PINBALL SUMMER PARTY 2003
The "summer" pinball party: August 9, 2003. Not an ordinary day, not an ordinary group of players!
I wasn't able to get many good photos (especially once the huge crowds gathered). But, feel free to click on a pic for a closer view and info. Party stats and tournament winners are below.....
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PARTY STATS:
The party was split into two days. The first day was Friday August 8th where a handful of folks (4 to be exact) attended a "pre-party" since they were unable to attend the main event. The second day was the main event on Saturday August 9th. In all, there were 51 people including a handful of kids. The main-event ran from 3:30p.m. to 2:30a.m. Whew......11 hours of pinball (not to mention the few hours of "pre-party" Friday).
Aside from a few ball hang-ups over the evening, most of the parties go rather well. This time, however, there were a few unique surprises in store for me. It's the first mid-August summer party I ever hosted. The day was extremely humid and, I imagine, most of the neighborhood had air-conditioners running non-stop. A few of the games were having a tough time with the lower-than-normal power in the house. Mainly Addams Family, No Good Gofers and Creature (all three of which probably have weak BRs as well) exhibited the most problems. In fact, Creature revealed a strange switch matrix problem and was turned off for the party.
Early on, three games were sacrificed so the others could be played. And it worked! However, Who Dunnit? had a left flipper stuck-in-the-upright-position problem, of which I took the glass off "three times" before finally fixing it. And, Fish Tales contracted a reel opto board failing around 4-hours later. Then again, that's my friend Barry's fault. So....we can blame him. :)
Other than stressing myself out over the few problems, the party was very successful. We had a great time. In fact, the three tournament games were played a lot and the guests seemed to stay a long time.
Here are the various game stats. Keep in mind that my games are set to 5-ball play. Medium-Hard settings. Max 2-EB per play. Fish Tales was out-of-commission 4 hours into the party and Addams Family was turned off for a few hours as well. So their stats may be altered a bit.
Here are the stats (in year order):
1. FUNHOUSE
Avg. game time: 3.33
Total plays: 67
2. THE GETAWAY
Avg. game time: 4.09
Total plays: 85
3. THE ADDAMS FAMILY
Avg. game time: 3.12
Total plays: 40
4. FISH TALES
Avg. game time: 4.66
Total plays: 35
5. WHITE WATER
Avg. game time: 3.52
Total plays: 97
6. TWILIGHT ZONE:
Avg. game time: 4.65
Total plays: 101
7. WHO DUNNIT?
Avg. game time: 5.32
Total plays: 119
8. SCARED STIFF
Avg. game time: 6.48
Total plays: 109
9. MEDIEVAL MADNESS
Avg. game time: 5.26
Total plays: 121
10. MONSTER BASH
Avg. game time: 5.58
Total plays: 90
11. TERMINATOR 3
Avg. game time: 5.00
Total plays: 187
So, there you go! Terminator 3 wins by a pretty large margin for the total amount of games played. I am not surprised. T3 always seemed to have people on it and pinheads lined up waiting to play.
True to form, Medieval Madness works its way to the top area and the other two tournament games (Scared Stiff and Who Dunnit?) fall just a little short in the 3rd and 4th spots. On a side note, Who Dunnit? was a very popular game and makes one wonder why it has such a bad reputation and low re-sale value? I guess not everyone is meant to be a private-eye.
The tournaments were a lot of fun. It was great seeing people compete. Here were the results (*one win per person):
TERMINATOR 3:
1st place: 81,028,120 - TOD (Todd Smith). Won the Terminator 3 official "T-Shirt".
2nd place: 75,386,120 - BEN (Bruce Nightingale). Won the Terminator 3 official CD movie "score".
3rd place: 68,511,700 - PGG (Pat Gallagher). Won the Terminator 3 mug.
4th place: 48,480,600 - STU (Logan). Won the Terminator 3 book.
SCARED STIFF:
1st place: 19,076,200 - GSW (Greg Wolfe). Won the Scared Stiff T-shirt.
2nd place: 16,434,140 - ZAS (Zach Steele). Won the Scared Stiff T-shirt.
WHO DUNNIT?:
1st place: 6,721,839,620 - LAL (Larry Lewis). Won the Scared Stiff T-shirt.
2nd place: 3,981,655,200 - MMB (Michelle Brown). Won the Scared Stiff T-shirt.
Lots of fun all around and a great turn-out. I hope we can do it again soon.
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