picking an hotel/venue is not the same as the IFPA picking an location that runs it’s own events to host PinMasters
Aww man, reading this conversation is like listening to your parents fight.
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As someone who used to run a Pro Circuit event but doesn’t anymore, overall I found myself diverging from the type of tournament I wanted to run vs. the type of event expected from being on the Pro Circuit. It was fun to have done, but overall it was a STRESSFUL experience that I don’t want to repeat anytime soon.
My divergence point was PinFest in 2022. I had a personal conflict and couldn’t make it that year, so I asked the IFPA if we could switch SPC from Allentown to York that year and was told no. I had tried to make a similar argument as Jeff is making talking about INDISC and Josh’s reply at the time was:
We don’t allow any kind of transfer of SPC status from one IFPA sanctioned event to another IFPA sanctioned event.
INDISC has never been tied to a single location, moving locations multiple times over the past decade. Similarly, an event like IFPA Pin-Masters has moved around quite a bit as well over the years.
Your request is taking the Allentown tournament and moving it to the White Rose tournament which already has an existing event that the IFPA sanctions. We are tracking that White Rose event for inclusion on future Stern Pro Circuit seasons as well. Both events are established, and even though the same organizing team runs both, that doesn’t grant any sort of power for those events to be swapped with one another for SPC purposes.
And ultimately I was frustrated by that. If I had known years ago that a “floating” event would grant us the ability to move I would have called it the “Liberty Pinball Extravaganza Tournament” or something like that and we could have been cleared to moved elsewhere. Instead we were tied to the physical location of the show. It’s fortunate that Levi/Greg picked up the event so PinFest still lives on but to start over with a three-year build to try to make the Circuit again is not something I plan on doing anytime soon.
Overall the IFPA’s approach feels to me like a very laissez-faire attitude of “Come run a Circuit event if you want. Or don’t. Doesn’t matter to us.”
Josh, what is the IFPA’s view on what success looks like for the Stern Pro Circuit five years down the road? Because Jeff’s proposal is a potentially legitimate ask (among other changes) if the goal is growth, more money, and more pro competitive events.
The goal is to highlight 20 of the biggest events the competitive pinball world has to offer. Stern can exploit those events to market their brand, create marketing content for them to use to increase the ability to sell pinball machines.
If we’re doing the same thing 5 years from now and Stern and IFPA are happy, then merrily we roll along . . .
I think there are many more quality events these days that draw a lot of people, outside of being in the SPC. Having multiple events on the same weekend is fine to me, as long as they are quite distant from each other. I’d rather drive than fly, deal with jet-lag, the cost, etc. to go somewhere closer and get a quality event that is also in the SPC. Why limit to 20 events now? How about having 20 different dates/weekends, but events that are on the same weekend don’t count more than one against the 20 event limit, as long as they are geographically distant (whatever that distance might be).
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The additional record keeping alone makes this unworkable in my opinion.
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Strongly agree with this point. Although I might prefer as a player to be able to attend more circuit events, the likelihood that these changes would result in me or anyone attending at least 1 more circuit event per year is quite low.
I also kinda agree with @Jokton about increasing the # of events, but to a distinct count like 24 or 25, not whatever other thing he mentioned 
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Personally, I think it would be better to have the Stern Pro Circuit remain at 20, AND more importantly, that some type of cap on the number of SPC events that count toward each player’s standing. At a maximum, I think the cap should be 10… and maybe even take it down further to 5 or 7.
Similar to how WPPR world ranking works, players are free to participate in all of the events possible, and only their best 5 count (or 7 or 10).
This would also be aligned with the underlying intentions of the WPPR 6.0 changes – where there is some logic that tries to normalize the standings, based on different players’ access to events.
It looks like right now, the current standings show only a few players that are over 7 events attended, with only two possible events remaining (there are four remaining, but as already noted, three of them are all happening this weekend).
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so max 50% count of max number of events and low as 25% of max number of events count for each player?
Agreed with this as well, take the top 10 
I think the old PAPA Circuit had a cap. I could look it up; anyone remember off the top of their head?
5 events.
quick google search: Tournament Circuit: How It Works
“We have selected ten high-quality events, distributed evenly on the calendar as well as across the country. Each event is worth the same number of points, as shown below, and everyone is eligible to play for those points. Each player’s five best results contribute points to their total for ranking purposes.”
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Yes, one more reason Stern should cap event count. I also liked their non-wppr flat point system which didn’t disadvantage people who lived near “less juicy” circuit events.
I have brought this up before but would like to see a set amount of events (20 if there are truely 20 quality events) with a set amount of fee to be considered for a circuit event (say $1000 to ensure the prize pool is $20k plus whatever Stern kicks in). In return these events would automatically receive a booster say 25% (half of major) to make sure they attract the best players a significant discount on a Stern pinball machine for prizing to winner and a Stern Circuit package to help with their event. I know my goal has always been to raise the production value of our events and to try to give away as much $ as possible to attract players but to also raise the overall profile for competitive pinball in general because high prize pools and volume of players will drive more media more exposure to our sport.
The only issue I have is that not all Circuit events are the same and if there are better quality ones then why should the circuit point values be the same. I can go to a 80 person with very little top players and get the same points as a 200 person event with all the top players in the old format. I think the point system is fair enough my event is no where near a hotbed of pinball but yet we are still able to draw a quality field. If you run a good event they will come and this you should be rewarded.
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but there should be some cap maybe not flat points but something.
Say you have an event that can host 2000 players and an other that can host 1000 and they both make the ones that can only host 80-150 get rolled over.
The number of players is capped in the calculation anyway so there can never be a huge discrepancy but my response would be if that many events are getting that many people then the 80 person events should not be considered as Stern Circuit events anymore. If we want to raise the profile of our sport we should only be accepting applications from the most quality and most attended events. .
should there be an min number of players to be an Stern Circuit event then?
There is already a formula for this, based on the WPPR which take into account the number of people and who showed up and quality(?) and format - TGP for the event. It isn’t a perfect system but there is no need to change it IMO, if all events that make it become 200 plus events it will be reflected in the formula that is used now. The trick is how many quality events are there out there and how many can you include to ensure there are no duplication on events on same days it gets tougher the more you allow. 20 seems to be a good number I have no issue with it.
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The Criteria used for Circuit eligibility need not dictate how circuit points are earned.
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