Random Flips

Pinball Events: Pinball Expo 2026 and What’s Next

Updated 16 October 2026

Pinball’s event calendar has a major show underway this weekend, with tournaments and conventions coming up around the world. Here are a few dates for your diary.

Pinball Expo 2026 — Schaumburg, Illinois

Pinball Expo runs from 14–17 October 2026 at the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center Hotel. It features hundreds of games on free play, vendors, seminars, tournaments and factory tours. The convention hall runs through Saturday night, with the Flip Out tournament finals scheduled for Sunday 18 October.

Official Pinball Expo website · hours and admission · event schedule

UK events coming up

For UK players, the Random Flips UK Pinball Events page currently lists the Spacebar Pinball Tournament in Sunderland on 25 October and Custard Cup II at The Pinball Factory in Birmingham on 1 November. Check the linked organisers for entry and schedule details.

More shows to look forward to

Dutch Pinball Open Expo — 13–15 November 2026, Veldhoven, Netherlands. Expect tournaments, free-play machines, seminars and vendors. Friday access is limited to VIP weekend ticket holders, so check the organiser’s details before travelling. Official event information.
Melbourne Pinball Expo — 13–15 November 2026 at the Matthew Flinders Hotel in Chadstone, Victoria, Australia. The organiser lists more than 100 machines, with games on free play as part of admission. Official event information.
Pincinnati — 4–6 December 2026 at the Holiday Inn Eastgate in Cincinnati, Ohio. The convention advertises more than 120 machines, free play with admission, vendors and tournaments. Official event information.
Texas Pinball Festival — 19–21 March 2027 in Frisco, Texas. The festival features pinball, tournaments, seminars and special guests. Official Texas Pinball Festival website.

Event dates, schedules and admission rules can change. Check each organiser’s website before making travel plans. Know of another major pinball event we should list? Get in touch with Random Flips.

October 16, 2026

The Pinball Factory Birmingham: League Night, Weekend Visit and a Brilliant Collection

Rows of colourful pinball machines at The Pinball Factory Birmingham

RANDOM FLIPS · VENUE SPOTLIGHT

BIRMINGHAMGreat games.
Great people.

The Pinball Factory is a brilliant place to play: welcoming, relaxed and packed with beautifully maintained machines.

I visited twice—first on a Tuesday for league night, then again on a Saturday—and came away impressed both times. The atmosphere, the people and the condition of the games all showed how much genuine passion has gone into the venue.

01 Tuesday league night

Tuesday league night had exactly the right balance: relaxed, welcoming and friendly, with a proper competitive edge. There were some seriously great players in the room, but it never felt intimidating. It was easy to join in, have a laugh and enjoy the games.

Godzilla and King Kong pinball machines at The Pinball Factory Birmingham

RELAXED · FRIENDLY · COMPETITIVE

Playing Godzilla pinball during a visit to The Pinball Factory

Playing King Kong pinball at The Pinball Factory Birmingham

“A proper competitive edge—without ever feeling intimidating.”RANDOM FLIPS · LEAGUE NIGHT

02 Classics to current favourites

The collection covers a fantastic range of eras. Alongside modern games such as Godzilla and King Kong, there are some really nice classic games.

Classic pinball machines including Blackout and Catacomb at The Pinball Factory

A TOUR THROUGH PINBALL HISTORY

03 Saturday energy

I returned on Saturday, when it was fairly busy without ever feeling overcrowded. There was still space to play, and everyone we met was respectful, friendly and clearly there for the same reason—a love of pinball.

Visitors enjoying the pinball collection at The Pinball Factory Birmingham

BUSY · SOCIAL · NEVER CROWDED

04 Passion in every game

The owners are genuinely passionate about the hobby, and it shows throughout the venue. Every machine I played was in great condition, clean and clearly well looked after. That care makes a huge difference: whether you are chasing a score or discovering a game for the first time, everything feels ready to play properly.

Random Flips visiting The Pinball Factory Birmingham

RANDOM FLIPS APPROVED

05 Plan your visit

Tuesday & Friday17:00–21:00

Saturday & Sunday11:00–19:00

Great games. Great people. Well worth a visit.

Visit The Pinball Factory Follow @pinballfactoryuk

September 21, 2026

Random Flips Has Levelled Up: Explore the New Player Tools, Events and Pinball Resources

A room filled with illuminated pinball machines

PLAY SMARTER. FLIP BETTER.

A bigger, smarter Random Flips is ready to explore.

Here’s a quick update on the changes and additions across the site.
Random Flips has grown into a practical pinball hub for players, organisers and fans. From 100 fast tournament strategy cards to UK event listings, player data, learning guides and live streams, the newest additions are designed to help you find useful information quickly—and get back to the game.

Start with the new Player Tools

The new Player Tools area puts practical tournament help front and centre. Search a library of 100 Game Strategy Quick Cards, choose the level that suits you and get a focused plan before stepping up to a machine.

