Hasselt 2004, our first show
It was september 2004, when we did our frist presentation of our bingo's. The location was the Grenslandhal in Hasselt (Belgium) during the Jukebox and Collectorsshow. That weekend the weather was brilliant. Our place was next to the windows and the sun was shining in the bacjkglasses, so that you hardly could see that the lamps of our bingo's were lit and that our machines were ready to play.
We brought six restorated machines. A Miss America de Luxe, Dixieland, Hawaii, Miss America 75, Bali and a Blue Chip. It was not really our intention to sell those. But we would like to present ourselves and try to get in contact with the Belgium visitors. May be they still did know how to get spare parts or even complete Bally Bingo's.
Our colleagues complained about the number of visitors, but we hardly noticed that. Especially older people liked to play an old bingo and our stand was visited by all kind of visitors. Amongst them was an old Bally employee, with lots of stories about the old days and he invited us to visit him at home as he still got a lot of parts and machines.
But what I remember best was the story of the sale of the Blue Chip. This fully restorated six card machine was sold for only a few euro's and was bought by the children of an old man. When the bingo was dismantled and the children took it to their van, the man whispered: "My wife always did forbid me to go to the pub to play a bingo, but she died, so I can play my bingo at home now". He winked at us and skipped behind his children with his bingo, like a child who just got a new toy in a very sunny future.
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our first show
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everyone wanted to play
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old bingolove
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an old Bally employee
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lonesome gambler
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