Date: September 5th, 2009.
Location: SS Billiards, 732 11th Avenue South, Hopkins, Minnesota 55343, USA.

On Sunday, September 5th, yet another fun-filled Pinball Picnic was held at
SS Billiards.

If you haven’t been able to attend one of Lloyd’s Pinball Picnics, then even though you may have read the other pinball Picnic articles, you can’t quite know what you have missed.

Basically, the Picnics are an afternoon of free play on dedicated pinball machines, free food and free soda pop. All this is followed by an evening consisting of a pinball tournament; which is no cost to enter. Although the format of the free pinball tournaments has changed since the Picnics began, the cash prize of $100.00 has not.

I ask you, what more could any pinhead want?

Lloyd’s is the place for the funnest Picnic

Let’s start with the details and then try to show you the fun.

The current Picnic announcements

The line-up of pinball machines at the Pinball Picnic is shown below in order of grouping.

From left to right: Batman, Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Fortune, Spider-Man, and Pirates of the Caribbean

Up front was another set of pinball machines.

Addams Family Collector’s Edition and NASCAR

In the back was another four pack of pinball machines, plus two games on which Lloyd was working and one more pinball machine.

Corvette, Attack from Mars, Twilight Zone & Medieval Madness

Next to the four pack was another pinball machine.

Creature from the Black Lagoon

And, in the back corner, were yet two more pinball machines.

A WMS Star Trek being repaired and the original Big Bang Bar

As seen above, not every pinball machine was turned on.

You can see two Black Knight 2000 machines in the process of restoration

The only problem reported throughout the entire day was the possibility of the plastic over the “Creature Hologram” being a little slanted to the left.

The pinball machines available for tournament play are listed next.

The list of tournament machines

Corvette


Twilight Zone


Wheel of Fortune


Pirates of the Caribbean

As usual Lloyd supplied free food and pop.

Pork ribs

Soda pop

Two other people brought in food to share. As pictured below, Marlowe brought in potato salad.

Potato salad

And, as shown below, Jim brought in homemade chocolate covered peanuts.

Peanuts

The tournament was up and running by 7:30pm.

Please read the previous tournament review to see the format; played out on the four pinball machines available for tournament play.

Now I’ll try to express some of the pinball fun and general atmosphere by sharing some pictures taken throughout the day.

There are several attendees who arrange alternate transportation to attend.

Mason attends whenever he can and is usually one of the first to arrive

Whole families attend the Picnics.

Mother and son sharing the wonder of their first game together

But, not everyone came for the Picnic.

A couple on a date

Some come to play pinball, but not to compete.

Friends rally each other so they may collectively see “The Creature Hologram” for their very first time

Believe it or not, some people actually don’t even play pinball.

Another group of friends; enjoying a round of billiards

But, of course there is the die-hard group who enjoy tournament pinball.

Compatriots intensely watching game play while cajoling one-another

It seems everyone enjoys watching an exciting competition round.

An exciting and tense round on “Twilight Zone”

This young lady explored a game unfamiliar to her while her boyfriend and his friend (neither in the tournament) competed on one of the non-tournament games; just for fun.

Checking out the coolie effect for herself

This young man came in on his own, just to play pinball, and took advantage of a lull in the tournament to play one of the newer games.

The lone-wolf playing the solitary hero

A few others were really interested in playing pinball in any capacity. Kevin proved such the case. He competed fiercely but kindly in the tournament then continued to play just for the enjoyment of the game.

Both sides of Kevin

Now back to the tournament. The namesake organizer whittles out the details for the final round.

Joe setting the final round in motion

Coincidentally enough, the last round came down to a competition between Joe, John and Marlowe.

Three fellows cordially deciding player order

Joe happily took second place (along with his $25) and John happily took first place (along with the lion’s share of $75).

Happy boys

Dates for Lloyd’s next pinball events are in the Diary section, so start making your plans to visit now.


NOTE

All pictures are property of SS Billiards and are used with permission and courtesy of LTG.