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Australian PAPA? (just an idea)


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Machines on $1 play as they were intended I say. No entrance fee. Literally turn it into an arcade and run the scores via the machines themselves. Set the high scores to 5 free games so when you hear 5 hits of a knocker go off, you know a score has been beat and that score should go in the competition not that anyone would be walking away form a good score anyway.

 

Piss off the auto percentaging and lucky number maybe and let the machines play with the factory score levels.

 

The good are rewarded with paying out less to play, the excellent get there scores compiled in the competition and the beginners get to learn the best way, paying to play.

 

May sound harsh but we learnt to play the hard way and I seriously think free play encourages games not being completed and just reset till that elusive excellent first ball comes around which I think suks.

 

What ever the decision, I think it is a great idea myself letting these machines out and doing what they were made to do.

 

This wouldn't be possible. Having a party 8 times a year vs a commercial venture = different kettle of fish. There are only 2 zones (off the top of my head) you can operate an amusement centre in in my council area, and E3 isn't one of them :lol

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Australian PAPA? (just an idea)

 

It was the first one and yeah, there could have been things done differently, but that’s all good looking back. Most people out there had probably never, and will never see some of those games, so to get them on the floor was great, I think. If some failed, oh well.

 

 

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I don’t think he was talking about comps but just like the papa facility in general.

 

 

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Exactamundo. PAPA setup, not PAPA mission statement.

 

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I would pay at least 100 dollars to visit at least once a year from Brisbane.

 

Whilst I agree with the sentiment, I'm not sure how many would agree with you!

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You're bored. Really bored. :lol

 

Really really bored :lol

 

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I'd show up once or twice a year. $50 for the day sounds about right to me. Maybe $60. Much beyond that, I don't think the value would be there any more. And, let's face it, people aren't going to play continuously for twelve hours, even if they are there for that long.

 

I'd consider selling some food and drinks. You could add some extra margin that way.

 

Michi.

 

Selling food is problematic - It'd be limited to vending machines more than likely. I can easily get one of those pie vending machines though and stick a microwave next to it.

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Maybe if you're a local. This may stop intersaters from attending. Interstaters have to take transport, food and accommodation into account. If on top of that they had to pay for each game, how much do they budget for? What if they have really quick games? Do they have to keep pumping more and more money in, or pack up and go home? I'd rather pay up front and not have to worry about how much money I have left. That would take away from the experience.

 

And who's gonna go to the bank to get coins so that there's change at the event for people with notes? A few back of the envelope calcs: if there are 200 games and they're played 5 times each, that's 1000 $1 coins needed. How many coins do you think would be going through each machine per hour... for "minimum 12hrs open time, possibly longer". How much change do you think Sleazius will need on hand throughout the event?

 

Nightmare!

 

No coins, for reasons already stated, but these reasons are very valid too.

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Selling food is problematic - It'd be limited to vending machines more than likely. I can easily get one of those pie vending machines though and stick a microwave next to it.

 

Yes, I'm sure there are issues about food safety and regulations and such. Still, pre-packaged food would be OK. Add bags of chips, chocolate bars, two-minute noodles, whatever. (I'm sure that there are more interesting options with a bit of research.)

 

From your description, it sounds like the place might be out of the way a bit. If so, people will appreciate being able to get a snack. On the other hand, if there are some local food joints close by, limit it to drinks and snacks.

 

Michi.

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Yeah, raffle an Le each time to make it fun. You won’t notice a couple missing. Ha. But seriously, your wife and neighbours, probably only three times a year and $50 to $60 is very reasonable I think. Love your thinking Leigh.[emoji41][emoji41]

 

 

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Anymore than 8 times a year wouldn't be possible. The neighbours wouldn't have it.

