NWAAPS Part 3: Map and Organization of the show
Man that is an ugly map. Feel the power of the map! It is completely accurate though. As I said in the last article, there was a ton of games at the North West Arcade and Pinball Show. This doesn’t quite cover everything either. Luckily I found some videos of walkthroughs of the event.
This video was taken on Sunday, so you get to see Lego R2-D2. The cameraman lost his battery before the final two rows.
I think this was saturday.
Taken on Friday aftertoon, this was mostly pinball being shown. This is a great tour, and gets a lot of the exhibitors.
After doing some searches, I decided to include other’s pictures. I will make sure to reference where I got the link. With that said, onto the different areas.
Admissions
Admissions gave you a bracelet, and some information about the show.
Museum and Kid Zone
I talked about each game for this department a great deal. It is a lot of fun.
This game’s simplicity is beguiling. You can spend hours on it. The entire point was to teach kids about how machines worked. So we had electronic kits for kids, the design your own pinball game, and a tech (Oz) ready to teach about it. There was also going to be a timeline of arcade games out, but there wasn’t enough time to set it up. Next year, I will make sure that last bit is up, and will build it myself.
Celebs
The game makers who visited had a special booth right at front. They autographed memorabilia and hung out. I fully admit to not know who was who. They were friendly, and sat next to a prototype Star Trek machine. I guess it was even signed. There aren’t any pictures of it that I could find. Sorry.
Fan Stuff
NW Pinball has a great photo to explain fan stuff.
It was free magazines, and info to fans about stuff for sale, or wanted. People would bring their games to the show, and then place an ad for them on the board. I can’t remember if I placed one for the Pong machine I took, or not.
Raffle
I was part of the raffle booth. They decided to move the booth from near the back, to right at the front. Because of this, the expectations on sales were off. I was told I needed to talk to folks about the raffle, and get them to sign up. Instead, people saw all the stuff, and bought hundreds of dollars worth of tickets in one go. Buying 50 tickets was considered normal.
To give you an idea, we went from this bowl.
To this five gallon bucket.
There was some really good reasons for it. The crowd you see it gathering for the last big drawing. Friday night was an Xbox 360, Saturday was a Fishtail Pinball Machine and an Xbox One, and finally Sunday was the special raffle for the Star Trek Pinball machine and an amazing looking Donkey Kong JR. Any one of these was worth way more than 100 tickets.
I am not kidding, when I got home, and saw that I had a few dollars in my wallet, I got dissapointed. I wanted to enter to win the DK JR.
There was also another use for the Raffle area. We would announce things over the speakers about things. I had to announce a foun epi pen. For those wondering, its an emergency shot for someone having a several allergic reaction. Yes, that was weird.
Exhibitors
The exhibitors came in many shapes and sizes. I don’t think I could talk about them all, but a few of them will do. There were Pinball parts, and machine dealers. They would change normal lights to LEDs and update various parts. One guy was selling Pinball boards, and backlgasses.
Then we have the people selling soaps that looked like games.
I have to admit, I fell for this completely. This was up for $14, and I thought it would be nice to get Link to the Past again.
Then we have the Twisted Pins.
They were a consortium group selling various things. The reason why I even mention them is a few of the dealers at this booth were from my neck of the woods in Idaho. One guy was from Kuna -the rivals of my wrestling team- and another guy was from my hometown of Middleton. He was completely from there, and spoke very little with me like a true Middletonian.
I ended up getting two arcade boards from them for free. Thats for the closing day story, but it was very nice of them. I think they would have given more, but I felt bad getting the two.
On the other hand, the guy from my hometown won the Xbox One.
There was also the classic console dealer. He had a retro feel to his entire display.
He had a lot for sale, and covered everything with a Legend of Zelda bedsheet. I don’t think I have a picture of that, but it shows up in one of the videos above. There was a card for the Seattle Retro Gaming Expo that I will be going to this week.
There was also an exhibitor selling board game items, and sets. I didn’t get a picture of him, but they were really cool.
I think my favorite was the Fab Lab folks. They designed things like the award for best home built designed pinball machine. Far cooler was that part of the team saw the car on this year’s poster, and designed it on his computer.
Then he fabbed it.
And showed it off the final day.
We also had the new machines from Stern, and a Pinball magazine on display. NW Pinball has a great shot of everything there.
