The end of March is upon us which means that the “Spring Show,” or rather, Amusement Expo is taking place. In the past this was also known as the AMOA show – regardless, this is a trade show that takes place annually in the spring, where various arcade & amusement product manufacturers come together to show off their latest production. This post is to preview what we can expect to be there but keep in mind that there’s always some kind of surprise in store that doesn’t get announced. Also, it’s normal that there isn’t a lot of “new-new” stuff on hand – if your new stuff just announced six months ago is selling well, there’s no need to stomp on it with something else this soon.
Note that this is not the only amusement-related tradeshow taking place at the same time in Vegas – you also have the BCA Expo and the Bar & Restaurant Expo (which used to be known as the Bar & Nightclub Show; This also mentions the “World Tea Expo” being a part of it too). The BCA Expo is primarily focused on billiards and shows up as a part of the Amusement Expo map, although the exhibitors are not under AEI’s exhibitor list. Fortunately, if you have a badge to AEI, you get in to BCA as well. On the Bar & Restaurant Expo, a vast majority of exhibitors there don’t have anything to do with arcades but you do have a few like AVS Companies (who will be showing of exA-Arcadia product, among others), Incredible Technologies, and Valley-Dynamo who are over there.
The Amusement Expo website states that the show is sold out on floor space, making for the biggest AEI to-date; 163 exhibitors are registered with a booth space. I’m not going to list out all 163 here, just the ones that tend to have some kind of arcade (coin-op or card swipe, mainly video or pinball) product on hand. For some years the expo has added exhibitors from laser tag and “gaming” (cough*gambling*cough) companies. There are only a couple of absences that I’m noticing from what we normally cover – Retro Arcade (Ice Cold Beer remake) and Unit-E Technologies (RFPay). Otherwise this list will cover plenty of familiar faces.
Most of the list is alphabetical, although as a thank you and a bonus to my advertisers, I’m putting them up top first, then we’ll get to the rest:
Touch Magix
They sent out a press release sharing their booth, a similar one to IAAPA where they will be at booth #A931 as a part of the Elaut USA booth.
TouchMagix will showcase the all-new Link Play with connected Mega Marquee for their high-grossing title, Mega Blaster, along with SpaceWarp 66 DX. They will also showcase the new and pathbreaking Carnival Cups Crane, in addition to the Carnival Cups SE, which is becoming popular with FEC’s looking for space-efficient arcade game options.
Raw Thrills
Social media posts have shown that we can expect to see the latest versions of Halo: Fireteam Raven Assault Model (perhaps the 2p version I heard about at IAAPA), MotoGP VR and Fast & Furious Arcade there. They have also been promoting Pulp Fiction pinball, which just debuted this weekend at the Texas Pinball Festival. I will assume that be the headlining new-new piece from them this time around. Booth A231.
Griffin Aerotech and PrimeTime Amusements do not have booths at this show, however, I know the head of sales for PTA will be there.
Now for the rest…
Adrenaline Amusements
Adrenaline was at DEAL 2023 a little over a week ago with the two flavors for their new racing title, NFS Heat Takedown. The DEAL show saw the debut of the DX model (which features bigger screens and a motion seat), which I have to assume will come to AEI. Otherwise, I would also expect to see some of their other redemption & videmption titles, although they sometimes do like to usher in a surprise in the spring. Booth A709.
Alan-1
This newcomer indie from Utah will bring Jousting Heroes, a modern take on Joust, to the show, in 2 and 4-player cabinet configurations. Booth A1440
American Pinball
Over at the BCA Expo you’ll find American, although I’m not sure why they are over there instead of on the AEI side. Still, this means that those of us who couldn’t attend the Texas Pinball Festival will get a chance to go and play the new Galactic Tank Force game that AP just announced (and presumably, all of AP’s other games). Here’s a fun way that they are calling attention to GTF at the festival. Booth B341
Amusement Source Intl.
In addition to Sniper Strike II and Zombie Bowling that were at IAAPA’22, they will also bring along two new games, one of which is a light-gun title we first saw at EAG’23 called Zombies Crisis. The other one could be a redemption or videmption game, although ASI has said on their social media that Sniper Strike II was their most popular game from IAAPA, so perhaps this is bringing more video our way. Booth A1247.
Andamiro USA
Expect to see plenty of SpongeBob Squarepants here, be it redemption or VR, the latter thanks to the agreement that Andamiro reached with Rilix on the SpongeBob VR bubble Coaster. That also marks the first foray into VR on Andamiro’s part. I highly doubt that the next iteration of Pump It Up will be there, as that’s more of an IAAPA thing. Booth A817
UPDATE: Right after I finished my livestream discussing the show, Andamiro sent out an email detailing their expo booth and there are two new games apart from the Bubble Coaster that will be there – Tic SHAQ Toe a new merchandiser based upon/a sequel to one of their previous merchandiser machines. The former, pictured below, uses a cartoon likeness of Shaquille O’Neal, which is also related to his new cartoon, Shaq’s Garage.