Quick strategies for 100 popular tournament machines
Beginner, tournament and advanced approaches
An IFPA progress tracker and shareable player card

OPEN PLAYER TOOLS

Learn the skills that keep a ball alive

The expanded Learn Pinball section brings the essentials together.
Build control with Core Pinball Skills, understand objectives in Games & Rules, and make calmer competitive decisions with the improved Tournament Strategy guides.

Core Pinball Skills

Develop catches, transfers, nudging, ball control and intentional shooting with clear, jargon-light guidance.

Explore the skills →

Tournament Strategy

Improve risk management, machine choice, match awareness and decision-making under pressure.

Build your approach →

Find events—or build your own

Players can now discover local meets and tournaments through UK Pinball Events, then browse major competitions in the Tournament Calendar. The site highlights what is coming next—and recognises events that are already in progress.

Organising something yourself? The Tournament Builder combines format recommendations with a clear knockout bracket that can be used online or printed for pen-and-paper play.

EXPLORE PINBALL RESOURCES

Follow the players, numbers and live action

The Pinball Data Rooms turn IFPA rankings, player percentages, WPPR movement and tournament statistics into accessible insights. When it is time to watch rather than analyse, Live Pinball showcases Random Flips alongside a hand-picked collection of excellent Twitch streamers.

A cleaner experience across the whole site

The improvements go beyond new pages. Navigation is now focused around Home, Learn Pinball, Player Tools, Resources and Articles, with a consistent set of bright neon icons. Colour choices now flow through the cards, light and dark modes have stronger contrast, external links open separately, and the slimmer footer keeps the most useful destinations close at hand.

Random Flips is being built to answer a simple question: what would be genuinely useful to a pinball player right now?

This is only the start. Explore the new sections, try the tools and keep an eye on Random Flips as more practical pinball resources are added.

EXPLORE RANDOM FLIPS

START LEARNING

September 1, 2026

UK Pinfest 2026: Inside the Main Hall

EVENT REPORT · DAVENTRY · 28–30 AUGUST 2026

UK Pinfest is underway at the Mercure Daventry Court Hotel, bringing a full weekend of flashing lights, fast reactions and wall-to-wall pinball. With more than 100 machines on free play, the main hall brings together classics, modern favourites and some of the newest games in one packed celebration of the UK pinball community.

A walk through the main hall

The scale of the show hits you as soon as you enter: long rows of machines, players swapping tips between games and a constant soundtrack of flippers, call-outs and multiball. The floor offers something for every kind of player, from familiar favourites to eye-catching new machines including Pokémon, alongside Transformers, Harry Potter, Star Wars Fall of the Empire, Beetlejuice and more.

The packed UK Pinfest main hall filled with pinball machines and players — The UK Pinfest main hall in full swing

Players enjoying rows of new pinball machines at UK Pinfest — Players line up to try the latest machines

Transformers pinball machine on display at UK Pinfest — Transformers on the show floor

Pokémon pinball machine on display at UK Pinfest — A closer look at Pokémon pinball

Player trying a Pokémon pinball machine at UK Pinfest — Putting Pokémon through its paces

Random Flips player at a Pokémon pinball machine — Random Flips joins the action

A row of Pokémon pinball machines being played at UK Pinfest — Bright playfields and busy flippers

Player enjoying Pulp Fiction pinball at UK Pinfest — Ending the tour with Pulp Fiction

Machines old, new and unexpected

One of UK Pinfest’s biggest strengths is its variety. The event gives seasoned players a chance to revisit machines they know inside out while newcomers can discover different eras and styles without feeding coins into every game. Competition, conversation and casual play, creating the relaxed but electric atmosphere that keeps people coming back.

Watch the Random Flips main hall tour

Take a look around the hall with Random Flips and get a feel for the machines, crowds and atmosphere from the show floor.

Visit the official UK Pinfest website

Photos and video: Random Flips.

August 29, 2026

Audio Break Out Cable For Any Pinball Machine

Wouldn’t it be great if all pinball machines had an ‘audio out’ feature so you could connect your headphones or if you wanted to capture the audio for streaming? Well there’s a few dedicated audio board options that you can purchase to achieve this but I got to thinking of a way to do it on the cheap or using off the shelf parts.

What does every pinball machine have in common? Well they all have speakers in the backbox and cabinet so I want to tap into the output to those and convert it into ‘line level output’.

I did a quick search on Amazon for ‘Line Output Converter – Hi to Low Level Adapter’ and found lots of devices that claim to do exactly what I needed. It looks like these are used for car audio where people want to add amplifiers and sub woofers but I thought I’d see if it’d work on a pinball game.

This is the one I went with:

I had some .100″ connectors and pins in my spares stock for replacing IDC connectors and some speaker wire so I set about soldering the cable to the converter and pinning the plugs to the end that connects to the pinball machine.

So the cable took me about half hour to make and it works great! Not bad for £7, a couple of plugs and some spare wires.

You can then connect up an RCA to male or female 2.5mm jack either for connecting to a PC, audio interface or for connecting headphones.

I also made up a converter cable to plug this into a Stern Sam game (Tron Legacy) which I’ll photograph at some point.
Hope this article was useful for someone, if so, please drop me a comment and let us know how you got on!

May 19, 2026

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