They were handing out little stools so kids could play on the machines. Actually, the story behind the stools changed depending on who said it. Some paid, some didn’t. I think it depended on what time of day it was.
One Heaping Ton of Pinball and Arcade Games
When I wrote the last article, I said there was no way I could cover all of the games. This is completely accurate. The first day, I went around the classic games, and pinball machines more. Saturday I spent on racing, shooting, and games I recognized. Finally Sunday I was playing games I had never heard of, but wanted to try out. Watch some of the videos, go through the other photoshows, and see how many there were.
The part you don’t really get is the sound from so many machines. Walking into a quiet area was startling. There were times I had to psyche myself up to grab the handle of the backroom and head back in. It was intense, and amazing, heaven and deafening at the same time.
Pinball Tournaments and Museum
I think technically the Museum was an exhibitor, but they had a really cool machine. It was see through. We could see how the innards moved, and shook to make things work.
I would show you what it looks like from the side, but I can’t find that picture.
Then there was the tournament area.
I don’t claim to know a lot about it. The raffle took most of my time. I do know there were winners, and trophies handed out. For more on that, Check out NW Pinball.
Cafe and Hangout
The cafe was run by the Tacoma Convention Center. In fact, people we asked for help with power supplies, gave us our fries the next day. It was convenient, if a little expensive. I tried to tell the people working there that they could go out and play the games whenever they felt like it. They helped us out, we helped them.
As you can see, this was a spot to enjoy some quiet time, and chat.
Break Room and Dead Soldiers
This area was off limits to non staff or volunteers. The break room had snacks, and water to fill up on. This saved me a bunch of money, and also a chance to talk with folks. I met a guy who volunteers with his family at all sorts of events like this. His wife got him into it, and now its just part of life.
Dead Soldiers are machines that need heavy attention.
This Back to the Future machine just needed a quick fix and then was fine. Others were taken out, and never returned to the show floor. It was really sad to find a Vindicator unable to work.
The controls looked like a lot of fun. I was hoping to play it some time.
Another use for this room was storing sold games. One guy bought a Neo Geo MVS, and it showed up in the back. He kept it with the dead soldiers until the show ended. Where else would you put a random game that showed up?
Star Wars
The Star Wars set up was for the cosplayers who dressed up as various Star Wars characters. Lego R2D2, and a Stormtrooper showed up.
Medic Control
I am sure you noticed there are different colored staff shirts. It’s to differentiate Medics from Regular Staff.
A Medic is someone who works to fix broken machines. They are trusted enough to grab anyone’s machine, open it up, and fix it. If something wrong was spotted, we would fill out a form to describe the problem, and then a Medic would go to fix it.
Needless to say, I had the other Staff shirt.
Medic Control was also where all of the head staff stayed. If we had questions, we went to them. Even at set up and take down, this was central control. All of the keys were found here, as well as the tools.
I was told that this year was nice. The Medics had breaks, and could think straight for most of the show. Some of them had shirts of each color.
To make it even weirder, there were techs that wore the blue shirt. Also, the head members of the staff also wore blue. So, if you were a head staff, and a medic, and in charge of an area you might have three shirts for one show.
The show was kept very well organized. This was because we had frequent meetings about what was planned, who was doing what, and how much it cost. I went to many of the meetings as an observer. It was very impressive. They would go through complex things like Kid Zone, Museum, Raffle, and exhibitors quickly. The food served was also very nice.
In all honesty, when I first began to cover this show, I didn’t know how big it was. Every time we had a meeting, and I heard about square footage, or amount of games it would shock me. This group of volunteers were putting on a show that sounded like heaven. Working at it was always a surprise at every corner. The nice guy who delivered a book for the raffle turned out to be the editor for Pinball Magazine.
Even stranger was the comment near the end by the leader of the show. When they first started, there was only one or two arcades left. Now they keep popping up. In fact, many of them are from the same guys who donate games. They all met and laughed in the backroom the other day. It was weird to watch.
Next time I will speak about closing. First though, I need to cover some of the Seattle Retro Gaming Expo. Check out my Tumblr for pictures, and be sure to stand by for amazing stories. We need to close the story on the Pong machine. I really hope it has a happy ending.
Until then, I really truly can’t wait for next year. I will bring earplugs, and feel a lot less nervous.
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