Houston Area Arcade Expo November 30-December 1

[Cakemeister]

Hello,

The 2007 Houston Area Arcade Group will be having their annual arcade expo on November 30 and December 1 at the Houston Grand Plaza hotel. There will be a good number of old and new video games and pinball machines, including the brand-new Spiderman pin, at the expo, all set to free play. Tickets are $15 for one day or $25 for both days. Some machines will be available for purchase.

I've been the past 3 years and it's a lot of fun.

IMO the best time to play is before it closes at 2 am but I am too old to do that so I will probably be getting there when it opens on Saturday.

[ahofle]

I'll be there this year.  I specifically timed my trip to visit family in Houston around this. 

[retrometro]

I can practically ride a bike there.  I'm in!

[Cakemeister]

Who are you, Cakemeister? 

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[Cakemeister]

No, I missed that one, but I was at the Texas Pinball Festival back in March.

[retrometro]

The 2007 Houston Area Arcade Group will be having their annual arcade expo on November 30 and December 1 at the Houston Grand Plaza hotel. There will be a good number of old and new video games

This was my first year there and it was a blast playing these original games on free play.  I got my money's worth with the Star Wars Trilogy game alone!  Here's a video I shot of the event:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_HKs0Shyws[/youtube]

[Cakemeister]

I'm in the video at -0:23.

My son and I (also in the video) won one of the pinball tournaments. It was the parent-child tournament where the parent controlled one flipper and the child controlled the other. My son is 15 and has played pinball on my machine at home so he had an advantage over most of the kids there.

It got really crowded about 5:00 so we left.

[retrometro]

Nice video, thanks!

I recognized 2/3s of the people in it... maybe I should have gone.   

Thanks!  I knew none of the people there.  The only person I recognized was Keith since he's been in the previous year's local TV coverage of the event.  Speaking/writing of which...  did any of the local TV stations show up this year?

Also, the hotel they picked was great for something like this.  Plenty of parking and lounge areas to relax between gaming sessions.

By the way, who ended up winning the Zaxxon raffle cab?

[retrometro]

I'm in the video at -0:23.

0:23 ?? 

[Cakemeister]

23 seconds from the end.

[ahofle]

I went on Friday night and it was a total blast.  Much better venue choice than the previous few years (that dilapidated hotel whose name escapes me).  Interesting games/highlights for me:

- Space War
- Pong
- VectorMAME cabinet (awesome!)
- Quantum
- Fun House pin (never got a chance to play though, was occupied the ENTIRE NIGHT)
- UltraPin (I've been wanting to see one of these for a while now, was decent)

I spent most of the night playing the vectors (and there were quite a few).  I also had a big hangover the next day.