Arcade Expo 2.0 and INDISC Pinball

Arcade Expo 2.0 and INDISC 2016 – Banning, CA, USA

This past weekend was Arcade Expo 2.0 and we made the jaunt down to Banning, CA to check it out as well as compete in the It Never Drains in Southern California PAPA Circuit Tournament.

This was the second year for this show and it was again well attended and seemed to have healthy growth with more vendors, a fantastic tournament and many more working games than a year ago.

There were all sorts of rare machines and the most impressive thing was that it was largely the collection of one man, John Weeks.  This year also saw the debut of the campgrounds which are on site and were integrated with the Starcade, an outdoor arcade comprised of pinball machines and arcade cabinets out under the stars!

One of the Starcade sections (there were three areas of pinball and video games)

Some of the other notables from the weekend included the debut of the home brew Archer pinball machine (designed by brothers Keith and Randy Elwin and Mark Guidarelli), playing Robot Wars, TX Sector, Spirit and a ton of other rare games, and the ‘adult’ room with Sopranos, Sexy Girl and Big Bang Bar.  There were even two Joust pinball machines side-by-side and a Varkon nearby.

Archer pinball makes its debut!

The Bay Area represented well in the INDISC tournament too but the top honor went to defending champion Keith Elwin.  One of the best things about the tournament was the uncommon machines in the tournament bank.  Torpedo Alley was probably the most obscure for many of us, but I really enjoyed learning how to play Hoops and Laser War as well as learning the rules to Twister.  Watching some of the best pinball players in the world was inspiring too and makes me want to keep developing my skills since I was unable to crack the B Finals.