Episode 332: Starfighters Arcade
In Arizona, the pinball scene continues to grow at a fast pace. Mike Lovato and Kevin Curtis talk about the Starfighters Arcade in Mesa, AZ with special guest host Tracy Lindbergh. Hear about the...
Highlights
- Starfighters Arcade currently has approximately 50 pinball machines on the floor, from solid state to DMD to latest titles like Avengers
- Monthly tournaments at Starfighters grew from initial 20-23 players in January 2017 to nearly 80 players at peak attendance
- Starfighters Pinball Festival will feature a capped field of 108 players in match-play tournament format with divisions on Friday/Saturday qualifying and Sunday finals for top 16
- Bowen Kerins will play six machines with no warm-ups Friday-Saturday for Beat a World Champion competition throughout the festival weekend
- Starfighters Arcade arcade was founded in 2014 after Kevin Curtis discovered the location had opening and found five pinball machines available
- Mike Lovato purchased his first arcade game in 2010 for a basement in his second house, which eventually grew to justify opening a community arcade
- The festival will feature over 150 machines in the free play area, with potential to reach 200 machines
- Starfighters has ordered newer games including Halloween, Aliens, and Godzilla to keep the collection fresh
Notable quotes
“At about 85 games we decided that I decided let's take a look at See if we could set up a community arcade That would be supported by the community for the community”
“Because our overhead is so small, it allows us to only be open on those time frames... limited time on the weekends is very deliberate.”
“I regret to this day is i never ever went to pinberg it is a regret that i'm going to have forever... so what we decided to do is let's try to recreate a mini pinbird for starfighters pinball festival”
“There's not that much of a drive involved for those folks and there's plenty of room in the pinball world for both events, so I'm not too concerned about it.”
“I was hooked. I was there every weekend for the first year or so and I watched it grow and grow and grow and they got to a point where there's so many and they were having a hard time just taking care of them.”
Entities
- InDisc· event
- Pinberg· event
- Starfighters Pinball Festival· event
- Pinball Profile· media
- Arizona Pinball League (APL)· organization
- Castles N Coasters· organization
- Electric Bat Arcade· organization
- Elk Chimes Phoenix· organization
- Golf Land· organization
- Project Pinball· organization
- Southwest Autism Resource Center (SARC)· organization
- Starfighters Arcade· organization
- Tilt Studio· organization
- Tucson Pinball League· organization
- Bowen Kerins· person
- Chris from Firebird Pinball· person
- Kevin Curtis· person
- Mike Lovato· person
- Tracy Lindberg· person
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