Welcome to our live coverage of this 40th anniversary Pinball Expo being held at the Schaumburg Convention Center in the city of Schaumburg, about 25 miles north-west from the centre of Chicago.
The Convention Center is joined to the neighbouring Renaissance Hotel which is the official Pinball Expo hotel, even having Expo-branded room keys for attendees.
This year’s show is promising to be the largest ever. It’s certainly the longest ever, with events starting in the morning of the Tuesday. There are four organised pinball factory tours taking place, starting with Chicago Gaming on Tuesday, American Pinball on Wednesday, Jersey Jack Pinball on Thursday and Stern Pinball on Friday.
The first two of these are combined with visits to famous video and pinball arcades in the greater Chicagoland area. After the being shown around Chicago Gaming in Cicero on Tuesday, Pinball Expo attendees head over to Brookfield for a tour of the Galloping Ghost Arcade. Thursday’s American Pinball tour is preceded by a trip to Logan Arcade near Logan Square in downtown Chicago.
The main show hall has been enlarged this year, with 100,000 square feet for the vendor hall, a new free play area in the room previously occupied by the tournaments, and a new tournaments area in the section of the Main Ballroom.
Monday
We arrived on Monday evening when the main hall was almost empty, except for some desks and merchandise for the registration area.
Pinball Expo is famed for its extensive schedule of seminars and this year that has been enhanced expanded for the fortieth show with three full days of talks and a second seminars room. That means, on Thursday and Saturday, there will be seminars in both rooms at the same time.
Pinball News will be bringing you all video recordings of the talks from the main seminars room (Nirvana A&B) with valuable assistance from Pinball Magazine. We don’t have the resources to cover the second, smaller seminars room (Nirvana C) next door, but hope to be able to bring you audio recordings of those. There are several brand new systems for the audio and video in both rooms, so there are still quite a few unknowns about how it will all work at this stage.
Video recording of the seminars as well as video tours of the show floor, free play area, tournaments room and autograph session will all be on the Pinball News Videos YouTube channel in a special Pinball Expo 2024 playlist.
So, on with the coverage of Pinball Expo 2024.
Tuesday
The registration desks for show guests to collect their passes, show guide and event tickets opened at a little after 10am in the main hall. Before the doors opened, quite a queue had built up in the lobby area outside and around the corner.
On one side, those who had pre-registered could collect their badges, wristbands and event passes. On the other, on-the-day registration was available, although probably 95% of Expo attendees this morning had pre-registered.
The opening of registration was also the first opportunity to purchase Pinball Expo branded merchandise, including the special T-shirt designed by Brian Allen of Flyland Design.
In the hall beyond, some preparations for the vendor stands were under way, most notably by Tilt Amusements and Stern Pinball. Tilt Amusements are bringing over 100 new Stern games to Pinball Expo to display on the Stern Pinball stand and also for use in the tournaments area.
Attendees gathered for the Chicago Gaming Company and Galloping Ghost Arcade tours in the Convention Center lobby at 11:45.
Three large yellow school buses arrived to convey guests to the Chicago Gaming factory in Cicero, around a 30 minute drive away.
The weather turned rainy in the time it took to arrive at the factory. Everyone crammed into the lobby before being divided into groups for the tour.
Once some groups were made, those guests had a little time to play some of the Chicago Gaming titles – Medieval Madness Remake, Attack from Mars Remake, Monster Bash Remake, Cactus Canyon Remake and Pulp Fiction.
One of the Cactus Canyon Remakes included the recently previewed saloon entrance add-on.
Company owner, Doug Duba, welcomed everyone to the factory and the tour. He explained a little of the history of Churchill Cabinets and how the Chicago Gaming brand came into existence.
Unfortunately nobody was permitted to take photographs of the manufacturing processes, but if you want to see some of the behind-the-scenes pictures from the factory as it was back in 2016, check out our full Chicago Gaming Factory Tour report.
Most guests received a complimentary gift bag containing a Chicago Gaming T-shirt, an iced cookie, a bag of plastic parts to make a Medieval Madness catapult, and some Pulp Fiction cards and stickers.
Sadly, there were more tour guests than expected, so the last few visitors to the factory didn’t get one of these goodie bags.
After completing the tour, the school buses took the Pinball Expo attendees to Galloping Ghost Arcade in Brookfield, another 30 minute drive away.
Galloping Ghost lays claim as “the largest arcade in the world”, something it’s hard to challenge. Certainly they have over 1,000 arcade video games tightly-packed in under one roof.
The sheer number of arcade machines is breathtaking. It’s almost certain that if you can remember a game from your video playing days, you’ll find it here. Somewhere.
Pinball fans weren’t left out though, as three blocks down the street is Galloping Ghost Pinball, where you’ll find more than 40 machines set up to play for a one-time entry fee.
Although pizza was served to tour guests back at the Galloping Ghost Arcade, we took the opportunity to grab a late lunch elsewhere before heading back to the Convention Center for Tuesday night’s movies.
We’ll be there and will bring you full details of these, along with all the latest news from this first day of the fortieth anniversary Pinball Expo, right here at Pinball News.
In the meantime, while this year’s Pinball Expo has barely started, the dates for next year’s show have already been announced.
