ZapCon Arcade and Pinball Convention

Last weekend, some friends and I went to the sixth-annual ZapCon Arcade and Pinball Convention at the Mesa Convention Center. It was my first time attending, though they had been telling me for years that I should come check it out. And it did not disappoint!

My memories of playing pinball growing up were limited to hanging out in the arcade at the mall with friends or at the local pizza place after sporting events. And I’ve been to a few of the barcades that have sprung up in the Phoenix area in the past few years, but if I’m being honest, I don’t have that big of a connection to those kinds of machines like other folks. Nonetheless, I still went to check this out — and it ended up being so much fun!

Badges for the weekend were $40, or $30 for Saturday and $20 for Sunday. Kids’ badges were at half price. The convention was held in Building C at the Mesa Convention Center, its biggest building, and it was just endless rows and rows of vintage arcade games and pinball games.

The whole hall was dimly lit so that you can see the games clearly, and the convention was packed, but not too packed that it made you feel uncomfortable. People politely waited in line behind a person playing the machine they wanted to play. I even saw a bunch of parents carrying stools so that their little ones could see the screen. I wouldn’t have even thought of that!

The convention had a bunch of tournaments scheduled, which had cash prizes. There was also Pingolf. It’s like golf but with pinball games! Nine machines sat in one corner of the hall for “Pingolf” in which you play all machines and rack up your score like golf. There was a label on each machine, which showed your target score, and you played until you hit that number. If you go through all four of your balls and don’t hit that score, you check the sheet to see where your score fell into the number of strokes, and write your scores for that machine, just like a hole in golf. I ended up getting 56 for the nine machines. It was a lot of fun trying to get to those scores and frustrating when you fell super flat!

One of the big super video-game machines was Killer Queen, which plays 10 people simultaneously. The Gold and Blue teams battle each other on screen, trying to achieve one of three victory conditions: killing the Queen Bee, moving the snail to their side, or filling your team’s hide with berries. It’s super fun, especially when your team wins! I personally just liked jumping onto the snail and moving that sucker to your goal.

Outside the main convention floor was the Retro Living Room. In here were retro video-game consoles hooked up to old TVs, where you can sit back on a couch or lounge on a bean-bag chair and play some games from your childhood. Or you can try your hand at giant Super Mario 3! And they were selling beer in this room, so it totally felt chill and loungey.

On Saturday night, Minibosses performed in the Retro Living Room. They’re a local band who plays 8-bit video-game scores, and their most-famous song is Metroid. I’ve been going to their shows for over a decade, and it totally made me fell old when it seems like some of their kids are now part of the band. I had a great time listening to them.

Another cool thing about the convention was that there were food trucks hanging out outside of the building. They seemed to rotate every few hours, so that was pretty cool having food options on site. Or you could just drive off to a local restaurant, which there are plenty of in and around Mesa.

Overall, I had no idea how the hours would fly by playing pinball over the course of two days. I learned that I don’t like gun-trigger pinball starts (which show sup in games like Jurassic Park and Guns ‘N’ Roses — yep, those guys), and I’m not a fan of the digital screen either, which I played a game of Archer on. It was dizzying to me. My favorite pinball machine I discovered there was the Adam West Batman one. If only I had $7,000 to buy it!

My friends and I also discussed the recent dethroning of Billy Mitchell, villain extraordinaire and “record holder” of “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters” and one booth even had these Game Over T-shirts. I was greatly amused by them. Overall it was a good time, and I’m glad I went!