The Silver Pinball Shines Over Saint Pete Beach At the Inaugural Pinball At The Beach Event

The inaugural Pinball At The Beach event took place this past weekend at The Tradewinds Resort on Saint Pete Beach and from what we experienced and have read, it was a rousing success.

Players and their families traveled from around the globe and were able to witness some of the best of the best compete in tournaments and just play on some of the newest and oldest games that have been designed and created. 

This San Francisco Machine was made all the way back in 1965 by Williams and was still playable today.

The hottest new game there was Dungeons and Dragons and there were 8 of them available to play and you had to jump on it when it was open. The other two big games at the event were Avatar and Elton John. Once again, they were barely open to play due to demand and it was understandable as they are both fantastic machines with a ton of action. 

There was also a Rocky machine that had a playfield and flipper configuration like no other machine I have ever seen. There were two full sets of flippers at the bottom of the field and the left flipper button controlled both left flippers and the same for the right side. It was built in 1982 and only 1504 of them were produced. 

Another really interesting machine that I have never seen before was Joust released in 1983 is a a head-to-head pinball machine (played with one or two players simultaneously. There were only 402 Joust machines made by Williams and some of them are now worth over $25000.

A couple of amazing players that were in attendance were Dave Daluga from District 82 Pinball in Wisconsin and Deborah Talman from Ohio were both considered by their peers to be the ones to beat. Daluga took second in the Class A event with Talman taking 3rd. Florida local Shannon Stafford stole the show and took first home the first place trophy and the cash prize of $2,370. 

I had the opportunity to talk with Ms Talman who makes her living playing pinball and she has a style all her own. When she’s playing, she sports gloves and headphones and moves to the beat of the machine and the music she’s listening to while playing. 

One of the tracks on her playlist that she was listening to was “Cream on Chrome” from Ratatat who specialize in electonica and beats so it makes perfect sense that she has that in her ears while playing a mean pinball. 

She is currently ranked number 1 in the women’s division after only playing competitively the last 8 years and travels throughout the country playing these events and was looking forward to taking in some beach time while on break from the tournament.  Her current favorite game is Rush which was also the favorite current game of others I talked to on Saturday.   

There were also the whos who of pinball machine developers & artists and even Gary Stern himself from the Stern Pinball company. He is considered the savior of pinball when many of the original Pinball companies were going out of business, he stood strong and continued to create and release machines.  In 2002, there was just one primary designer and manufacturer of pinball machines and that was Stern.

For more on this and the history of pinball, this is a great read

The Founding of the Flippers: Your Guide to the History of Pinball

Marshall Dickson from Little Shop of Games in Lutz and Ed Vanderveen and their staff made sure everything went smoothly and from all accounts, the event will happen again next year. Many of the attendees commented on their weekend and their experience on the Pinball at the Beach Facebook page and are already looking forward to next year.

Some of the comments were: 

Ed Aborn:”It was a fantastic experience, Sincerely hope it’s not the last one”

Marcie G: “Thank you for an awesome show. Can’t wait for the next one”

Michele Korab-Kurtiak “Such a great event, I hope this is only the beginning”

Christopher Franchi “I ABSOLUTELY loved this show.”

Mark Weber “Well done. I loved every minute. The location was amazing.”

David Paz, “We had a blast. Routing for a 2nd annual and beyond.”

Vic Clipp: “Had a blast. Look forward to next time.”

Jared Guynes: “I won’t miss this event in the future. 10/10 our kind of show.”

Emily Gross: “We had an amazing time and I cant wait to come back again and again.”

The event even brought in a bride-to-be to play some Cactus Canyon while waiting to be hitched and the owner of a one of kind Hellraiser game brought it to the event for his fellow Pinheads to play.

To say The Pinball At The Beach event was a success would be an understatement. The team that put the event together did an outstanding job and are already working on making it a better event next year.

The players and attendees have potential dates circled on their calendars and their sunscreen packed and their wrists ready to flip when the sun sets on the beautiful beaches at the Tradewinds Resort in Saint Petersburg.

For more information on this years and next years event, go to https://pinballatthebeach.com/