Episode 339: Kim VanderVeen, Texas Pinball Festival
Busy times for Kim as she organizes the Texas Pinball Festival, March 25-27. It's been a long 3 years since the last TPF, but the pinball community is excited to return. Hear how scary it was for...
Highlights
- TPF was last held in 2019; cancellation came 12 days before the 2020 event due to pandemic
- Current pre-registrations exceed 2,500, nearly double the ~1,200 from 2019
- The pinball community chose to keep their money rather than request refunds during pandemic cancellations
- Most vendors held their booth commitments through the three-year hiatus
- Sylvester McCoy (actor from Doctor Who and Tolkien productions) was scheduled for 2020 and is returning for 2022
- Scott Denise's homebrew pinball design was spotted at TPF and later became the TNA commercial pinball machine
- TPF features 40,000 sq ft, 400+ pinball machines, held at Embassy Suites and Frisco Convention Center
- Scott Denise is working on sound design for Multimorphic's Weird Al pinball machine
Notable quotes
“It was heartbreaking, actually. There were some tears and we just, you know, we love the show and we love putting this show on.”
“the pinball community at large said, keep our money, we want the show to come back, and they bought all of the merchandise that we had already purchased. That was incredible.”
“We're well over 2,500 pre-registrations at this point. And so that's almost a double, again, what we had done for 2020.”
“It still surprises me that we're the destination. They're not coming for something else. They're coming for Texas Pinball Festival, and then they do other things while they're here.”
“For me, it's really just about staying organized. And if I can't stay organized, I get overwhelmed really quickly.”
“They're not coming for something else. They're coming for Texas Pinball Festival, and then they do other things while they're here. That's amazing.”
Entities
- American Pinball· company
- Chicago Gaming· company
- Jersey Jack Pinball· company
- Multimorphic· company
- Texas Pinball Festival· event
- Twippy Awards· event
- Christopher Franchi· person
- Ed· person
- Jack Danger· person
- Jeff Frick· person
- Jeff Teolis· person
- Kim VanderVeen· person
- Mayor Bill Morrison· person
- Paul McKinney· person
- Robert Harris· person
- Scott Denise· person
- Steve Ritchie· person
- Sylvester McCoy· person
- TNA Pinball· product
- Weird Al Pinball· product
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