This is the third annual Pacific Pinball Expo show and like the previous two, it is being held at the Marin Center in San Rafael, California.

The Marin Center

The advance promotion suggested there would be 400 pinball machines at the event and an initial survey suggested the final total would certainly be close to that, if not exceeding it.

Machines waiting to be set up

Set up began on Wednesday and continued through Thursday until the start of a special preview session for the show's sponsors which began at 6pm on Thursday.

Some of the team of volunteers getting the machines ready

The hall rapidly filled with machines from all eras while the rear walls were decorated by large murals of specially-painted pinball artwork by Dan Fontes and Ed Cassell.

Pinball murals

The Gottlieb Scuba mural

As in the previous two shows, the focus is very much on electro-mechanical pinball machines.  Many of these come from the Pacific Pinball Museum's collection, which was recently boosted by the large number of machines donated by Gordon Hasse. The bulk of the remaining EMs come from a small number of private collectors each of who contributed large numbers of their machines.

A few of the many machines at the PPE

Each machine has a top-mounted card giving some details of the machine and its noteworthy features or historical significance.

Machine information cards awaiting installation

We will have a full list of the machines available to play in either Friday or Saturday's report, once we're sure all those making their may to the show with their games have arrived and set up.

An overview of the show hall during set-up

At the bottom right of the picture above is the raffle area, where ticket buyers can put their raffle tickets into containers for specific prizes they'd like to win.

The raffle area

Some of the more immediately notable machines at the Pacific Pinball Expo 2009 included this Metallica conversion from an Earthshaker. 

Metallica pinball

Created by Wade Krause and Dirty Donny, the playfield, cabinet and backbox all feature new, custom artwork while the software has also been changed to play Metallica music, specially-recorded voice calls and different names for the game's features on the display.

Metallica pinball

While it's clearly based on Earthshaker, pretty much everything has been changed to fit in with the new theme.

Next to the Metallica machine is a new Visible Pinball.  Like the original - which it sits adjacent to - this new Visible Pinball has a clear cabinet and playfield to show the inner workings of the various mechanisms.

The new Visible Pinball

Unlike its sibling however, the new machine features a more detailed artwork overlay.

Although the focus is on electro-mechanical, there are still plenty of solid state and dot-matrix machines set up for visitors to enjoy.

Electronic and electro-mechanical machines