Texas Pinball Festival March 15-17 in Dallas

[8bitgamer]

The Texas Pinball Festival is coming up this weekend, March 15-17 at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas. It's going to be bigger and better than ever--more vendors, more video games, more pinballs, more fun. Pay one price and play pinball and arcade games all day!

http://texaspinball.com/tpf/

[Steve W]

Well, that was fast. I thought there'd be more warning that it'd be coming up. And I'm off on Saturday! Hopefully nothing will derail my plans to go before then.

[8bitgamer]

Well, that was fast. I thought there'd be more warning that it'd be coming up. And I'm off on Saturday! Hopefully nothing will derail my plans to go before then.

Apparently I'm the only one promoting it on message boards, but it's supposedly going to be a much better show this year, which is saying something--it's always a blast.

[Steve W]

I just hope I can get a shot at some of the games there. Last year I wanted to play the Hercules table, but it was never, ever free.

[8bitgamer]

I just hope I can get a shot at some of the games there. Last year I wanted to play the Hercules table, but it was never, ever free.

Yeah, during the busy times of the day it can be tough to play a particular machine. First thing when it opens and later at night are much better.

[Steve W]

I'll be there and it looks like my brother's coming along too. The drawback is the cost of the tickets, considering my brother's broke. Were they always $30 for Saturday, or am I just remembering it differently?

[8bitgamer]

I'll be there and it looks like my brother's coming along too. The drawback is the cost of the tickets, considering my brother's broke. Were they always $30 for Saturday, or am I just remembering it differently?

Prices have definitely gone up. Seems like it used to be $15 or $20.

[Steve W]

Well, I'm going to jump in here and complain about the parking situation before anybody else gets a chance. I had to drive around the parking lot four times and around the block twice just to find where event parking was. All the regular parking areas had been blocked off, leaving nothing but valet parking. I heard from others that there was also a parking structure (the one I drove past was for employees and guests only) that you'd have to pay close to $20 for. I ended up accidentally stumbling across the "overflow" even parking, which was down a side alley behind a bunch of warehouses. It was so far away that it took me, from the moment I walked out of the convention hall, roughly 12 minutes to get to my car.

On the positive side, there were a whole lot more machines than at the previous location, and I had the chance to try a lot of the ones I didn't get to play last year. It also seems that some of the ones I wanted to play were broken, unfortunately. But the new location was huge and there was plenty of walking room between the rows of machines, and a lot more arcade games too. There was room for vendors to have decent sized booths around the perimeter of the space, including the neon light guys with those beautiful gameroom signs. I wanted to know how much those things were, but I knew they wouldn't be cheap so I didn't ask.

I probably should have brought a camera with me. I had my Android phone, but the picture quality is so lousy that there was no point in bothering. I hope people will post some pics here, I'd love to see them!

[dgdgagdae]

I thought there was a thread on the one this year, but I can't find anything. Has anyone been out to the one in Frisco? I was thinking about going on Saturday, it would be my first time.

[Steve W]

There's one in Frisco? I haven't heard about it.

[dgdgagdae]

There's one in Frisco? I haven't heard about it.

There was, it was this past weekend. I thought I saw mention of it on this board, but it was over at Atari Age that I learned of it.