End Of Year Bash!

🎄 TAPP End-of-Year Meetup Wrap-Up 🎉

What an absolutely fantastic way to close out the year. Sunday’s meetup was a great end-of-year event — loads of fun, plenty of festive spirit, and an awesome way to wrap up what’s been a huge year for TAPP. Thanks to everyone who came along; we hope you had a great time celebrating pinball with us.

This event also marked our biggest tournament yet in terms of points on the table, making it a fitting finale to the 2025 season.

🏆 Main Competition

We ran 8 qualifying rounds, with the top 10 players advancing to finals. Finals were played as an Amazing Race across 9 games. Each player played their game, set a score, and then waited to see if that score would hold up — with the player on the lowest score sitting in the hot seat, watching to see whether everyone else could beat it or if someone else would take over that spot. It created a tense and engaging finals series, with plenty of pressure on whoever was left in the hot seat.

Congratulations to our Top 4 finishers:

An excellent showing from all four in a stacked field.

💪 Playing Through the Pain

Special mention goes to Patrick Hewitt, who competed with a broken collarbone and still delivered an incredible performance. Between one-handed play, sitting down, and jumping in and out of games, Patrick not only survived the day but qualified for finals and finished a very respectable 7th overall — plus took part in Barrel Ball. Absolute effort!

Andy was also managing an arm injury on the day — we’re still convinced a split-flipper entry between the two of them would’ve been unstoppable 😄

🎯 Barrel Ball

After qualifying wrapped up, we jumped into the popular Barrel Ball: Players form a line behind the machine, working together to stall the ball by hitting white shots, then jumping out of the way for the next player to take over. If you lose the ball or hit a red shot, you lose a life. Lose all your lives and you’re out.

Lives were allocated based on qualifying position, with a few bonus lives awarded for festive flair as judged by the kids:

• 🎄 Aaron — best Christmas sweater (+2 lives)

• 🐯 Wes — Tassie Devil Christmas shirt (+1 life)

• ✨ Jackie — festive earrings (+1 life)

Barrel Ball went right down to the wire. Congratulations to the Top 4 finishers for holding on til the end!

🍜 Food, Friends & Festive Vibes

We mixed things up with Vietnamese food as a nice change from the usual pizza, backed up by finger food and snacks. Everything was well enjoyed with particular thanks to those who brought extra along to share and keep everyone fuelled.

🙏 Thanks

As always, a huge thanks to AMD for their continued support and swag, and for helping us get a new machine on site in time for the event — we really appreciate the ongoing backing.

Thanks as well to Brad for bringing along Medieval Madness for everyone to enjoy — always a crowd favourite and a great addition to the lineup.

🏁 State Finals & Year in Review

This was our final meetup of the year and the last chance to qualify for the State Finals. Rankings are now entered and locked — head over to the leaderboard to see the full results. The top 16 players will receive an invite in due course, so keep an eye out.

As we wrap up 2025, it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on just how much this scene has grown. Participation has increased massively, we’re welcoming new players almost every fortnight, and the overall standard of play has jumped significantly. The competition is getting tighter, winners are changing more often, and players across the board are levelling up — learning deeper rulesets, advanced techniques, and how to play strategically.

At the same time, despite all the competitive progress, the community has become more tight-knit than ever. People aren’t just turning up to play — they’re hanging out, sharing knowledge, supporting each other, watching games together, and enjoying the social side as much as the pinball itself. That balance between competition and community is something really special.

It’s been great to see players watching tutorials, attending movies and events, following other tournaments, learning how the IFPA system works, and getting more involved overall. We’re now at the point where Tasmanian players can confidently represent our small state on the national stage, and we’re even starting to outgrow some of our venues — a great problem to have.

🚀 Onward to 2026

If this year — and especially this finale — is anything to go by, 2026 is going to rock. More players, stronger competition, bigger events, and even better pinball.

We’ll be taking a short break over January, with meetups resuming in February.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone 🎄✨
Thanks again for an amazing 2025 — see you in the new year!