Episode 407: Pinball in Austria
Alois Kozar and Robert Glashüttner of Austria chatted with Pinball Profile. What I learned was the quick rise to success for Alois to be able to compete on the world stage, and also Robert's passion...
Highlights
- Alois started playing pinball two years ago and qualified for IFPA 19 World Championships
- Alois won the Novice division at Yagpin with 240 players
- Austria will host European Pinball Championship and IFPA 20 World Championships in 2025
- Robert has been broadcasting for 22 years and recently started a pinball culture newsletter called 'The Ball is Wild'
- Austria has a large pinball museum/collection that is one of the biggest in the world
- Stefan Riedler of RS Pinball is Austria's distributor and will manage logistics for European Pinball Championship
- Escher is a world champion player who gave Alois tips during World Championships match
- Austria predominantly has Pro tier machines; LE and Premium editions are rare
Notable quotes
“If you are encouraged, I want to encourage every person out there to, if you like something and if you're passionate about something, start doing it now and don't let anyone tell you otherwise you're not able to do it.”
“Even if you're competitors, you give away tips and you help each other out. And that's what I like about this scene.”
“I finally saw Keith Elwin laughing. It's not that easy.”
“pinball is a good way of centering yourself and coping with the fact that sometimes you're having a bad day, sometimes you're having a bad ball. you just have to accept it.”
“You have to play all the machines. you have to play the electromechanical solid state dmd modern everything that's great”
“showing pinball to the public. This is the thing I like most, to really get people interested that are not pinheads... enthusiasm is the key word here.”
“I know JDL Pinball probably will be streaming that wonderful tournament or tournaments it's going to be something and you've got to be feel proud that wow the world's coming to austria”
Entities
- European Pinball Championship· event
- IFPA 19 World Championships· event
- IFPA 20 World Championships· event
- Yagpin· event
- Austrian Pinball Museum· organization
- JDL Pinball· organization
- North Star Pinball· organization
- Pinball Crew· organization
- Vienna Pinball Community· organization
- Alexander Moore· person
- Alois Kozar· person
- Escher· person
- Gottlieb Specialist (Lower Austria)· person
- Jeff Teolis· person
- Jim Belsito· person
- Keith Elwin· person
- Marcus Dix· person
- Robert Glaswutner· person
- Stefan Riedler / RS Pinball· person|company
- The Ball is Wild· publication
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