More companies bought more booth space at the 2025 Amusement Expo, an 8% increase over last year – representing the show’s biggest footprint yet. While fewer people showed up (about 2,300 buyers compared to last year’s roughly 2,500), organizers and exhibitors expressed that it was a quality show and cited that the absence of the Bar & Restaurant and Pizza expos this year may have contributed to that.
At the Beers & Cheers event on the first night of the trade show, AMOA handed out its Innovator Awards to AMI Entertainment for Phantom, Amusement Source International for Case Pro and S&B Candy & Toy for The Gateway (the product also won AMOA’s Operator’s Choice Award). Another Operator’s Choice went to Team Play for the Pixel Pix Gen 4.
Meanwhile, AAMA’s Manufacturer of the Year was Apple Industries; Distributor of the Year was AVS; Supplier of the Year was Embed; Allied Member of the Year was Bruno’s Arcade; FEC Location of the Year was Alley Cats of Burleson; and the AAMA Lifetime Achievement Award went to Joe Camarota of Alpha Omega.
Newly inducted into the Amusement Industry Hall of Fame are Humpty Dumpty, legacy inductees Tico Bonomo, Faith Guthrie and Al Simon; as well as living inductees Rich Babich, Peter Betti, Bob Geschine, George Gomez, Frank Happ, George Petro and George Smith.
RePlay will have detailed show coverage in the May issue.