 

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Some really good ideas here. I'd visit once a year. But I reckon 3 times maybe 4 times so people have the opportunity to at least attend one. I kind of like the coin idea AND an entry fee. EM's 20c or 40c and modern games $1. Something along those lines. I see the point of interstaters expenses. If there was a door charge of even $20 and pay, I would more than likely make 2 visits. I can see a minority of players playing for the 12 hours - and that's not a dig, just a fact. Paying for your games, I tend to enjoy it more because you're challenging yourself. I reckon you would get more people playing with more opportunity to get on the games.

 

Could do what some of the venues in the states do, which is put the brand new games on coin drop for the first 12 months. Its something to think about, but like I said elsewhere, it does raise issues.

 

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Maybe work out how many are coming to an event and charge each attendee an amount so those that are organizing it don't go out of pocket with a degree of profit so everyone is happy at the end of the day.

 

The quickest way to make such events short term is it costing those that organize it.

 

Never ran a pinball event that I didn't lose thousands of dollars on. Sorry, that is a lie. The very first meet I had I didn't lose thousands on, I only had 12 games or so at the time.

 

Its not always about the money. This is my hobby, and I love giving back where possible.

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This wouldn't be possible. Having a party 8 times a year vs a commercial venture = different kettle of fish. There are only 2 zones (off the top of my head) you can operate an amusement centre in in my council area, and E3 isn't one of them :lol

 

Well that puts an end to that idea quickly.

 

You have definitely got as point there but your hair covers it well.:lol

 

Can't stuff with the council or they may rezone the property for high rise.:realmad:

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Dan? No - hes a mate, I don't charge him anything. Plus he supports me in all the batshit ideas I come up with so it all comes out in the wash..

 

 

 

My apologies ... I thought he had a warehouse/lockup somewhere. I thought he had told me that ... maybe some confused drinking talk :-)

 

 

 

Passes to expo were $30 for the day, we did get a fair amount of bitching about that, there were so many people who just wanted to find a tech - we would have turned away 300 people easy on the Saturday "I thought it was free" was the common one we got, I'm not sure how people got that idea .

 

 

Yeah, always quite amazing how people think hosting big pinball events costs nothing and 100s of expensive pinball machines somehow appear out of thin air .... ;-)

 

 

 

 

If I ran this 4 times a year, I'd need 300 punters to rock up each time, plus sell food and drink (vending machines), and skim off the top from the comps to make it viable. I think with the right marketing that is borderline doable. If I ran 4 major comps a year, and 4 free play events it could be viable. I'm not sure what percentage PAPA takes of comp entry fees, but I'd need to look into that as well - with batcave I can't remember now but I know it was less than 20%. With online ticketing being much more readily available now (compared to 4 years ago), I'd just pre-sell every event.

 

One thing it would do is mean that expo, or at least an expo with my involvement would be completely dead. It'd also make it really difficult for anyone else to run one, at least in Sydney.

 

The shed cost is mostly concrete, tin sheds are ridiculously cheap here in Oz.

 

 

 

Yep, tin sheds are cheap here too. The land is the expensive bit, and you've got that covered.

 

Re the comps - why not do away with the prize money?

 

Make it a bit cheaper (say $60 per day) and you keep all of it to cover the cost of the venue and the trophies? And do cheaper trophies, for example I made these trophies for last weekends Macs Beer Pinball Classic, cost me $60 all up and an hour and 1/2 of my time.

 

And they look pretty f**king sweet if I do say so :-)

 

1171591280_macstrophies.jpg.43ce88007c56dd33685ba17169c4b405.jpg

 

 

A "Leigh-expo" with 300 punters paying $50 = $15,000 x 4 events = $60k per annum

 

A comp with 60 punters paying $60 for a one day event = 3600 x 2 a year = $7200 (less trophies)

 

A 2 day comp with 60 punters paying $120 for both days = 7200 x 2 a year = $14,400 (less trophies)

 

= $81,600 per annum (less trophies)

 

That'd be workable ...

 

rd

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As long as the games are fully reconditioned as a third didn't work at expo

 

You don't even need 200 even 50-100 mint condition fully working would be better

 

Think quality rather than qty

 

Mine kept going :cool:

 

Although that said, with the amount of play they copped, if it wasn't for techs keeping them going (and most of those volunteers) I would have had at least 10 games go down permanently during the event. As it was the guys managed to keep it to 2 - WCS94 and T2. Which we had to use as parts machines in the end.

