I took plenty of pictures which should give you an idea of how the event shaped up, and the sheer scale of what is available to play:
The nice thing about an event in November, is that it is off-season, so flights and hotel accommodation tend to be on the more reasonable side (even after your fellow countrymen vote to leave the EU and shaft the exchange rate with the USA in the process).
#Las vegas pinball museum tripadvisor free#
I’ve flown over to the last three Free Play Florida events and this year’s was without question the best one yet. Everyone gets together to simply make it happen for the 2,000 paying guests who arrive each year. It’s worth pointing out that Free Play Florida isn’t a commercial venture, the whole thing is self-funded and doesn’t make money. The electricity bill alone for the event this year was just shy of $6,000! Many collectors donate multiple machines, allowing the general public to play without restrictions – it’s a serious commitment and a demonstration of the huge collective generosity of the people who put their time into making FPF happen. Hours of planning, stress and physical work is required to get these machines collated to one place over the three days – not to mention the marketing and financial investment required to put the show on. Putting on an event with over 200 arcade cabinets is no mean feat. These guys have created what is now recognized as one of the very best events in the world’s classic arcade calendar. Starting out as the Southern Pinball Festival in 2011, Free Play Florida is the brainchild of four arcade enthusiasts from the Sunshine State: Brian Jones, Leon Essex, William Stillwell and Mick Simmonds. But some of us take things a stage further, travelling further afield to hunt down and play rare classic arcade machines.Īrcade Expos have become very popular in the USA most major states now host at least one of these events on an annual basis, and Florida’s Free Play event is no exception. You pay a fee at the floor and get to play everything inside for free. On these shores, Arcade Club in Bury near Manchester is one option. So what to do? One option is to not own any games at all, and seek them out elsewhere. The lack of machines here in the UK today has meant that prices have shot up in recent years – to the point that many would-be collectors are priced out of the market. You have to stop somewhere.įor some of us, there’s an additional barrier, and that’s one of availability – the simple fact is that over here in Blighty, arcade machines, whilst prevalent in the early 80s, weren’t produced in the huge numbers that they were over the pond in the USA. But with a few exceptions, most collectors are bound by finances and of course space. Seasoned enthusiasts will all tell you that yes, they probably own too many machines. And when you find your grail, it’ll be replaced with another grail to hunt down. There’s always one more cabinet to hunt down, and every collector will have a grail – the one cab you really, really, really need to find. Collecting classic arcade games is an expensive habit.
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