Meph
Well-known member
Two years ago the wife and I upgraded from our 1500 sq foot home to our current house which is 2200 sq feet with an additional 2200sq walkout basement and garage. It took us several years to find the house we wanted because we were looking for the right neighborhood, school district for the kids, and my wonderful wife was always on the lookout for a game room for me. When we finally found the house we made a decision that we were going to do the one thing we had always wanted but never done, entertain.
While we have entertained some small groups here and there, last night was a first "party" in the house. We hosted what will most definitely be our annual Halloween party. All of my co-workers know about my arcade hobby yet very few have ever seen it. We decided for our first party we were going with an 80's theme.
We found out last night that party planning is hard. I created a Facebook event and sent invites to a whole lot of people, many of which never responded. Surprisingly almost everyone I invited from work showed up and those that didn't let us know ahead of time. My wife had a whole bunch of co-workers say they were coming and not a single one of them showed up. We ended up making enough food to feed an army and overdid it a bit. I do know that my co-workers are getting a huge tray of Skull Pizzas and Confetti Cupcakes on Monday. All said though, we had 30 people show up which I think is pretty respectable for a first time party.
Two weeks ago I setup the basement, moved in new games and fired everything up one night to test out the electrical. Low and behold I found out that the previous owners decided to run the ENTIRE basement off a single 20 amp breaker. The next day a fellow local collector (timiskander) was at my house helping me add another circuit and rewire some of the basement. After a bunch of work last week my basement now is split up between 4 20amp circuits and I had no power issues last night. The night began with all of the games working other than Mr Do which is having an issue with the horizontal hold pot. One of the two dart machines is having an issue with the power supply and started acting up mid party, so that was the only casualty of the night.
The pinball machines were the biggest hit and to my surprise Street Fighter was the most played arcade machine. I had put the Big Blue cabinet in the corner and I see that has to change. Several times there were multiple people watching and waiting to take on the winner. Frogger, Ms Pacman, and Super Mario Bros were also big hits. I had my touchscreen jukebox upstairs pumping out a halloween playlist and I had the same playlist on a laptop streaming to a soundbar and subwoofer in the basement.
Everyone had a great time. I already know some things I am going to change for next year and some things I want to add.
While we have entertained some small groups here and there, last night was a first "party" in the house. We hosted what will most definitely be our annual Halloween party. All of my co-workers know about my arcade hobby yet very few have ever seen it. We decided for our first party we were going with an 80's theme.
We found out last night that party planning is hard. I created a Facebook event and sent invites to a whole lot of people, many of which never responded. Surprisingly almost everyone I invited from work showed up and those that didn't let us know ahead of time. My wife had a whole bunch of co-workers say they were coming and not a single one of them showed up. We ended up making enough food to feed an army and overdid it a bit. I do know that my co-workers are getting a huge tray of Skull Pizzas and Confetti Cupcakes on Monday. All said though, we had 30 people show up which I think is pretty respectable for a first time party.
Two weeks ago I setup the basement, moved in new games and fired everything up one night to test out the electrical. Low and behold I found out that the previous owners decided to run the ENTIRE basement off a single 20 amp breaker. The next day a fellow local collector (timiskander) was at my house helping me add another circuit and rewire some of the basement. After a bunch of work last week my basement now is split up between 4 20amp circuits and I had no power issues last night. The night began with all of the games working other than Mr Do which is having an issue with the horizontal hold pot. One of the two dart machines is having an issue with the power supply and started acting up mid party, so that was the only casualty of the night.
The pinball machines were the biggest hit and to my surprise Street Fighter was the most played arcade machine. I had put the Big Blue cabinet in the corner and I see that has to change. Several times there were multiple people watching and waiting to take on the winner. Frogger, Ms Pacman, and Super Mario Bros were also big hits. I had my touchscreen jukebox upstairs pumping out a halloween playlist and I had the same playlist on a laptop streaming to a soundbar and subwoofer in the basement.
Everyone had a great time. I already know some things I am going to change for next year and some things I want to add.



