It’s only a matter of days until the 2017 Cleveland Pinball and Arcade show, so I figured it’d be helpful to put up a thread with information about the event, as well as a place to receive feedback to help improve it for next year.
Just to provide some background, I’m Jeffrey Dickson, co-tournament director of the Main and Classics tournaments (alongside Tommy Bizzi). The show directors are Don Johnson and Marvin Ortscheid. Most (if not all) event and tournament decisions go through Don for approval before going into effect, so keep in mind that even if I like a suggestion made here, there’s still steps above me that may modify or reject it.
With that bit of disclaimer out of the way, I’ll get to the good stuff!
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The Cleveland Pinball and Arcade Show takes place at the Holiday Inn in Independence Ohio, and lasts from September 7th - 10th. This year the show has changed from a 3 day event to a 4 day event, with Sunday being added. Check out http://www.clevelandpinballshow.com/ to see exactly how this changes the schedule.
NOTE: If you’re booking a hotel room for the show, use the code “PIN” to receive a discounted rate! If you’ve already made your booking you can call the hotel and have the discount applied.
The show already has over 100 games registered with more being added regularly! A full list of what’s currently available can be seen on the website. Additionally, there will be a multitude of seminars this year, featuring speakers from Jersey Jack Pinball and Chicago Gaming, as well as a variety of local experts giving tips, tricks, and lessons on pinball repair and restoration.
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The main tournament is a PAPA Circuit Event, and will span the entire weekend. Qualifying is done herb style, using the player’s best 5 games out of 9. Tickets are available at a rate of 4 for $10, or 9 for $20. Qualifying runs on Thursday from 5 PM to midnight, Friday from 10 AM to midnight, and Saturday from 9 AM to 7 PM. Ranking and queuing will be done through Neverdrains at http://neverdrains.com/clepin2017, with the top 24 qualifying and the top 8 getting a bye. As a change from last year, the first round of finals will start at 8 PM Saturday night, to help make the event end much earlier on Sunday. Additionally, finals is now run in 4 player groups with “PAPA Style” scoring. Further details can be found here - https://goo.gl/SGBTxq
Note that he Cleveland Pinball Show unfortunately does not feature a B division.
Classics will run very similar to main, however qualifying will instead be best 4 out of 5, and will run on the same schedule, except ending at 2 PM, with finals beginning at 2:30 PM. Classics will also use the 4 player finals format. Ranking and queuing will also be done through Neverdrains. Top 24 players qualify with the top 8 getting a bye.
Prize payouts for the main and classics tournaments are based on the number of entries, however there is a guaranteed minimum of a $1,500 prize pool for main, and a $750 prize pool for classics. In both previous years the prize pools have exceeded these numbers, so I’d expect the same to happen again.
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New this year will be both a women’s and a junior’s knockout tournament. The women’s tournament will take place on Friday night at 7 PM (note that due to the change of starting Main finals on Saturday, the knockout has been moved from its originally scheduled time on Saturday, as to not create any schedule conflicts for players hoping to play in both the knockout and the main tournament finals), and will be directed by Megan Brown. The women’s knockout tournament is IFPA approved and is free to enter. Trophies and prizes will be awarded to the top finishers. Further details for the women’s tournament can be found here - https://goo.gl/n7TmV6
The Junior’s tournament starts at 4 PM on Saturday, will also be free to enter, and will have trophies and prizes for the top finishers.
Both knockout tournaments will either be 4 strikes if there’s less than 25 players, or 3 strikes if there’s 25 or more players. Games will be played in groups on labeled games on the show floor, with the bottom two players in each group getting a strike.
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If you have any questions feel free to post here or to contact me directly (leveltwogames@gmail.com). If you have questions during the show don’t be afraid to ask either myself or Tommy. I’ll try and get us nametags this year to help people identify us when they need assistance.
Let me know if there’s anything I missed in this thread and I’ll update it in. We’re still pretty new to this and tend to make mistakes here and there, but we’re working hard to get better and hope this year’s event will be our best one yet!
EDIT: Just realized that I forgot to put in the scorekeeper information! Scorekeepers receive 6 tournament tickets per hour of help. The schedule can be found here - https://goo.gl/SGBTxq Contact me or Tommy if you’re interested in helping out. Thanks!
