I recently had the pleasure of visiting Las Vegas and stop off at The Pinball Hall of Fame Museum in it’s new and much larger 10,000 square foot home at 1610 E Tropicana Avenue.
Having visited the pinball machine museum at their old and much smaller home, it was really exciting to roll up in the taxi and see how big the building was. Both myself and Andy we’re extremely excited again to be back and wondered what was in store for us on this visit.
We walked in to a familiar sound of clunking and pinging, not to mention that familiar darkness that only someone who frequented arcades in the 1980’s would truly appreciate. We we’re so impressed with what they had managed to do here, there we’re a lot more pinball machines that last time, including some vintage novelty machines which were wonderful to see in working condition, some of which are from the 1950’s.
The Pinball Hall of Fame is actually a not for profit museum set up by Tim Arnold who owns every single one of these fabulous machines. It is free to enter and completely family friendly fun, something that is hard to come by in the city of sin. All excess revenues go to the Salvation Army and last year they managed to donate over $500,000 to this worthy cause.
It is such a popular landmark in Las Vegas, Google have visited to film a 3D Tour of the premises that way you get so see all the cool pins and arcade machines on display right from the comfort of your own home. Click here to take the tour yourself.
The hundreds of machines range from the real classics from the heyday of pinball int he 1950’s right up to present day pins such as the new Stern X-Men Pinball Machine and AC/CD Pinball also by Stern.
So we rocked up to the change machine with our cup and both got $20 worth of quarters. The sound of getting change in an arcade is an exciting one. At that point we both because mesmerised and wandered round the museum deciding what to go on. There is just so much choice, machines are 50¢-£1 for 3-5 balls which is the best bang for your buck entertainment wise in the whole state of Nevada I am sure.
Andy’s favourite of the day on this trip was the highly collectable Bally Classic Theatre of Magic that was produced in 1995. A captivating machine with gorgeous artwork and plenty of play field extras to keep a intermediate player like him entertained, whereas I always seem to be drawn to the more unusual pieces in places like this. There was a hilarious Prop Cycle arcade machine by Namco towards the back of the room and me being the fool, just had to give it a go. Having not worked out for 3 days, it gave me a hell of a work out. Honestly, if the stationary bike at the gym was this fun, i’d be one buff babe.
We may have gone back to the change machines a couple of times but it’s all for a good cause right? After 3 hours we emerged from the cavernous museum and allowed our eyes a moment to adjust to the light and head on back to the strip a little sad to leave there.
What the team have created at the Pinball Hall of Fame is something quite special. It is not the most glamourous of places, it’s a bit tatty here and there but you have to see past that to really appreciate what you have here.
Having been lucky enough to go to Las Vegas a fair few times and I’ve seen a lot of whats on offer and this place is definitely somewhere you have to visit and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to both families and if you are just a couple of overgrown kids like Andy and Myself.
If you pop next door you will find a treasure trove of retro consoles and computer games at A Gamers Paridise which is a must for any Game Cube, Sega Saturn, Super Famicom and other vintage console fans and you'd be mad not to visit.
A great way to spend the afternoon in Las Vegas and the best place to spend your time away from the humdrum off The Strip.
Written By: Michelle Beresford