If you’re in the Bay Area, you take part in the boom for a flat admission fee (all machines are free) at the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda. It started as a one-room collection and has since grown to have a big collection of really well maintained machines. They’re also affiliated with Free Gold Watch near Haight in SF, which has a good rotating collection of machines, both brand new movie tie-ins etc and a room of vintage electromechanical machines. It never gets old hearing the buzzing and bells from an old school machine…or putting a quarter into the Big Lebowski table and hearing “where’s the money, Lebowski!”

And, coming up in august, California Extreme will take over the Santa Clara convention center with a truly mind-bogglingly massive collection of hobbyist owned pinball machines, arcade machines, and vintage gaming electronics. It’s a blast and always one of my favorite days of the whole year.