Pinball Festival Bounces Into Ag Hall May 20-22

This is not your father's pinball convention---or maybe it is.

PinFest 2011 takes place at the Agriplex at the Allentown Fairgrounds this weekend, May 20-22. You have to pay to get in, but once at the show you may leave your quarters behind: The festival features a large selection of pinball machines that may be played for free.

There will also be a pinball-playing competition, as well as vendors a-plenty for those who wish to purchase a pinball machine or related merchandise to take home.

Pinball can be hard to find in public arcades these days, but pinball fever is not dead, nor is it just for kids, according to show organizer Ivan Lysykanycz.

PinFest 2011 should draw more than 1,500 people over the course of its three-day run, including “pin” fanatics from across the country and at least one from as far away as Australia,  Lysykanycz said.

“The hobby seems to be growing daily,” he said.

This is not the first local PinFest organized by Lysykanycz, 44. It should be the biggest, though, said the Allentown native, a self-described “pin” fanatic who earns his living in part through repairing pinball machines.

Lysykanycz held PinFest the past two years in the fall, at Merchants Square Mall, a smaller venue. Friends of his organized a major pinball show called the Pinball Wizards Convention in May at the Agriplex. When they retired, he decided to move PinFest to May at the Fairgrounds.

“Basically, the show is picking up where the Wizard left off,” he said. “We will continue the tradition.”

How can pinball fever grow daily when it's getting harder to find a pinball arcade than cheap gas? Simple, says Lysykanycz. If pinball fans can't go to the pinball machines, they bring the machines to them.

“More and more people are putting them in their houses,” he said. “People in their 30s, 40s and 50s are now introducing pinball into their homes, to kind of recapture moments from their youth.”

The cost to purchase and install a pinball machine in a private home ranges from several hundred to several thousand dollars, depending on age, condition and complexity, Lysykanycz said.

He expects to see fellow pinball fanatics from pre-teens through senior citizens this weekend. “It's pretty much a broad spectrum of people,” he said.

On the Web: http://www.pinfestival.com/details.html

If you go:

Agriplex Expo Center, Allentown Fair Grounds, 302 N. 17th St.

Friday, May 20: 4-9 p.m.

Saturday, May 21: 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Sunday, May 22: 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

General admission: $15 per day, children under 12: $6

Weekend pass: $40 (good for all three days)