I already played PAPA this year it’s called INDISC…
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For what it’s worth, the first event of 2018 for Delaware sold out in less than 36 hours. Not too shabby for a state that didn’t even have a tournament scene 6 months ago 
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IFPA should have made it the major this year if PAPA realy isn’t happening (:sad:)
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So I had sent this idea to Doug directly, but I’ll lay it out here as well since the concept of a lottery came up.
To avoid the situation where only some of a party makes it through the lottery, I’d allow groups to enter the lottery in blocks. So if you want to go with your partner, or a group of 4 friends, that’s still one lottery ticket. If you get picked, all of you get in. If you don’t get picked, none of you get in. So in practice, there would be less than 840 tickets picked to fill those player spots. Give ticket winners some suitable amount of time to pay and if they don’t, pick another.
This does make the waitlist essentially another lottery, since it would be impossible to order a random lottery and impractical to also maintain an ordered waitlist.
I’m not really sold 100% on the idea myself, but it was one of the brainstorming ideas I had in my discussions with Doug.
Pittsburg California cries itself to sleep for not being cool enough to have a silent h.
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I don’t know, isn’t refreshing a web page sort of like a lottery?
I get in every year, and this time I was on a damn airplane with abysmal internet speed. My feeling is still a little bit “ya snooze ya lose”.
But I’m a lucky boy, I even scored some quick-selling Radiohead tix back in the day when they were not the Eagles.
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I honestly wonder how many people think they have properly synchronized PC time but don’t. When Pinburgh sold out in 20 minutes, a few seconds or a minute of clock skew didn’t really matter. When it sells out in 45 seconds, even 20 seconds of clock skew could be fatal.
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My question is what does this lottery system solve from the current issue of not everyone who wanted to get in, getting in?
At least some now who didn’t get in understand they ”snooze/lose” if you go lottery all 400 who didn’t get in will feel slighted.
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Or …
To keep the “new blood” thing, a 3-stage registration system. Reg Phase 1 is for people who’ve never been to a Pinburgh. Block out 100-200 tickets for them. If not all taken within 24 hours [or 1 hour if you think that’s better], any remainder rolls over to the last phase. Reg Phase 2 is for people who’ve been before but weren’t at the prior year’s Pinburgh. Say 200 more there; ditto roll over if unused. Reg Phase 3 is the free-for-all with everyone, including newbies and not-last-years, going for what remains.
That guarantees some first timers [I like that], gives some advantage to those that missed on the previous try [seems fair, should reduce complaints], but still has the majority of the tickets available to all.
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The only caveat to add to this would the people who previous year was on waiting list and did not get in would be first on list to get in the next year. Just a thought on this for maybe 100-200 on last year’s have a lottery from the 300 waiting who did not get in.
I love hearing all of the ideas!
The biggest thing we will do next year as I said on the Pinball Profile is expand again for a 5th consecutive year. However, we will make sure that we expand to a size where we feel we can keep or increase the quality of the event.
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‘Museum of Pinball’…someday! 
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It doesn’t solve that problem, but it’s also not designed to solve that problem. As long as there are less spots than interested players, that’s never going to go away. I just wanted to explore and vet some alternate ideas, there’s no claim to viability here.
Pittsburg Kansas, people! Said by someone who has two Gorillas for parents. KC, Springfield MO, and OKC people could converge 
Silverball Showdown in OKC is my favorite Pinburgh-esque event, and even it is becoming oversubscribed a bit.
People want to go to pinball events and play a lot of pinball against people of their skill level - that’s a really great thing!
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What if there was a list of PAPA-vetted local games that can be run through a similar verification process to the Fight Club Series and PAPA tech inspection ahead of time (whenever you want to) and added to compile an additional bank set? Only trusted owners would be on the list and they would need to commit to the process and loaning before the ticket sales to ensure the head count isn’t too high. Also, games would be brought to PAPA in the lead up to Pinburgh so that you get a final inspection and can ensure that nothing gets hotswapped.
More games, and you get to call the shots so they’re Pinburgh quality.
We did this last year, and are also doing it this year.
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Some thoughts on adding more participants:
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Make a couple of Sanctum 24hr events, never going to happen.
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Have two Pinburghs that run consecutively, Mon-Wed and Thurs-Sat, never going to happen for many reasons
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Do what is being done, train/recruit staff and add additional banks. The concern with this is although they might be able to support 1000 next year, if these staff members don’t come back they might need to reduce participant count in the following years.
Any other ideas?
I wouldn’t completely rule this one out for the future, but there are many obstacles and costs to overcome.
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Pinburgh of the west???
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