as it is best to try and avoid moving machines with the public milling around. Hence all late arrivals ending up near the back door. Sometime people will only lend games if they are only used for tournaments.

Tournament Games were:
  1. Avatar – Supplied by myself for tournament use, duplicate machine on the show floor.
  2. Whitewater – Supplied by Tim / myself for tournament use, there was supposed to be a duplicate machine on the show floor, although I don’t recall seeing it.
  3. T2 – Supplied by Tim / myself for tournament use only, duplicate machine on the show floor.
  4. World Challenge Soccer – Supplied by myself was supposed to be held in reserve for the tournaments but promoted other machines pencilled in for the tournament were not available (I500 one had GI out and the other was late arriving and had display driver board problems).
  5. WWF Royal Rumble – Supplied by myself for tournament use.
  6. X-men – Supplied by myself for tournament use.
  7. Goldeneye – Supplied by Mike for tournament use if we could get the display working, so I fixed it and it worked fine all weekend.
  8. Jackbot – Supplied by Andy H.
  9. ST:TNG – supplied by Jon, I grabbed it for the tournament seeing as I help arrange it’s transportation at the very last minute, delaying collection of games from Special When Lit and ended up helping Andy H load up at midnight.
  10. Fish Tales – Supplied by Keith, there were 2 other Fish Tales at the show. I was going to use another one for the Kids competition but that didn’t happen.
  11. World Cup Soccer – Supplied by Martin for tournament use.
  12. Scared Stiff – Supplied by Martin for tournament use.
  13. HS2 – Supplied by Martin for tournament use. There was supposed to be at least one other on the show floor but I think it may have been under repair. You can see it behind the door staff in one of the show photos.
  14. Walking Dead – Supplied by Dave M, for tournament use only. There was a LE for the show floor supplied by Andy H but it appears that no one unboxed it until Sunday…
  15. ST Pro – Supplied by Dave M, for tournament use only. There were another 2 on the show floor, although one used for the league for part of the day on Saturday.
  16. Corvette - Supplied by Martin for tournament use.
  17. Monster Bash – Supplied by Andy H. I was struggling to find enough machines for the tournament and Andy said to use this. I said it would lead to complaints but ended up using it anyway. Now if I’d known just how many complaints…
  18. Full Throttle – Supplied by Heighway Pinball. There were at least 2 others available to play in the entrance and it only seemed right to include this in the tournament given the location, etc.
  19. Spiderman – Supplied by Steve P, there were at least 2 others on the show floor, although one used for the league for part of the day on Saturday.
  20. Roadshow – Supplied by Dave S, there was supposed to be another one on the show floor.
  21. Blackout – Supplied by Dave S.
  22. Dracula – Supplied by Andy H.
So out of 22 machines, 9 were duplicates and it would have been more if a I500 had been ok and the other Iron Man had turned up earlier than it did. So that would have been half of the tournament machines had duplicates. Of the 22 there were 13 of which were supplied solely for tournament use.

Previous years we have used 20 machines for tournaments but they had a lot less games played on them on the one day.

Classics
  1. Harlem Globetrotters – Supplied by Dave S.
  2. Firepower – Supplied by Andy H.
  3. Nitro Ground Shaker – Supplied by Dave W.
  4. Caveman – Supplied by Andy H, last minute replacement for Fire! as no one could find the keys for it (also Andy H).
  5. Mousing Around – Supplied by Andy F, last minute replacement when I couldn’t find Diner – Steve P as it was set up at the time of looking.
  6. Banzai Run – Supplied by Andy F, last minute replacement when Black Knight (also Andy F) displays played up.
Anyone could enter the classics and have a go on them on the Saturday, plus there were quite a few other classics on the show floor.

Kids / Youth
  1. Flintstones – Supplied by Ian, tournament use only.
  2. Batman – Supplied by Andy H.
We also had 30 games solely for show floor only. 10 were duplicates probably at least another 10 that were not usable/suitable (faults, no keys, etc).

And Martin’s comments on the matter (taken for yahoo group).

A couple of points then.

Something perhaps people don't realise is that a significant number of the machines used in the five tournaments were brought to the Party *purely* for use in the tournaments. That is, if they weren't going to be used in the tournaments, they wouldn't be there at all. I know, as I transported a few of them.

Would it be better to have them and make them available to play after the tournaments on Friday night and Saturday night, or not have them at the show at all?

The other point is about swapping machines over between days. The reason we stopped that is because it's an absolute killer on the poor sods who have to do it.

Apart from the physical effort of moving all the machines around before the doors open to the public (can't be moving them once the public are there), you then end up with a bunch of tournament machines which have been played solid the previous day and developed a bunch of faults you have to discover and fix. Some of them might have died or not be easily repaired, so you then have to find replacements. You're also probably chasing up the (sleeping) owners to find the keys and have to re-level them and set them up for tournament play.

And even then you get the people who are coming to the show for one day saying "I wanted to play that machine". It's no help to them to say "well, you should have been here yesterday".
 
There was a White water on the show floor, down the back beside Andys WOZ ,TWD, I500 etc.

While I'm posting here, Big thanks to Peter, Greg, Martin, The Raisons and all the guys that where running the tournaments, they dont just happen and take loads of time to organise and the work is very much appreciated by us..
 
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