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| PINBALL EXPO 2008 |
| Date: 1st - 5th October 2008. This 24th Pinball Expo has a new location in the Westin, a large modern hotel about 16 miles north of Chicago's O'Hare Airport.
Wednesday was set-up day for Expo where games and vendors could prepare for the opening on Thursday, while visitors could register for the exhibition, the seminars, the banquet and the factory tour. Pinball Expo is held in the ground floor conference rooms to the right of the main tower. Nearest the main building is the exhibition hall containing the bulk of the games and vendors. Not many vendors or games were setting up on Wednesday.
Gradually, a few more machines and parts appeared so that by 10pm the hall looked like this:
The hall doesn't open to the public until 6pm on Thursday so there is still plenty of time to fill it with machines and stands. The adjacent hall is expected to be used for the team tournament but tonight it was open to everyone to get some practice.
Only about half of the eventual number of machines were present but there was still a good selection for visitors to play.
About 8pm the Bumper Blast welcome party began in the third hall which is to be used for seminars and the banquet on Saturday. The Bumper Blast consisted of a hot meal where visitors could meet each other over a plate of vegetable lasagne, garlic bread, mixed salad and pasta with tomato sauce.
Outside the hall were the machines for use in the individual tournaments.
There were eight Batman games and a Shrek, none of which were powered during Wednesday evening. To the left of them was the main registration desk.
Players could either pre-register and save $10 on the package price, or sign up on the day. That concludes our look at the first day of Pinball Expo 2008. We'll be back with much more soon.
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