@Smack847 with more posts in the last hour compared to his past 3 years . . .
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Since we share a brain on most of this stuff, him posting “What Josh said” a bunch of times would get old and tiresome 
he sure is giving a lot of smacks!
How many people can their bathrooms accommodate before… well you know… 
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Woohoo! How do I get one of those? 
Is there a bonus moniker available for “Deprived @pinwizj of a Major?”
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The only person to get that would be … Josh.
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I do need to get myself back over to the EPC at some point. It’s the only Major that I haven’t finished in 2nd.
#humblebragfail
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The wording for the badge specifically states “This person has been or is a world pinball champion (either IFPA or PAPA, women’s or open.)”
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I was trying to be funny and it backfired tremendously 
You win PAPA or IFPA.
Keep practicing.
Not just because I live here, but I wonder why Portland would or would not be a good fit for a Pinburgh West. There are obviously a great number of pinball players here, and pinball machine owners in the relatively near vicinity (okay, not on the scale of what’s available to Pinburgh or the Museum of Pinball, but maybe with time that could change), it’s accessible to players from San Francisco and Seattle, there are a huge number of hotels with easy, car-free access from the convention center (which is itself a light rail ride from the airport), there already is some infrastructure in terms of the large numbers of players and locations, and therefore a number of potential techs at locations here and in nearby cities, there’s a willingness on the part of the city to host tourist-revenue-generating events like this, and there would likely be strong media attention locally. While the retro-gaming expo that’s here every fall has its issues, it does always have a great number of games, but it never has a tournament element.
This weekends sellout-in-minutes of Pinbrawl’s 128 tickets suggests that there’s demand for pinball events in Portland. I doubt that @zvrabes, @gdd, Isaac Ruiz, et. al want to add too much to their already-full pinball organizing plates, however, there’s clearly some energy in the local pinball community that would be eager to fuse with other efforts for some kind of Pinburgh West. Hell, call it Pinland (but give me royalties on that)
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We’ve discussed a Pinburgh-scale tournament in Portland several times and while I think it is doable I think it would be very difficult to pull off. The biggest problem would be games, in particular old a games. Banks don’t work with all new games because it will take wayyyy too long, but we are in short supply of the number of EMs we would need. Even SS games are getting rarer over time.
Additionally where would you do it? Anyplace that was possible would need to be closed and reconfigured for the weekend. We have talked about doing it at PRGE, but that would then involve moving all the games there and setting up, plus participants would then of course have to purchase a show pass on top of their tournament entry. This would probably push the price up fairly high, and we have observed that our player base, which trends more casual of late, is fairly price sensitive.
I personally think that a better plan would be to do a City Champ style tournament here. You still get a two day event with match play, but you need far fewer games, and since each match is only one game instead of four you don’t need nearly as many. I have heard rumors that there are talks of such an event happening, so keep your eyes and ears peeled.
I’d be happy to mentor and help any new TDs get going on these kinds of events, but I’ve pretty well retired from organizing and running major tournaments. I’m having so much more fun playing these days.
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Personally I’m waiting for the first 24-hour PINBALL PINBALL PINBALL tourney. 
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So if we change our format you’ll be flying out to the east coast
No, generally family and other stuff keeps me from traveling much. I think it’s more from a trainwreck perspective.
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Choo choo!
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I think city champs style is happening at Game Over Arcade Lincoln City, OR in the next few weeks.
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I totally hear you, Greg, and I really wouldn’t expect you (or Zoë or Isaac) to do the heavy-lifting beyond any brainstorming you could offer.
Ultimately, I imagine the only way a “Pinburgh West” can succeed is to not be a Pinburgh West. That is, a really successful new large tournament on the West Coast will have to have its own character. That character can probably be inspired by events we love like Pinburgh or City Champ or 24-hour or whatever. I also imagine any such large tournament wouldn’t happen this year, and probably not even next year. It would take some advance planning and thinking (also, a caveat: I don’t think I know what city champ is like so that example is over my head. Not sure if I can attend the Lincoln City event @ErikG mentioned).
I don’t think doing it at the same time as PRGE would make sense. They are probably already pretty strained by the Tetris championships, which are already proven for them. And the crowds there are just insane, but engaging PRGE folks on planning might work. As to where, yeah, the convention center another time of the year might be the place, but it is indeed probably very expensive. It might take identifying someone with warehouse space, or engaging an event venue like Left Bank Annex, etc., etc., or a hotel ballroom. I don’t want ot bog this thread down with too many Portland-specific space ideas, but I could think of a few. Whatever happened would probably start smaller than Pinburgh, but bigger than Pinbrawl, and grow.
But perhaps this needs to be approached from a different tack. Is there any conceivable way to engage multiple operators in one city for some sort of multi-day pinball event? Say a portion of events at QW, a portion at GK, some at OOO spaces, some at C-Bar, etc.? At first glance maybe that would dilute the sense of people mixing and mingling, so that’s a big drawback compared to Pinburgh’s experience under one roof, but if there was some sort of central space where, say, finals would be held, entertainment could happen, etc., people would still get some of that (dreaming really unrealistically big, I’m thinking finals on stage at revolution hall or something, with satellite in other parts of the building)
Maybe it would be more akin to a film festival wherein various theaters all participate. You’d lose centrality, but you might gain in community buy-in, dispersed logistics, etc. And, again, it might get some sponsor buy-in (breweries! barcades! hotels! Restaurants! Maybe even dispensaries though that might be counter to family-friendliness).
I’m not the best with event logistics, but I am on the board of a non-pinball work-related organization that’s planning a conference right now. Still, I’d be open to continue brainstorming this locally and also hearing non-Portland people’s ideas on what might get them to come out here for a large event.
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