Tags

  • Published on

    📆 Event report: Pinfest 2026

    Events Pinfest
    Image description


    👌 What an awesome weekend! Fiona and I were in Newcastle for the biggest charity pinball event in the NSW calendar—Pinfest!  Thanks to the entire Newcastle Pinball Association team for putting on an awesome show once again. And thanks to all of our friends and customers who came up to us to say hello! We brought two machines to this year's event: Maverick (Data East, 1994) and Star Wars (Data East, 1992). We also embarked once again on the seemingly impossible journey of keeping over 100 machines alive and kicking for two full days of play. And we did a pretty good job of it! Unfortunately, I forgot to record half of the repairs I did. Too much running around like a madman! But here is what I did record and what I can piece together from memory, in no particular order...


    Spring Break. Would not power on. Issues with power plug from transport.


    Rob Zombie. Balls getting stuck on left ramp. Spine plastic was broken and blocking the way.


    Granny & The Gators. Lamp issues. Replaced some lamps and also replaced an SCR to fix a locked on lamp.


    Batman Forever. Right slingshot was machine gunning. Switch adjusted.


    Rocky & Bullwinkle. Resetting and crashing. Burned connectors on power supply and failing caps. Possible sound board fault. 


    Goldball. Pop bumper getting stuck. Cleaned out assembly and installed new sleeve.


    Maverick. Issues with the paddle wheel switch. Turned out to be out of alignment. Had to take half the bloody playfield apart to get to it!


    Eight Ball Deluxe. Dead flipper. Dodgy connector on solenoid driver board.


    Dungeons & Dragons. Lost balls. They were getting stuck on the wire gate at the top of the playfield. Needs switch adjustment. 


    Addams Family. Dead flipper. Power wire had broken off coil. Resoldered.


    Granny & The Gators. Coil issues. New lamp and solenoid driver installed which fixed that however the coils died again soon after. Coil fuse was dead. Replaced.


    Indiana Jones. Flipper slipping on the shaft. New flipper bat and pawl installed.


    Grand Slam. Balls not kicking into trough. Trough switch adjustment.


    Whirlwind. Spinning disks not working. Pinion gear on the motor shaft was slipping. Needs a new gear.


    America's Most Haunted. Most coils not firing. Solenoid fuse was blown. Replaced.


    Rob Zombie. Missing balls. Two balls were stuck under the rubber on the left side of the playfield!


    Hotdoggin. Lamp issues caused by dodgy sockets. 


    Spring Break. Weird game behaviour. Wire gate in the trough was bent and wasn't letting balls pass properly. 


    Evil Dead. Right flipper locked on. Flipper switch needed adjustment.


    Star Wars. Lost ball. Was stuck on a plastic at the top end of the playfield.


    Flintstones. Ball stuck on top of the dino!


    And that's it! A big weekend, but a fun one, and for a great cause. See you all again next year! We're having a rest for the next few days so expect a return to regular programming next week!


  • Published on

    Pinfest 2025

    Events Maverick Pinfest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
    Picture

    And here's another event report! Will we get sick of constantly going to pinball events? Probably not! We've already been to three over the last two months, so what's one more? Besides, this is the one pinball event I look forward to the most every year - Pinfest! This year, we decided to be a little more organised than normal by finalising repairs to machines early and packing for the event a few days before. That didn't quite work out, as we were still hurriedly finishing repairs on the Friday morning, a few hours before we left. It always seems like there's an issue or two that pop up at the most inopportune time, but that's pinball! ​
  • Published on

    Pinfest 2024

    Events Johnny Mnemonic Pinfest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
    Picture

    ​My favourite time of the year! Pinfest! This year was extra special for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I had been on long service leave for a month prior to Pinfest. This gave me plenty of time to get games ready and plan for the trip. It's always nice to have some time to prep a game for the beating it takes at Pinfest because, invariably, there are issues that crop up at the last minute. Secondly, I had tried and tested my van as a pinball moving vehicle for the Newcastle Pinball Pop-Up a couple of months ago, so I had decided to bring not one, not two, but three games to Pinfest this time around!
  • Published on

    Pinfest 2023

    Events Pinfest Tee'd Off
    Picture

    It's happening! Time for Pinfest! This year's show promised to be the biggest and best yet, with more machines on display (104, to be precise) than any year before! The show gets better and better each year, and this is a huge achievement for such a small and dedicated pinball crew from the Newcastle Pinball Association (NPA). Compared to the absolute insanity of larger shows such as Pinball Expo (400 games, including other coin-op games!) which is happening as I write this, the NPA team do a fantastic job at organising a relatively large show with limited resources. I'm always happy to be a part of it. 
  • Published on

    Pinfest 2022

    Events Pinfest Super Mario Bros
    Picture

    Life has been busy over the last few months so it has taken me a while to finally write a report on Pinfest 2022. Better late than never, so here it is! 2022 was the first year since the pandemic that things were back to "normal". Machines were set up so the venue was at capacity and social distancing was no longer mandatory. Ticket sales for each session were capped, but this was more to ensure everyone had a chance to play the machines rather than a limit set due to Covid restrictions. Pinfest 2021 was a great show, but it did feel a little emptier than usual, so Fiona and I were excited to get back into the swing of things properly.
  • Published on

    Pinfest 2021

    Demolition Man Events Pinfest
    Picture

    ​Well, the last couple of years have been rough! Last year was the first time Fiona and I had missed out on Pinfest since we first attended in 2015. By the end of 2020, the COVID pandemic was in full swing and travelling hours away for a weekend was just not an option for us. Regardless, Pinfest 2020 still went ahead, albeit at a reduced capacity and with fewer games. I was bummed that I couldn't go to my favourite event of the year, and promised that we would be back in 2021 when the pandemic had completely blown over...