 

It was the older machines that struggled, 70s and 80s in particular, and there were ~30 machines that weren't even supposed to be in the venue, but ended up there anyway :redface

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This is just me being bored and throwing an idea out there. Looking for genuine feedback though.

 

If I built a shed and stuck ~200 pins in it (from all eras), then opened said shed a set number of times a year, and charged admission - would you attend? Open it 4 to 6 times a year - think PAPA.

 

I know it could work for the comp people, but how much would you pay to come to an open day/night, all games on freeplay? Say 6 times a year, minimum 12hrs open time, possibly longer. Is $50 too much?

 

Genuinely interested in feedback, positive or negative, don't care.

 

Just trying to see if I can make it viable. I need to cover power, water, insurance (ouch), the shed itself (over $100k) and a full time tech - want a job @Dedrok?

 

Just an idea at this stage, please don't get excited just yet. I'll repeat, I'm bored and looking into things. Also before anyone asks, I'm not doing a barcade. The economics of it don't stack up in Sydney, but this might because I already own the land.

 

You were smart not to mention this on Sunday, I would have slapped you :punish:

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A 2 day comp with 60 punters paying $120 for both days = 7200 x 2 a year = $14,400 (less trophies)

 

Would the competitors accept that none of the entry fee is payed out in prize money? (I honestly don't know; this is a genuine question.)

 

Michi.

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No one is going to have that many games from all eras fully reconditioned. That’s a silly thing to say. Also, it was no where a third of games not working at Expo? What an over exaggeration? As games stopped working, people were going around fixing them. I wanted to play Defender Pinball and it was off when I got there, but late that night it was working. You need to think about the way you talk down that event that so many people spent time and a lot of money on for all of us.

 

 

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Thanks for defending me Warwick but there were a bunch of games that were unplayable - at least 15 or so (think The Ataris bar Hercules for example), then there were another 15 that were borderline and should have never been there in the first place. The Ataris were supposed to be there so that people could get a look at them because you never see them, let alone all of them, and were meant to be on the side somewhere. There were a bunch of EMs and early 80s solid states that should have stayed home. I'm not going to go into the reasons why they ended up there, but safe to say it won't happen again.

 

The reality is we had far too few people to set up (there were 7 of us to transport and set up 236 machines, in 2.5 days), too short a time to do it in (every additional day was costing us $4000 in venue hire and that is ridiculously cheap for Sydney, so we were all working 20hrs a day).

 

Was it the biggest event in the history of Pinball in Australia? Absolutely. Could it have been done better? No question. I'd love another attempt to fix all the f*ck ups (and there were many). Did the majority of people have a great time? Yep!

 

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From a comp perspective .

Just empty the coin boxes and re-use the coins. Or service credits and you hand over the cash to the marshal he will even take your 5 cent coins:lol. Coin play is an interesting concept as it will weed out tight wads and possibly make money for a better prize pool? Sometimes this is cheaper for the player who isn't very good as he may pay $20 and play only 3 times or more and get knocked out of a comp depending on the format. $3 as opposed to $10, $15 or $20 entry fee. If it's an expo entry fee and free play if a comp pay to play.

 

Like Edy said, I've got token mechs for pump and dump, and it is 1500 tokens @Dedrok - get it right! :)

 

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Positive and negative he asked, no point having 200 or 300 games unless they are working

 

Would be better to have less games fully working, our tech spent a heap of time keeping other peoples games going at expo as well, however there were some that should never have been there to begin with.

 

He is asking for suggestions

 

Lol - just got to this post - I agree 100% Wayne.

