For those that didn’t get in, remember that California Extreme is also hosting a Stern Pro Circuit Event on the same weekend as Pinburgh.
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It was a Stern Pro Circuit event last year, but they did a good job with that event last year.
Interesting! California Extreme Tournaments any good? How many people enter?
Pinburgh is a long flight from me, but California is super close.
I’ve changed my mind. 25 satellites. Each awards a ticket to the winner and one randomly selected participant!
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The logistics of this make my head hurt. 
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CalEx is the biggest pinball show each year, but the tournament size has varied. It used to be in the top 5, but lost a lot last year due to the counter-scheduling. The event dates back to the 1990’s.
The show typically has well over 1000 people and several hundred pins plus a comparable number of vids. Used to have both main and classics, then went to a combined tournament. No word yet on this year’s format.
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I was there right at 12:00 it would let me pick the ticket but when I would go to the cart it would bump me out and said sold out. Congratulations to those that got in, it is an amazing tournament!
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The unfortunate thing is that I have a friend who got on the wait list at 12:07 but didn’t get assigned a ticket when the first batch was unlocked at 12:15 or whenever. That seems broken.
Yeah, happened to a bunch of us too. I think the wait list is handled manually, so any newly available tickets will just show up for sale until they’re completely and legitimately sold out and then the wait list will get handled from there.
Tough situation. I presume that since that’s how all professional ticket registration systems, no one has found a better way to do it.
So there does exist a better system, but I don’t know that it’s available through the ticket seller Pinburgh uses. Basically if you get in, you have a timer to check out. If you try to buy after sellout, but people are still in checkout, it puts you in a live queue. As tickets open up, the live queue gets their shot. Until either all tickets are legit sold or the live queue is satisfied, you can keep joining the queue. If the queue runs out and tickets open up, then waitlist people get notified from there.
It gives people who showed up within the first minute first priority to buy as tickets open up of they are willing to wait in the live queue.
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This sounds great.
Looks like the Omni sold out of the block. Here’s hoping for a show rate at the Hampton or the courtyard, since the Westin is the enemy 
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yeah id like hotel info as omni is full.
after Pinburgh sells out in under 1 minute 
$250 entry fee! #scarcityprincipleftw
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You keep mentioning the 5 ticket thing… but that doesnt hirt much as tickets are not transferrable and that means youd have to have 5 people already queued for one person to buy
Magfest does the live queue thing and it is equally frustrating. When you have so much demand and a single start time… it is what it is. Only alt is lotto… or ealry access tiers.
Personally i would have aimed for waitlist immediatly… top of that is virtually garunteed in.
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$30k for first place? Someone can finally call themselves a professional pinball wizard.
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I would like to purchase a lifetime entry to every Pinburgh that happens going forward. Who do I have to bribe to make that happen. cough @chesh @PAPA_Doug cough
Special one time offer to anyone who has attended since it started back up in 2011? 
kidding… sort of…
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Last night was camp-out night, just like getting concert tix in the 80s. Two things up this morning… first task was to get a gdemu … these are quite challenging because only the day of sale is announced (no actual time), but usually in the American wee hours (seller is Polish). Got one at 6:05am; they lasted 35 minutes. Next up: Pinburgh. I had no idea tickets would last less than a minute, but was refreshing away around noon just to get the process done quickly. Lucky for me, impatience paid off this time and I scored a set for Pat and myself.
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