UK tournament pinball thread (+ Large international comps)

[Kaufmanised]

@Lecari and @David_Vi @Wizcat did a great job with Pinfest last year making the points worth it (2024 - 103) previous years we're poorly organised in terms of points (2023 - 32.61 & 2022 - 33.74)

Even the ones at Tilt were worth more then the previous years Infests

God only knows why its back to old management...

PBR and UK Open are the only worth while comps in the UK now and that shows with its attendance

 

[Big Phil]

@Lecari and @David_Vi @Wizcat did a great job with Pinfest last year making the points worth it (2024 - 103) previous years we're poorly organised in terms of points (2023 - 32.61 & 2022 - 33.74)

Even the ones at Tilt were worth more then the previous years Infests

God only knows why its back to old management...

PBR and UK Open are the only worth while comps in the UK now and that shows with its attendance

Just to clear things up a little as I'm getting really tired of misinformation being spread around.

The UKPinfest Open 2024 was ALL Paul & Wayne. They made it what it was. Unfortunately, Wayne took ill and Claire & David stepped in to assist Paul in the weeks leading up to the event and with the smooth running of the tournament over the weekend.

Paul & Wayne should get all the credit for the UKPinfest Open 2024

The schedule was punishing and there was very little downtime to take a break. And because of that, there has been a bit of negative feedback as some competitors wanted a break. Especially during the Saturday evening.

It's a classic case of you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.

And to add to that, not only is the misinformation being spread affecting the competition, it's affecting the whole of the event. Which I'm guessing is why the machine donations are significantly down.

 

[Wayne J]

@Lecari and @David_Vi @Wizcat did a great job with Pinfest last year making the points worth it (2024 - 103) previous years we're poorly organised in terms of points (2023 - 32.61 & 2022 - 33.74)

Even the ones at Tilt were worth more then the previous years Infests

God only knows why its back to old management...

PBR and UK Open are the only worth while comps in the UK now and that shows with its attendance

I'd like to point out that the format last year was predetermined by Paul and myself (mainly Paul) months before Claire and David stepped in due to my illness.

Paul is taking a well earned break this year and focusing on the UK League Finals (which have happened to have a large drop in WPPR pts following previous years).

After the feedback from so many people last year that Pinfest is becoming too focused on competitions with not enough to time to socialise and the competition being downstairs for the first time, the competition is likely to revert back to what it initially set out to be - namely a large intermediate competition between local comps and the larger comps, which isn't as intimidating to newer players and doesn't require as large a time commitment.

Is it a coincidence that these kind of posts always follow a comp where certain individuals attend and spread completely unfounded and untrue rumours?
I would be happy to speak to anybody in person about the reasons of change in personnel and share the actual chats. Likewise there are others who were in a group call that can also set the record straight as to what was actually said.

 

[David_Vi]

If you're referring to myself and Claire, we didnt attend TILT. We haven't spoken about this stuff for months and when we did it was not misinformation. People can see plain and simple what happened last year with your outbursts in the Pinfest feedback thread. Since then we stepped away from it only telling people how hurt we were by particular happenings.

Some people keep mentioning it on the forum but it's nothing to do with us. We aren't bitter and have no reason to keep bringing these things up, we have other things to focus on.

If we were hurt we had every right to tell people and that's not misinformation.

Last year Paul worked on the format. We had nothing to do with the timetable but we and Paul handled everything else, from assembling the bank, game setup, card machine, and other little touches to try improve the comp. So we're extremely hurt by the above messages which really downplay our involvement and how hard we worked.

But to be clear, we love Pinball, we want the best for the UK scene, we love the people and we love doing events. We have absolutely no reason to spread misinformation or keep bringing this stuff up, we have been steering clear of it!

 

[Wayne J]

The requirements to be a Certified+ tournament

1. 128 rated player minimum (only required for Certified+)
2. LIMITED Best Game/Card Qualifying- minimum 20 hours of qualifying time, minimum 5 games being counted, entry total must be at least 2X the amount of machines being used.
3. HYBRID Best Game Qualifying- minimum 20 hours of qualifying time, minimum 5 games being counted, entry total must be exactly 4X the amount of machines being used.
4. UNLIMITED Best Game/Card Qualifying – minimum 20 hours of qualifying time, minimum 5 games being counted.
5. Match Play Qualifying formats (4-player groups) require minimum of 20 qualifying games.
6. Head to head Qualifying formats require minimum of 40 qualifying games.
7. 24 finalists minimum (up from 16) – Same finals format requirement as 2022
8. No other qualifying formats eligible (Flip Frenzy, Pin-Golf, etc)
9. No player may receive a bye beyond the round of 16 finalists.
10. Maximum length of the tournament is 4 consecutive days.
11. Finals for the top 24 cannot start on the same day that Qualifying starts.
12. Finals portion of the tournament must consist of one of the following approved formats: PAPA style match play rounds (minimum of 3 games per round) or IFPA style head-to-head play (minimum best of 5 matches per round). All game choices during finals must be made by the players.

Those items in yellow are the ones which apply to Pinfest Open comp to be Certified+.

With the relatively short time doors are actually open to the public at Pinfest (25hrs) and at least 5 competitions being held, plus the need for people to compete in different finals, eat and socialise it is impossible to please everybody. The absolute hardest to achieve is the Finals format requiring so much time.

 

[Big Phil]

don’t get me wrong, David. You and Claire worked tirelessly over the weekend for the comp. I’m not denying that or trying to gloss over that.

All I’m trying to put across is, the format and schedule to try and make the comp bigger and better was all Paul & Wayne. They planned that all year.

 

[PUP]

Just to clear things up a little as I'm getting really tired of misinformation being spread around.

The UKPinfest Open 2024 was ALL Paul & Wayne. They made it what it was. Unfortunately, Wayne took ill and Claire & David stepped in to assist Paul in the weeks leading up to the event and with the smooth running of the tournament over the weekend.

Paul & Wayne should get all the credit for the UKPinfest Open 2024

The schedule was punishing and there was very little downtime to take a break. And because of that, there has been a bit of negative feedback as some competitors wanted a break. Especially during the Saturday evening.

It's a classic case of you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.

And to add to that, not only is the misinformation being spread affecting the competition, it's affecting the whole of the event. Which I'm guessing is why the machine donations are significantly down.

If this is the reason behind so far very poor machine donations then I really do hope people can shake hands and move on and learn from last years issues. Without pinball, we dont have a show.
We have already lost the NLP ones, NERG, and soon Swavesey, we sure dont want to lose this one.
Please support if you can, for the good of pinball and before its too late.

 

[cyberkryten]

I'm not interested in the arguments etc and who did what, hopefully we can get past any issues - none of these events happen without a huge number of people, all of whom give up their time to make each event the best it can be and Pinfest was as far as I could see a great success last year with a huge number of free-play machines as well as many competitions - everyone I've spoken to really enjoyed it.

My reason for bringing it up was with mention of having to travel outside the UK, I just wanted to highlight how great it was that last year's Pinfest comp was worth so much more than before as it added another huge competition that all UK players can attend easily, especially with Daventry being pretty central (ie not London which I know has been a concern for those living further north).

Wayne, I'm sure you've had feedback directly, but isn't one possible answer for those who want to compete less and socialise more to not to enter the main comp, or just do a couple of cards instead of using the full qualifying time? As you say, there are many competitions there and there's no requirement to enter them all. It just seems a real shame if a few people unhappy about Pinfest hosting such a massively successful big value competition means that no-one gets a big competition at Pinfest, when those who don't want to enter don't have to.