 

If expo ever happens again, it'll be roughly half the size. 120 machines max. 236 machines is not manageable in any way shape or form when you've f*cked half the EMs just by moving them 20kms. There were a lot of naive assumptions that were made to get us to that point, and a fair amount of hubris too. The only reason so many games kept going is because your tech was helping, @robm and his mate (whats his name again) donated so much time. A bunch of AA guys were fixing stuck balls and anything else they could, I was paying 3 techs (and a 4th didn't turn up), and Edy went blind doing machines in the leadup and during the event.

 

It was bigger than ben hur, and unmanageable as a result.

 

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It was the first one and yeah, there could have been things done differently, but that’s all good looking back. Most people out there had probably never, and will never see some of those games, so to get them on the floor was great, I think. If some failed, oh well.

 

 

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Between us we own some seriously rare stuff. You don't even see that stuff even in the US shows.

 

Lots of mistakes were made, some of them minor, many of them major. There were only 2 that impacted the event far as I am concerned.

 

1. We stuffed up with the person we hired to do our marketing, completely useless. Worst ~$10k I've ever blown (and I do mean blown, we were asking people how they found out about us at the door at it was all about the banner on the M4 - $300 well spent). Anything to do with her resulted in only 3 people in 100 who attended, and we stopped polling at 500 people.

 

2. There were 30 or so games that shouldn't have been in the room. Approximately 15-20 of which wasted valuable tech time.

 

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Dare I say this could also be the IFPA world champs venue ;)

 

It could, yes. But I think NZ may get it before we do, which for mine is good enough.

 

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What we really need is an Expo each year, something everyone can support

 

Too many different events, one big event with overseas guests etc.

 

I agree - but how much are you and AMD going to put towards it? I'm not expecting you to pay for it, I'm just saying that this is far from a cheap exercise.

 

The venues I'd be looking at in Homebush are $7500 (or more) a day (and they charge full rate for bump), and that is just the tip of a very large iceberg in terms of costs. In fact I was on the phone to Sydney Showgrounds today (noone get excited, I call them every year). All told its over $10k a day to hire Jenko / Kelly pavillions, and similar for the Howie Complex once you add all their bullshit 'you have to have this as well' fees:

 

https://www.sydneyshowground.com.au/venues/jenko-kelly-pavilions/

 

https://www.sydneyshowground.com.au/venues/howie-complex/

 

There are a few other options out west, but I don't fancy dragging 120 machines into the heart of the city.

 

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Yes, I'm sure there are issues about food safety and regulations and such. Still, pre-packaged food would be OK. Add bags of chips, chocolate bars, two-minute noodles, whatever. (I'm sure that there are more interesting options with a bit of research.)

 

From your description, it sounds like the place might be out of the way a bit. If so, people will appreciate being able to get a snack. On the other hand, if there are some local food joints close by, limit it to drinks and snacks.

 

Michi.

 

I'm on the outskirts of Sydney. That doesn't mean much to anyone who doesn't live here, but safe to say its a long way out. There is plenty of local food, but none that you don't need a car to access.

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Maybe rather than a small base of techs to prepare the machines before the event you farm them out?

 

I wouldn't mind putting my skills up against some of the best.

 

Maybe a bit of a side competition tech on tech like who's machines had the least trouble if any?.

 

Can't have people doing 20 hour days again, that isn't fair to expect machines serviced like that to perform and it isn't far on the tech either. We are not machines simply because we work on them.

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If it were to open 3-4 times a year would this be for a day, 3 days, a week? Like what would the neighbours put up with?

 

They'll put up with a fair bit. Everyone here is on 50 acres, long as they can't hear it, they don't give a shit. Its more the people coming and going at all hours that may be a problem.

 

Comps would be for however long they take. Saturday and Sunday probably. Think about it, even the batcaves here had no more than 70 people on-site. That is a non-issue out here.

 

The Open days would simply be 1 day and I'd need 300 punters to turn up, that is a different kettle of fish entirely. I couldn't do that too often.

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Given that its a private venue, the types and lengths of comps could be the best in the world. Classics, Main, coin drop highest score over the entire length of the event, strikes, pingolf.... Ohh the mind boogles...
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