Date: March 20th & 21st, 2010
Location: Le Tréport, Normandy, France.

Report by Loïc Grébonval
Pictures by Isabelle Crety

Flip-Expo 2010, the Silverball association’s annual pinball show was held in the seaside town of Le Tréport, in Normandy North of France on the 20th and 21st of March 2010.

1200 people went to this event to play on more than 100 pinball machines! The 1000 square meters of the showroom were almost too small.

The Silverball team was also organising the French pinball championship and the Silverball tournament.

The poster for Flip-Expo

The 1000 square meters hall before the event;
it looks big, but it will shortly be filled up with lots of machines

Many people were queuing before the doors opened

A view from the tournament area

Which one should I choose?

The tournament was held on Saturday and the 120+ players registered for the tournament had the choice to play on the following pinballs:

• Jungle Queen
• CountDown
• Fathom
• Funhouse
• Twilight Zone
• The Addams Family 
• Indiana Jones
• Star Trek - The Next Generation
• Road Show
• The Flintstones
• Safe Cracker
• Johnny Mnemonic
• The Simpsons Pinball Party
• The Lord Of the Rings
• The Sopranos

Here are the trophies awaiting the finalists

All the scores were displayed on a large screen while the scorekeepers were using PDAs to enter the scores. You can also see on the left in the picture below another screen showing the Pinball 101 DVD; learn new skills and apply them directly during the tournament!

The French Pinball Championship

The tournament area

A surprise from the organisers of the tournament: old pinballs were among the machines available for the tournament, not just dot matrix games; He he, get ready!

The 16 finalists. Who will go back home with the first prize a Demolition Man dot matrix pinball and the title of Best French Player 2010?

The four last finalists from the left to the right:
Ali Sadr Zadeh, Albert Médaillon, David Grémillet and Frédéric Vilbert

And the winner of the title Best French Player 2010 is… David Grémillet.

The final was between David and Albert Médaillon, a German player. Why a German player? Because the French Championship was an open tournament, opened up to other nationalities.

Albert won the tournament and went back home with the dot matrix pinball, but David won the Best French Player title.

David with the title of Best French Player 2010

Albert Médaillon, with Franck Michaux the president of the Silverball association
and Frank Margerin the famous French comics writer

The podium with the three best French players of 2010;
Ali Sadr Zadeh (2nd), David Grémillet (1st) and Frédéric Vilbert (3rd)

Franck Michaux with Laurence Boulieu, the top woman player

Marianne Linque, the second-placed French woman player 2010

Louis Lefort, the first-placed young player

Paul Baffault second-placed young French player
with his prize - a comic book from Frank Margerin

Théo Souris, the third-placed young Best French Player 2010

A classic machine tournament (the Silverball Classical Tournament) was also held on Sunday and attracted 64 players.

The 8 pinballs used in this tournament were:

• Attack From Mars
• Indiana Jones
• Road Show
• Circus Voltaire
• CountDown
• Jungle Queen
• Monster Bash
• The Lord of the Rings

The four semi-finalists;
Cyril Denamur, Roman Kunovic, Nicolas Grasset and Yann Baratte

The finalists; Yann Baratte and Roman Kunovic

Yann Baratte won this tournament

Roman Kunovic with Nicolas Linque president of the Silverball League

Here is a link to a really nice video report from Djgoliath59 which shows the atmosphere of the 2010 Flip-Expo:
www.dailymotion.com/video/xcusve_webcam

And here's another link with a different video
www.youtube.com/user/FLIPEXPO#p/a/u/0/L3g78NB67S8

SEE YOU NEXT YEAR.

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