Festival

The Festival pinball machine, produced by Chicago Coin Machine Manufacturing Company in January 1967, is a cheerful four-player electro-mechanical game with a theme of happiness, music, and dancing. Its design team of Al Schlappa, Jerry Koci, and John Gore captured the essence of carefree fun in their creation, and the game earned a genuine place in the company's history: Festival was the first Chicago Coin game to feature flipper return lanes.

The gameplay is energetic and dynamic, with two flippers, three pop bumpers, two slingshots, five carousel roto-targets, two rollover buttons, and two rollunders. Players can accumulate up to 9,999 displayed points per player. The carousel roto-targets were not entirely new to pinball - Gottlieb's 1966 'Dancing Lady' used them earlier, and Bally's 1940 'Fleet' had a constantly rotating carousel of targets - but they give Festival a distinctive centerpiece that rewards accurate shooting.

Reportedly, an add-a-ball version of the schematic exists. Festival stands as a good representative of late-1960s Chicago Coin design and of the continued evolution of electro-mechanical pinball as an entertainment medium.