Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Pinball Hall of Fame eyes early April move
$79K donation helped it hit fundraising goal
“Pinheads,” rejoice: The Pinball Hall of Fame is officially able to move to its new home near the Strip.
An anonymous donor has provided $79,000 to the Hall of Fame’s GoFundMe campaign, enabling it to meet its $200,000 goal needed for relocation.
“To have people step up to the plate like this was phenomenal,” says Charlotte Arnold, co-owner of the Hall of Fame with her husband Tim Arnold.
The Arnolds had planned on financing the move to a bigger building at 4925 Las Vegas Blvd. on their own.
But then the pandemic hit and they had to close for 12 weeks.
”We wanted to do everything ourselves this whole time, because that’s what we are: We’re self-reliant and we’re very frugal,” Arnold says. “So we saved all that money that built that new building.
”But with being closed down for COVID, we fell short from what we needed,” she adds. “We would have been a little bit in the black if we hadn’t lost last spring break; spring break is one of our biggest times of the year.”
They launched their fundraiser in January, accruing well over $100,000 in contributions before getting a $79,000 boost from a donor they know, but whose identity they want to keep private.
This will be the nonprofit Hall of Fame’s third location after two smaller spots on Tropicana Avenue.
It was founded in 2006.
They plan on leaving their current, 8,000-square-foot building by early April, when they hope to open their new, larger spot near the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign. The new spot is expected to feature 700 pinball and arcade games.
The new location will at first be filled with machines now housed in their 10,000-square-foot warehouse, with games from their current building being added after they vacate the current premises.
“The stuff’s going to be spaced for COVID once again, so it’s not going to be completely filled when we open the doors,” Arnold says. “Knowing us, we’re like squirrels: we squirrel these things in here and we pack them in like nuts. When we get over there, we’re going to be a little more spread out.”
Arnold has been collecting pinball machines for most of his life, founding the Pinball Pete’s arcade chain in his native Michigan in 1976 before moving to Vegas in 1990 upon retirement.
Now, he’ll be able to share more of that collection than ever before.
“I’m very happy that all these other people are seeing that this is worthwhile,” Charlotte Arnold says. “It’s good to keep this kind of nostalgia where you can actually play the games; you just don’t walk in and go, ‘Oooh, ooh, I remember that.’
‘You got to museums and collections and they’re static and people lose interest,” she continues. “But here, they can’t lose interest because they can play them.”