Another GREAT time at the Texas Pinball Festival~!~!~!   Blake and I loaded up my Alien, and made the road trip up to Dallas a day early. We were there for the load-in and party Thursday night. Speaking of Blake - he was the graphics designer for the festival again this year. Not only did he do all the art for the show like the banner above - but he also worked with Spooky Pinball, Ed, Kim, David and Mark Ritchie on the "Kosmic Khaos" pinball cabinet (game)? featured at the show. SO COOL~! Anyway, enough of my ramblings, here are TONS of pics from the show!!

As we were getting checked in Thursday, we ran into Ed and Lou Ferrigno!
...I'm thinkin' Ed could give ol' Lou a run for his money. :-)

The view from my room is pretty nice!

Yep - we are here!!

But where are all the machines?!?!?!
Yeah, it was interesting getting there for the setup.
I've helped at the Houston show - but TPF is a bigger animal for sure.

Here we go.....

The back doors are open, and games are pouring in.

We didn't bring any games to setup (my Alien was being swapped out for NIB replacement)...
...so we spent some time Thursday at the
NATIONAL VIDEO GAME MUSEUM~!~!

Erich takes some video with his new rig

They had this HUGE working pong game - cool~!

And this brought back a ton of memories for me - my dad had one!

They even had a Retro-Room.

Meanwhile, back at TPF.... Austin and Brett talk pinball (...maybe)

It's starting to fill in, let's walk around and see who else we run into.

I wasn't the only one to get a picture with Antoinette Johnson
She was there with the Marco crew, and I think she posed for about 1,000 pictures over the weekend.
And yes, that's her real hair.

Blake is there to help setup Kosmic Khaos.
By the looks of that grin on his face, you can tell he likes what he sees.

Now THAT'S A TOPPER!!

WOOOHOOO!!!
Congrats to Blake and the rest of the team!

Friday evening - just before the show opens to the public - the tournament is off and running

Tourney area is pretty full Friday before the show

So this was pretty interesting - dinner at Perry's Steak House

From left to right:
All the way from Australia is Ryan C. - Head2Head Pinball Podcast
Me
Blake
Jeff - This Week In Pinball
Zach Meny - Straight Down the Middle Pinball Podcast
Christopher Franchi - Artist Extraordinaire (Batman 66, GotG, Munsters)
Chris' daughter Presley Franchi
Chris Kooluris - Kaneda's Pinball Podcast
Lyman Sheats - The Man, the Myth, the Coding Legend
And taking the pic was Jack Danger - Superior Pinball Streamer

Yep - the tap is open~!~!~!

DON'T LOOK DOWN~!!!

...too late.

I also got to chat with Mark Ritchie - and that was super cool

Naner Naner Naner Naner BATMAN

The brand new Pirates of the Caribbean

Game was lots of fun - wish the lines to play it weren't so long

The Tiki-Pinball was awesome!

Here's a link to the entire re-build thread on pinside

Some other cool EM games    ...and a Ghostbuster in the back corner - odd.

Some classic Gottlieb's!

The show is in full swing~!

And here is Chicago Gaming's recreation of Kingpin

It was pretty crowded on Saturday

Despite the crowds, everyone seemed to have a great time!

I just love seeing a long row of pins getting played

Even a few old wood rails made it to the show.

Ahhh yeah!

This game was fun - and strange...

Some brand new, old school pitch and bat games.

And some new school P3 pitch and bat - WooHoo~!

Austin's head to head NBA Fastbreaks were AWESOME!

Awwwww YEAH!

Long lines to play pirates

Antoinette gets phot-bombed by a nude looking Chewbacca - or is that BIGFOOT?!?!?
This pic made me laugh 'till my sides hurt

Good to see some kids having fun

@Zitt's Star Trek booth was great - so many cool mods

Jeff's pre-war booth had some amazing older games

For lunch Saturday, we went to the famous 'Hard 8' BBQ

The Spooky reveal of Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle

And here it is!!!

But I think this Centaur may have been my personal favorite from the show
I want one!!!

Cointaker brought a Houdini
...another brand new game that's fun to play.

...and then this happened sometime very late Saturday...
Poor George Gomez, I'm sure he had no idea what was going on..

This this wraps up my TPF coverage for this year.

I already got my room booked for 2019 - WOOOOHOOOO!!!!