Protecting the games from the water that seeps through the leaky roof is of utmost urgency. The lease on the warehouse where he stores them is up for renewal in a few months, and he’s growing increasingly uncertain as to whether his collection can continue to be stored there. And if imitation is a form of flattery, the Pacific Pinball Museum is getting plenty of it from pinball museums now popping up all over the country - even in Australia.īut Schiess’ machines - which are restored and repaired entirely by a crew of volunteers - may be threatened if he doesn’t find a new home for them, and soon. The annual Pacific Pinball Expo Schiess helped start and organize for the last four years in San Rafael now draws thousands of visitors from more than twenty countries, and is the largest pinball expo in the world. A showcase at the San Francisco International Airport featured the museum’s pinball games as art, while companies such as Google and Genentech have rented part of the museum’s collection for company events.
Increasing numbers of youth groups visit the museum for field trips, and he’s booking more and more pinball parties. On one day in December, more than 4,000 people bought admission tickets through Groupon. Pinball tournaments have grown so popular at the Pacific Pinball Museum that Schiess stopped advertising for them. Despite the fact that video games have almost completely decimated the pinball industry, and that only one company in the world, Chicago-based Stern Pinball, still makes pinball machines, Schiess believes we’re in the midst of a full-blown pinball renaissance. Schiess’ museum not only preserves an endangered piece of American history, but it could also be a huge boon to the island city, and to the East Bay. What else are we going to do with it?’ But before they’d even let me see the inside, they wanted me to draw up plans and see how much money they could get out of us.” “I thought when we asked about this old, vandalized space they were going to say, ‘Sure, fix it up. “For how many people we bring into the city, it’s amazing how much they ignore us,” Schiess said. So far, city officials have not responded to Schiess’ requests for support, or even to his invitations to visit the museum. The problem is, the City of Alameda doesn’t seem to give a damn. He pictures it becoming a recreational destination that draws people to the city the way Neptune Beach, the legendary beachfront amusement park, did in the early-1900s. Specifically, Schiess has his eye on creating a 40,000- to 50,000-square-foot “Smithsonian of pinball museums” in a long-vacant warehouse on Alameda Point.
#MUSEO PINBALL LAS VEGAS MAC#
Pinball Mac still holds private pinball parties in his basement in Berkeley, but he thinks the game’s money-making days are over.Pinball art, such as this back glass, reflected the times.Michael Schiess wants to expand his Pacific Pinball Museum, but so far he can’t find a home for it.But he believes that the preservation of the collection depends on the museum expanding into a bigger and more permanent space.
There are seven decades’ worth of playable pinball machines in his 4,000-square-foot museum, the first to publicly curate the games as artifacts of American art, science, and pop culture. See you later!”Īs a result of his dogged perseverance, Schiess now manages the largest collection of rare pinball machines in the world. When doctors recently informed him that his arthritic hip may need to be replaced - meaning he could never lift a pinball machine again - the 56-year-old electric mechanic responded, “No, thanks. A year and a half after starting his Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda, he has never taken home a salary higher than $1,600 a month, so he and his wife make ends meet by renting out the bottom half of their house. He has driven across the country to collect them. Since he was thirteen years old, Michael Schiess has been obsessed with pinball machines.
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