Bandai Namco Amusements
This is always a different booth than what you see for BNA at IAAPA since they don’t have the involvement of the European side of things, thus keeping it “in the family,” so to speak. Taiko No Tatsujin has made waves from testing news but it is not scheduled to be there since it’s not shipping/just started testing.
The production version of Dead Heat Unleashed should be there, as should the likes of Pac-Man Battle Royale Chompionship, Pac-Man Power Pellets (redemption), Pac-Man Baller & DC Superheroes. I highly doubt that we’d see another racer around with the focus going towards Dead Heat, but Namco has featured a few different racers on the ground before.
There’s one thing that is new-new and that’s Jukebox Bowl-O-Rama – just note that this is not a coin-op product but is part of Namco’s growing home “Pac-Man Cave” line. Booth A109.
Barron Games Intl.
Barron will be promoting their Birdly VR and Koliseum VR Soccer Table setups, as we saw at IAAPA’22. Booth A1330
BayTek Entertainment/Skeeball
Outside of our industry, a lot of people don’t know that Skeeball was bought up by BayTek some years ago and Skeeball has been teasing a new Super Shot Basketball on their social media channels for the past little while. My guess is that it will have a video component like Rock The Rim, or they could just be keeping it more like the original with a few tech upgrades.
As for anything else, BayTek is often testing out new ideas – sometimes those come to shows, sometimes they don’t, sometimes when they do we never see them again. They’ve been testing out QB Throwdown so it’s possible this show could be the first time the rest of the industry gets to see it. Booth A715
Chicago Gaming
As mentioned, Pulp Fiction will certainly be the highlight of this booth although it’s likely they’ll have other remakes like Cactus Canyon on hand. An operator friend who picked up the CC Remake was telling me recently that it is making twice as much as any other pin he has…he couldn’t figure out why. It certainly is a great game from what I’ve played of it. Booth A1617.
Coastal Amusements
They had a packed booth at IAAPA’22 and AEI is looking similar, with some particular games like Bridge Man, Dinosaur Era and Snow Day, although stuff like Bridge Man, Bumper and Slide Up still aren’t listed on their website. Bumper was the most popular of the Coastal videos I shot but I don’t know if the interest translated into sales. Their AEI’23 listing also mentions a new-new game – a 4-player water gun video shooter called Fire Rescue. It shouldn’t take much of an imagination to figure out that one 😉 Booth A515.
Elaut USA
Touch Magix will have most of the video related stuff but Coast-To-Coast (another subsidiary of Elaut) will also debut Real Heroes Fire Rescue. It’s possible that it’s the same thing that Coastal has, but this one is 2-player and Coastal’s is 4. Still, that would be a little strange to see the same game sold through two companies like this, so we’ll have to see what the deal is. It was always odd to me that all these water gun shooters didn’t start with firefighting before zombies, but no biggie. Anyways, aside from crane games, Elaut has been teasing Gold & Mace VR for over a year now, IAAPA’22 included, and it still has yet to be listed on their site. I won’t be surprised if it’s on hand but I will have to ask what the deal is there. Booth A931.
exA-Arcadia
The multi-game, PC-based cart company will have another game-packed booth, featuring games they’ve released previously and their latest titles such as Donut Dodo Do!, Axel City 2, Dynamite Bomb and more. The games will be available in their ARC-1 cabinets that debuted at IAAPA’22; Those looking for the Hawt Pink adult games seen at IAAPA will find that at the Bar Expo which is happening concurrently with AEI. There may be some new games shown off privately, otherwise what you can play there will be titles you can buy now or pre-order. Booth A1156.
Hero Zone VR
This VR company was at IAAPA with their wireless VR arena and they just announced a couple of new non-violent social games for their platform. I did pass by their IAAPA booth a few times but didn’t get a chance to film anyone playing it (bad timing on my part it seems). Booth A1345
HOLOGATE
In case you missed out on their IAAPA experience and the debut of Ghostbusters VR academy, this should give you the opportunity to catch up on that I would presume, as well as their other more recent VR experiences. Booth A1217.
JET Games
This company has been diversifying their game portfolio, expanding from redemption games & kiddie rides into videmption games like Quick Shot. That was a complete surprise when it appeared at AEI’22, so perhaps JET will have another surprise in store along the lines of video. Booth A646.
ICE
ICE isn’t one to kiss and tell before a show, so I haven’t heard anything in regards to their setup…but they often do have something new along for the ride. Otherwise, you can expect to see a slightly smaller version of their IAAPA’22 booth, including Dodgeball: Ultimate Arena, Monopoly Roll-N-Go, Ship Wreck and maybe the production version of RaceCraft, although that’s still not on their website so I’m unsure on that one’s status. Booth A331.
