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BINGOVIT'S |
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Date: 21st &
22nd August, 2010 Report by Evert
Brochez The weekend of 21st
& 22nd August 2010 was once again all pinball with the fourth installment
of Bingovit's OpenGameRoomWeekend. Being the second
article for Pinball News about this unique Belgian pinball event I had quite
a hard time to find the right words cause I felt
like it wouldn't do the previous article justice to tell the same story
again. So if you want to find out the so-called history about the
OpenGameRoomWeekend have a look at the article from last year here on Pinball News. So let's get this
year's article started! As an organiser you
try to do every event better than the previous one, because you always learn
and see things you want to improve. Being the organiser of both the Belgian
Pinball Championship (sorry, only Belgian players can participate) and
Bingovit's OpenGameRoomWeekend there are lots of things I can learn and
improve with both events. Things we learned last
year was that Carl Jacobs with his little stand selling pinball and bingo
parts was an instant hit and he needed to be back once again this year. We
also liked the large setup we tried last year so we decided to take an even
bigger piece of the workplace this year because we had a lot of materials to
move as the event came nearer. But time is an enemy
you really want to have on your side which wasn't the case this year. My dad is a carpenter
and as it worked out we had a lot of work making and installing a lot of
windows a few weeks before the event. This lead to us not having as much time
as we would have liked, but we worked days till 11pm or later just to have a
few days left before the OpenGameRoomWeekend. In the end I think it
paid off, though I wasn't completely ready when I wanted. Another thing we
wanted to change from the previous year was recognition. Every participant
had to register himself and received a confirmation email with a personal
badge he had to wear during the weekend. The advantage of this system is that
it takes away a barrier to talk to people, plus the fact that you don't
always know the real person behind a forum nickname. As the organisers, we
had to be a part of this so we ordered T-shirts with the Bingovit logo on
them. Everyone who helped out during the weekend received a T-shirt so
the organisers could be easily recognized in case of a technical failure or
just to have a little chit-chat. Just as last year,
I'll describe the events leading up to the weekend which started this year on
the wednesday - a day earlier than previously. I'll talk about the
misfortunes we also had this time and there were
quite a lot. Because we didn't have many problems the other years, they
probably all waited to happen together at once. ;-)
Not a lot to say
except that we cleaned out the workplace which was a mess due to our lack of
time because we had to make the deadline for those windows. In the morning I
finished the shop job on the Sharkey's Shootout which was for my friend Luc
Van Esch (remember the Zonderik). The game was completely working but
once I got to cleaning the drop target bank I
noticed a coil stop was missing and since it wasn't a regular one I had to
contact Carl so he could bring one with him on Friday. So the Sharkey's
couldn't be finished which was rather annoying. After that we started
cleaning out with the help of a friend of ours, André. After he left in the
evening, my dad and I worked till around 12:30am or does
that last half an hour counts as the start of Thursday? :-) I must admit that
after dinner I started to restore some bingos (we had 4 on the list to get
ready). Another friend came before dinner and he helped me in getting the
Hydro Thunder Deluxe games ready cause I don't have
a lot of experience in repairing monitors. We bought these games especially
for the OpenGameRoomWeekend and they're really awesome!
Finally we're going to
make some progress in this thing! In the morning we were
all in a hurry to try and fix those darn Bally bingos which had been
left. In the afternoon we started the final cleaning of the workplace
and after that we had to hang up the covers to hide the machines and to
create a better play environment. After a lot of people came over, our time
flew by and it was already dinner time. Being behind schedule we wanted to
make sure the covers were done so we only had to move the pinball collection
on Friday. You know what happens
if you do things in a hurry right? Bad luck strikes! My dad put his leg in
the wrong place and tore a vein from his leg open, so we had to stop hanging
up the covers. To make up some time I
worked on a Malibu Beach bingo (the last EM bingo Bally ever made) till
around midnight.
FRIDAY!!! (as Road Show would say), time to catch up the lost time. Just like last year,
Kris, Isabel and their son Thomas came to help us out with the preparations.
So we started hanging up the last covers, getting the pins and bingos out of
the gameroom and getting our fridge ready. Then we started cleaning the
GameRoom. Once we were finished
with this, it was lunch time. We have a tradition of all of us going to
Pizza Hut for the buffet. The advantage is we eat so much there that we don't
need dinner after it. :) After Pizza Hut I went
to pick up our custom made T-shirts and polo shirts. Normally I would have
got them on Monday but there was a printing error made - they didn't add the
letters Bingovit in our logo (which you can see below) and of course that
needed to be solved which took some time.
By the end of the
evening, everything was more or less in place. I'll show some pictures from
the build up in a minute. Carl Jacobs from Cederman
Gameparts arrived with the parts and he had doubled the number of
parts he brought with him compared to last year. When Carl left, Luc
arrived to bring his Zonderik Beer, his Zonderik sausages, hot dogs, sauces
and more! After that we worked
until around 2 o'clock in the morning to get the cleaning, adjusting and
stuff like that done. Here are some pictures
I took on Friday.
By the end of Friday
(2:30 in the morning) everything was in place and any final touches were left
for Saturday.
The show begins,
although luckily not just yet! We opened the doors at 1pm but I was
cleaning, adjusting and checking the settings of the pinballs up until
opening time with the help of Kris and Wim. It was a lot of work
because we also needed to hang up some instructional signs like "no
smoking", "call the organisers in case of technical failure"
and stuff like that. I also managed to
update the NBA, BBH and SM (with the new V2.5 code) but couldn't find the
time to burn some EPROMs for the Sharkey's and Batman. Luckily pictures tell
more than words alone, so here are a few pictures with some added comments.
As you may have
noticed, our GameRoom truly was the Stern showroom because we put all the
other pinballs in the workplace.
Some people really
took a liking to the sausages and even wanted two in one sandwich. After
everyone had enjoyed a good hot dog, the Saturday at the OpenGameRoomWeekend
ended soon afterward. In the evening I was
very proud to have fixed a boot problem with my two Gottliebs. :-) The
problem was caused by a bad U11 on the CPU. Okay, time to go to
sleep and start again on Sunday!
After resetting the
audits and updating the Batman and Sharkey's Shootout, it was time to open
the doors to the public!
After placing his Ms
Pac-Man ready for the public to play, André tried winning on the Hydro
Thunder Deluxe against our weekend champion Thomas. I think Thomas only lost
once in the many games he played. This is the second
year André serves us another really cool classic video game! Both video
games were extremely popular and were really difficult to play because they
were always busy.
There even was a mini
pinball machine. For €0.50 you could flip a ball. If you shoot the ball
into one of the three top holes, the game ends and you receive the ball.
And I'm going to
conclude this once again rather large article (luckily filled with lots of
pictures) with some pictures from my friend Kris Van Clapdorp. If you're planning to
make the trip next year, you can always check out our website for more
information on www.bingovit.be.
On to the fifth
edition!
Notice the little claw
machine of which we had two during the weekend. Besides the pinball,
bingos and videos, there also was a darts machine from Merlin. And because I just
wanted to add André Huijts's pictures too, the article goes on! :-) I promise these are
the last ones you'll see... at least from this year.
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