Louisville Arcade Expo: For the Old School Gamer in All of US
Louisville Arcade Expo is a convention of retro gaming featuring arcade machines, pinball, and classic consoles from March 2-4 at the Ramada Plaza Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky.
The expo will be 22,000 sq ft of retro gaming. There will be over 100 machines to play all set on free play. This is anyone who is a true video fanatic.
Some pinball machines that will be there are PINBOT, Demolation Man, Twlight Zone, Stargate, Doctor Who, Pacman. Arcade machines of Centipede, Virtual Fighter 2, Pac Man, Donkey Kong Jr, Pitfall II, Dragon’s Lair, Golden Axe, and many more. Console wise they will have games for Intellivision, NES, Atari 2600 and 5200, Sega Master System, Turbografx 16, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Philips CD-i, Neo Geo AES, Sega CD, Atari Jaguar, 3DO system, Sega Saturn, Virtual Boy, Playsation, Jaguar CD, N64, and Dreamcast.
They even have old school computers to play on. Play on an Apple II, 486 PC, Commodore 64, and a Win98 PC. They have Doom, Moon Patrol, Wolfenstein 3D, Knight Games, and more.
Louisville Arcade Expo has several tournaments for the con all weekend. On consoles there is Duck Hunt at High Noon on Saturday, Super Mario Bros Challenge for the NES, Super Mario Kart for the SNES, Sonic Speed Run on Sega Genesis, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 on Sega Dreamcast, Combat Tank Attack on Atari 2600, Super Smash Bros 64, DDR on PlayStation, Triple Action on Intellivision, plus several more. On arcade there will be will be Street Fighter II, Pole Position II, Zaxxon, Mortal Kombat II, and Galaga. For pinball there will be two Internation Flipper Pinball Association (IFPA) tournaments. On Sunday is a Pinball Gold tournament and another taking both Friday and Saturday.
There is also a special Dr. Mario Challenge against one of the top players in the world, Dr. Markio. Donate $1 to Child’s Play and take him on. If you beat him the con will match your donation and all the money goes to Child Play.
There are several other things to do at the con besides all the gaming. There will be a vendors area this year called the Warp Zone. Artist Adam Hicks, seamstress Sasha Peach, vintage game store Game King, and pixel artist David Lugo are just some of them. A pizza parlor will be set up with food and drink to buy.
Mark Alpier, Crystal Castles world record holder and co-star of King of Kong, will be doing a talk and meet and greet on Saturday afternoon. A costume contest on Saturday. They are giving away an arcade machine in a raffle. Bring 2 can goods or give $2 donation to Kosair Charities. They will draw two winners on Saturday evening and then those two will play against each other on Sunday with the winner taking the machine home.
Nerdcore Super Star Mega Ran, aka Random, will be performing on Friday at 9pm at the con. The Capcom licensed rapper know for his albums about Mega Man, Final Fantasy 7, Fanicom, and more is stopping by as part of his VS Tour. He will be joined by fellow rapper Willie Evans Jr and producer DJ DN3. 8-bit DJ Ricky Henry, aka Babyglasses, will be there Friday and Saturday night
Pre-registration for the expo is $30 for the weekend and $12 for a one day pass. If you buy a weekend pass you get access to their VIP hospitality suite. Registration at the door is $35 weekend and $15 for a day pass. Kids 10 and under are allowed in free with an adult. Hotel room are going at a rate of $69.95 a night for attendees.
Own your own arcade or pinball machine? Loan it to the con for the weekend and get in free. They will help you set it to free play and provide the power strips needed. You can even sell or trade it for a new one. Let them know what game you are bringing and get some free stuff.
Check out the full list of games and tournaments at their site.
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