The 2019 Pinball Expo was held in Wheeling, IL, last week, and, while it was my first time at the event, this year marked its 35th anniversary. True to the event’s namesake, there was a plethora of pinball at the event, giving me a chance to soak in some things I haven’t had a chance to experience before.
COLLECTORS’ HALL
This was the most interesting part of the event to me, as it featured pinball tables brought in by collectors for attendees to play and purchase. The mixture of tables offered newer and older machines that displayed a wide range of gimmicks intended to attract players.
There was a goofy Orbitron 1 table that relied heavily on a cratered playfield and magnetized “gravity” that was new to me, and I got time on a personal favorite – World Cup Soccer.
I could only check out so much with plenty of people in attendance, but here is what a walkthrough of that hall looked like:
VENDOR/TOURNAMENT HALL
Much like Midwest Gaming Classic, Pinball Expo got heavy support from companies such as Stern and Jersey Jack Pinball. The talk of the weekend was the brand new Elvira House of Horrors pinball table, which was boosted by the appearance of Elvira herself – Cassandra Peterson.
Any newer machine at the event was packed with players, but I’ve been able to put a little bit of time on House of Horrors thanks to its inclusion at Galloping Ghost Pinball. It’s a fun playfield with a lot of fanservice, but it is also receiving continual updates at this time (like other electronics, current pinball machines can have updates downloaded into a USB drive and inserted for updates that implement fixes and updated features). I’m sure the machine will be up to its 1.0 version by the next time I’m able to check it out (I was playing on a freshly-implemented v. 0.84 last week).
The vendor hall also offered work-in-progress custom tables, which included very popular Castlevania, Undertale and Nightmare Before Christmas projects. A collector’s showpiece featured in the vendor hall was a Krull table – it is said only 10 of these tables were ever produced.
GemuBaka 
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