IGPM
This US seller of Polish-based games (Kalkomat & Wik) rarely has video stuff but boxers, air hockey tables and basketball games are still great additions to any arcade and/or bar. Their most recent piece is Hit The Green, which is a unique combination boxer/kicker. Booth A749
Incredible Technologies
IT generally likes to announce things in advance when they have a new game to show and they’ve said nothing about a new game, so expect Golden Tee PGA Tour, Arcade Collection and Retro Raccoons. Booth A131.
INOWIZE
This Romanian company debuted their new Augmented Reality room, the QBIX, at IAAPA and it will be at AEI as well. This version is sporting a changed design and 3 new games; They might also have their Arkadia VR arena there, although the main push will be on the QBIX. Booth A1201
UPDATE: 3/27 – Inowize has announced that they will have a “new unattended VR” unit at the show which comes with 4 games. This looks more like an arcade cabinet than what they’ve done previously, so I’ll be sure to check it out.
KOMUSE
This creator of popular redemption games will probably have something new along, IAAPA seeing the launch of their Ultimate Shot game. Sega also tends to have some of their titles on hand, although at IAAPA, their Sync Pong game wasn’t operating. Booth A1009
LAI Games
LAI will likely be promoting a similar range of products to what was seen at IAAPA’22 and EAG’23, such as Asphalt 9 Legends and Rick & morty, FG: TeeV, Slam ‘N Jam Ultra. There have been some corporate changes there recently, with several of their coin-op guys moving over to a home gaming division, so I wouldn’t really be expecting to see something new-new until IAAPA anyways. Booth A345
Rilix
With their SpongeBob coaster now under Andamiro’s purview, I’m guessing their booth will mainly focus on their standard Rilix coaster units. Still, thanks to the competitive price, these are becoming rather common to encounter out there. Booth A1113
Sega Amusements
Sega sent out a press release that didn’t mention anything never-seen-before but if you missed their IAAPA booth and you’re going to this show, this will give you a chance to see the likes of Bop It!, VR Agent, Drone Racing Genesis, and the Augmented Reality Darts system. Booth A417
Smart Industries
The last time I recall hearing about a video game at the Smart booth was 2008 or so, otherwise I’d expect to see the latest of their popular crane machines. Booth A621
Stern Pinball
Stern announced that they will be taking “Foo Fighters, James Bond 007, Godzilla, The Mandalorian, Jurassic Park, Deadpool, and TMNT pinball machines” to the show, and demonstrating the latest features for their Insider Connected platform. I just hope I won’t get shut down on filming their stuff this time. Booth A409
Team Play
I haven’t heard of anything new coming out of Team Play since they debuted Carnival Wheel, which has been their main focus since last Spring. Booth A974
The Really Big Crane Co.
Kind of like Smart, you don’t think anything other than crane machines with these guys although they do have Zombie Jam video basketball. Perhaps they’ll have something else that isn’t a crane. Booth A703
Triotech
A new ride film for their Storm VR machine should be there, as will the latest version of their QUBE 4-player light-gun game that debuted at IAAPA. They don’t bring their big theater stuff to a show like this, since it is more focused on smaller operators. Booth A147
UNIS
They’ve been promoting their new video/merchandiser game Over The Edge a bit lately, whereas more of a focus was being put on Emoji Roller back around IAAPA time. They also should have stuff like Sailor’s Quest VR and Wicked Tuna to play…and perhaps some other new video titles, although they do focus more on redemption overall. Booth A739.
Valley-Dynamo
This maker of air hockey & pool tables has been branching out a little into other products in recent times, including Jet-Pong and Jet-Hoops. Booth A503
Valo Motion
Focused on mixed reality experiences that don’t require wearables like VR headsets, Valo Motion will be showcasing a new PvP game for their multiplayer Valo Arena called Astro Blade. I saw the arena at IAAPA but this new game is the first that will directly pit players against each other in 3v3 matches. This and their other hardware setups will be available at the show, booth A1250.
Virtuix
Expect to find their Virtuix Arena running the latest available games on it at AEI, although there haven’t been any recent announcements that I’ve seen regarding new content (the last was Rhythm Master which was released around IAAPA’22). They did just announce a new piece of hardware, but just for the home. Booth A1339
VR 360 Action
Also in VR is this company based out of New York with their latest hardware platforms, which entail multi-game setups running in differing scenarios (anything from a standalone tethered VR station, to a motion motorcycle or a VR coaster or a standing VR shooter). Booth A756.
vrCAVE
Specializing in free-roam VR escape room content designed for FECs. Booth A1301
VRsenal
Their Zombieland title was recently seen at DEAL 2023(seen below thanks to PrimeTime Amusements), now sporting some controller/headset holders that weren’t present in the IAAPA model. The photo below is from I would also assume their Synth Rider game would be around. Booth A356.
That’s a wrap! Naturally any surprises I come across I’ll be sure to discuss and be sure to check out the Arcade Heroes video channels on YouTube / Rumble / BitChute for footage of booths, games and maybe a little something more 🙂
Is there anything that you would like for me to focus on? Let me know!
