09/01/2026
Thank You for Your Incredible Support at the Northwest Pinball Championships 2026!
We want to extend our heartfelt gratitude to all the individuals and players who made the Northwest Pinball Championships 2026 possible. Your unwavering support and trust in our event are what make it thrive!
We know there are many events you can chose to attend, and we want to deliver our best to in return for your time and money.
We enabled a major change this year, by adding a full qualifying day on Thursday and ending days earlier in the evening. Based on preliminary feedback it seems everyone was happy with the new formula!
This year's OPEN tournament boasted 145 players for the 4th year in a row to continue its CERTIFIED+ status.
Our CLASSIC competitions, with the extended top 240finals also had 145 players, making CERTIFIED+ status for 3 years in a row now!
The WOMEN this year also had more competitors than last year, now 43 players participating in the highest Women WPPRs single event in Seattle so far this year.
The CHARITY event continued for its 2nd year, with unlimited players and top 24 finals. The event taking place throughout our event, with finals late on Sunday had 50% of the prize pool to donate to project pinball charity. Overall, we RAISED just over $9,000 for project pinball, including the silent auction item and company match.
This year's event recorded over 1,090 card entries in the OPEN tournament, over 980 in the Classic bank, over 270 in the Women's division and over 380 cards in the Charity bank totaling A CRAZY 10,284 submitted pinball games over the weekend!
With 169 individual players, we extend special thanks to both our local players from the greater Seattle area and participants from British Columbia Canada, Calgary Canada, California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, Ohio, Ontario Canada, Oregon and even Kevin Birrell and Zach Amador making a surprise visit all the way from Japan.
You can see the updated results for the different tournament on our website standings page, https://www.nwpinballchamps.com/standings-1
Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors and the growth in attendance, we awarded 56 money prizes totaling over $43,500 this year (up from $36,000 last year). We also covered all expenses such as trophies, plaques, rent, and moving costs with sponsorship putting all money spent by players in the tournament to the prize pool (and adding $1,000's more to the overall prize pool.
We eagerly welcome your feedback and comments to improve this event year after year. You can reach us at [email protected]. Additionally, we'll be sending anonymous surveys to those interested in providing feedback. Our dedicated volunteers and limited resources drive our efforts, and we hope everyone had a fantastic time!
Our heartfelt appreciation goes out to our INCREDIBLE volunteers, sponsors, and partners. While we can't list everyone by name, we want to express our gratitude to the core NWPC organizing team, our exceptional pinball moving team, those who manned the registration desk, scorekeepers, software developers, and all last-minute volunteers who stepped in to help. An estimated 500 hours from all the volunteers across the 6 days it takes to set up/run/tear down the event.
We'd like to give massive kudos to GeekGamer.TV, who returned for our fourth year and consistently provided professional-quality coverage, improving with each passing year.
We also owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to local collectors who loaned us their games for the event—your contributions are invaluable.
A HUGE THANK YOU goes to Lynnwood Bowl and Skate for hosting us this year. We received numerous compliments from players about the location and the staff's hospitality. It's hard to imagine running our event anywhere else now. They were exceptionally accommodating with our extended schedule with a full day on Thursday.
The tournament director and tech NWPC team performed exceptionally well this year, with special commendation to Jaran Jones stepping into this type of very intense event multi day events to provide immesurable help with tech and TD work. Special guest TD for the Sunday revenge Matty Pinpin also get a special shootout to help run that fun event on Sunday for 48 players!
Our key organizers and Co-TD spent many long hours this weekend to provide the best experience for players participating in our events, Richie Terry and Lonnie Langford!
Not to forget, the hardest working man in pinball, Eden Stamm, coming all the way from Canada to spend nearly a week here, helping longer and working harder than anyone else, and still finding the time to get 3rd in Classics this year!
We had a few transportation, setup and tear down champs this year, Michael Rausch ended up driving the truck for pick with Val coming both days when he wasn't working in the tournament. Also Ashley being there both days for set up and tear, with our friend from the north, Michaela coming on Monday to help us out as well!
Other great volunteers helping us, even if they were not going to play during the event. It really takes a pinhead village to put this together.
Last but not least, our sponsors have been instrumental in making this event possible. From our most generous SPECIAL sponsors 8-bit Arcade, Shorty's, and The Ice Box Arcade, to Limited Edition sponsor like Another Castle or Premium sponsors including Admiral Pub West Seattle, Olaf's, and Event sponsor Marcos pinball, Captain's Auction Warehouse, Flip N Out Pinball LLC, your support is greatly appreciated. Special mentions go to Stern Pinball, Spooky Pinball LLC, Pinball Life, and Seattle Pinball Services as well!
Special mention to Tony's coffee for being an amazing partners and providing great products to our players!
As we stow away the banner for now, we look forward to seeing you all next year!
