Vienna, a year ago. A quiet, dark little bar, Schwartze Flamingo. A friend and I are sitting there on a Thursday evening, kinda bored. It’s the sort of place that just feels like it’s missing something. Plenty of space for it, whatever it is. Just, missing.

I look up from my beer, which I kinda don’t want, and say to my friend, “there’s gotta be something better to do than sit here getting drunk..”, and as I say it, I look over his shoulder, my eye caught by the glint of some shiny thing. Looking closer, it’s a sticker on the divider of our booth, ‘Pinball Crew Vienna’ .. “like .. we could find and then play pinball, for instance!”, I exclaim, kind of half assed.

My friend looks over his shoulder too, and takes a picture of the sticker, and goes quiet for a moment while he looks things up .. “well, there’s a tournament tomorrow, and its in our neighborhood .. I’ve never played pinball, whats it like?”

What?!! Where?!

“In the IKEA building at the Westbahnhof”. A building I had, to that point kind of despised, because I loathe IKEA in general.

Nevertheless, the next weekend, we put away our aversions to global particle board distribution, and make our way to the Westbahnhof .. Jo+Joes, a hostel I had no idea existed, occupies the 5th floor. The elevator opens, and it is like the pearly gates spreading wide, disco balls for miles to see, a joyous bright and pastel atmosphere, people laughing everywhere, smiles from wall to wall .. and oh, so many pinball machines!

“VIENNA IS LIT!”, scream the posters, and the immediately recognizable sound of flipping spinners, drop target resets, inevitable drain lanes and bumpers galore, greet us.

I immediately sign up for the tournament. I haven’t played pinball properly - for fun or for competition - in 40 some odd years. I’d grown up on a beach esplanade in Australia, my Dad’s burger shop, where I’d witnessed the many much loved pinball machines of my distant memories, slowly at first, and then suddenly like a fever, be replaced with Breakout and Space Invaders, the first ‘real computers’ I’d ever seen as a small kid.

All the memories come back. The love I had for that one drop target that’d get a free game, the shock of the bump targets, perfectly aligned, sending another coin into the slot. Straight down the middle. The strange, delightful whiff of solenoids and window cleaner. The internal wiring I felt in myself, changing, adjusting to new things learned. That old familiar hacker vibe, at its root, analog and perfectly shaped.

So, I played for 6 hours straight, just blistering everything I could extend .. and I came 63 out of 65 competitors, and it was a BLAST!

Just walking past the 30 or so machines, crammed into this crazy hostel I’d not known even existed due to my prejudices and bigotries, replaced now with curiosity and a kind of relief .. all the good times came flooding back - and now, as a seasoned systems engineer in his 50’s, it was just the right time, too. Newly divorced, trying to find myself a bit, in a city that will eat you alive slowly, this was the perfect new (old) hobby for these weary bones.

I play every week. I joined a pinball club, started my own team, made us t-shirts. The weekly journey to FlipperAsyl (perfectly named) injects life and joy and vigor into things again.

The IKEA building is our meeting point now, they have two tables permanently installed .. Wrestlemania and Avengers. We only play Avengers, our little group have a competitive edge, and every month one of us takes the throne, having learned some new tricks or two. Eventually we connect with the other folks in our neighborhood .. slowly all our high scores are erased by one FLO, who we track down and invite and challenge, on the regular.

Pinball is a quantum machine for calculating fun and disappointment, but mostly fun. It is powered by human soul.

Play it with your friends, teach each other things as you learn them, get to know the table and get to know yourselves. Make new friends - you inevitably will.

Each table has lessons to learn, the generations themselves visible in every machine. The soul of thousands of fun-seekers, if you pay attention to the quirks and rhythms. The spirit in the machine is really there, I promise. You can feel it. Really.

Had Barracora at home for a few months, she felt positively possessed, and for many weeks, was our little shrine. Got Swords of Fury at home, now. My pinball club leases tables to trusted members - a solution to the GAS that afflicts the pinball-collector crew. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome - i.e. too many tables not enough room). We all have our favourites - some prefer newer tables, I like the oldies of course. The ‘narrative tables’, with stories, the ones which saved pinball from oblivion. The older tables, parlor games with very simple, often very frustrating mechanics. Until you master them, of course. I know a kid who didn’t know what JAWS was until he played the table, learned the story a bit, and finally had what he needed to understand the movie. Game design, in pinball: an utter necessity for user experience designers, software developers, cucked AI coders, alike. There are PhD’s to be had on the subject, ffs!!!

There’s another twist. Pinball is a male-dominated sport. Our little team of discarded men, new fathers, old fathers, some of us recovering addicts, some just in it for fun - we have bonded over the tricks and details, this past year. It has been a truly unifying experience for our little club of men. But FlipperAsyl has ladies nights too - necessary because we men do tend to dominate - and that is also fun to observe at a distance. There is cross-pollination too of course - I regularly learn major things from some of the nice regular ladies in the Asyl. It has been soothing and healing.

We’ve already mapped out all the pinball machines we can find in the city, before one of us discovered the pinball map .. so now there’s a day trip planned, to the Pinball Museum Budapest, and our little merry crew of pinball misfits will make that train journey some day soon. It’s gonna be GREAT.

So .. yeah .. “VIENNA IS LIT!”, is happening again this year, in case any HN’ers are in town and want another GREAT hobby to apply themselves to .. hey, if you’re out of town, maybe get yourself a plane ticket, get yourself booked into JO+JOES, and get ready for 2 days of PURE FUN.

https://events.eventjet.at/e/vienna-is-lit-wiens-groesstes-f...

See you there!

The past, present, and future share a show floor at Pinball Expo 2026