20/05/2015, 20:42
Dla tych ktòrzy fejsa nie mają.
Dear Friends,
Words are coming hard now: we feel a strange mixture of joy and sadness inside. On the one hand we're very happy to have been able to give pleasure with Pinball Museum Budapest to so many people in the last 13 months, and to have received so much love and hilarious moments from you in return. We are proud that our visitors came from more than 60 countries, and they spread good reputation of the city, the country and pinball.
Despite this, why are we still sad, even desperate? Unfortunately we have a serious reason. The day after opening Pinball Museum last year the National Tax Authority's appropriate department, the Hungarian Gambling Supervision Commission showed up at the gallery carrying out an undercover inspection, and as we learnt later from their records, they suggested taking all the machines away from the museum, because in their opinion our institution violates the Gambling Act so much that only it can be the solution. This action was repeated twice more in a couple of weeks. Subsequently this standpoint of theirs softened, they consulted with us in person, our views seemed to be approaching; they verbally confirmed us in the further smooth operation - envisaging small alterations. But in a written decision made in July they dealt with the issue in a completely different spirit. We turned to court, our trial will be held on June 17th this year. Recently they have submitted several tough applications to the court, and these requests intend to lead us to inability of operation, so the chances of a positive assessment have been reduced to a minimum. We guess, even if any favorable decision were made for us, we wouldn't be safe, we can be sure of another offensive. So as a result of the more and more attacks I had to decide not to undertake the further opening in any form, unless a miracle happens; after the trial the museum won't be open for an indefinite period of time. Of course, if we manage to get any kind of official document from the Hungarian Gambling Supervision Commission (confirming their previous informal ideas), which makes clear that a burden of tens of millions of Hungarian forints per year is not a condition of legitimate operation, then Pinball Museum Budapest could continue to live on in Hungary.
In the past year we continued our work unabated in spite of the difficulties, and it seems word got around the whole world. Both Wizz Air and Norwegian Airlines presented the famous sights of Budapest through a pinball machine in their monthly magazines, the latter one in an article of 8 pages. BBC, AFP, Reuters and the cream of Hungarian media also published some stuff about Pinball Museum Budapest.
In addition to the great reviews of the national and international press we received a lot of positive impulses from many other places as well, Pbal Gallery was rated excellent both on TripAdvisor and Facebook. The museum was chosen to be the most popular attraction in Budapest in 2014 on the world's leading travel portal, it's still currently considered as the best museum in Budapest according to visitors' feedback.
With the permission granted by the Ministry of Human Resources it was also a huge pleasure for us to operate as a museum (a public institution) and to be the member of the Technical Heritage Program. We were glad to hear that the exhibition is professionally appreciated too. We have requests from other museums to hold joint exhibitions, and at the end of last year we shared community space with Laczkó Dezső Museum of Veszprém at a children's exhibition.
Finally, leaving aside the sadness: this place is not yet closed, and will certainly remain open to visitors for several weeks.
If the deadlock is not resolved in Hungary, and then what will be the fate of the collection, it may be too early to talk about. We really wish the whole collection to stay together - in order to present it in another country with a foreign partner, or to make a traveling exhibition of it across Europe to reach more people.
The coming months are going to provide an answer to the question whether we'll find a solution to this, or the further destiny of the collection becomes uncertain.
We would be happy if lots of you could come visit us, so in this last period we'd like to express our thanks to you in the form of a discounted ticket structure, because we always felt you were with us, and a really strong pinball community could form. Until mid-June the full ticket price will be HUF 2000 (instead of HUF 500 + HUF 2000), and the discount ticket will cost HUF 1000 (for students and seniors).
Regards (trusting in the best),
Balázs Pálfi (founder/owner)
Dear Friends,
Words are coming hard now: we feel a strange mixture of joy and sadness inside. On the one hand we're very happy to have been able to give pleasure with Pinball Museum Budapest to so many people in the last 13 months, and to have received so much love and hilarious moments from you in return. We are proud that our visitors came from more than 60 countries, and they spread good reputation of the city, the country and pinball.
Despite this, why are we still sad, even desperate? Unfortunately we have a serious reason. The day after opening Pinball Museum last year the National Tax Authority's appropriate department, the Hungarian Gambling Supervision Commission showed up at the gallery carrying out an undercover inspection, and as we learnt later from their records, they suggested taking all the machines away from the museum, because in their opinion our institution violates the Gambling Act so much that only it can be the solution. This action was repeated twice more in a couple of weeks. Subsequently this standpoint of theirs softened, they consulted with us in person, our views seemed to be approaching; they verbally confirmed us in the further smooth operation - envisaging small alterations. But in a written decision made in July they dealt with the issue in a completely different spirit. We turned to court, our trial will be held on June 17th this year. Recently they have submitted several tough applications to the court, and these requests intend to lead us to inability of operation, so the chances of a positive assessment have been reduced to a minimum. We guess, even if any favorable decision were made for us, we wouldn't be safe, we can be sure of another offensive. So as a result of the more and more attacks I had to decide not to undertake the further opening in any form, unless a miracle happens; after the trial the museum won't be open for an indefinite period of time. Of course, if we manage to get any kind of official document from the Hungarian Gambling Supervision Commission (confirming their previous informal ideas), which makes clear that a burden of tens of millions of Hungarian forints per year is not a condition of legitimate operation, then Pinball Museum Budapest could continue to live on in Hungary.
In the past year we continued our work unabated in spite of the difficulties, and it seems word got around the whole world. Both Wizz Air and Norwegian Airlines presented the famous sights of Budapest through a pinball machine in their monthly magazines, the latter one in an article of 8 pages. BBC, AFP, Reuters and the cream of Hungarian media also published some stuff about Pinball Museum Budapest.
In addition to the great reviews of the national and international press we received a lot of positive impulses from many other places as well, Pbal Gallery was rated excellent both on TripAdvisor and Facebook. The museum was chosen to be the most popular attraction in Budapest in 2014 on the world's leading travel portal, it's still currently considered as the best museum in Budapest according to visitors' feedback.
With the permission granted by the Ministry of Human Resources it was also a huge pleasure for us to operate as a museum (a public institution) and to be the member of the Technical Heritage Program. We were glad to hear that the exhibition is professionally appreciated too. We have requests from other museums to hold joint exhibitions, and at the end of last year we shared community space with Laczkó Dezső Museum of Veszprém at a children's exhibition.
Finally, leaving aside the sadness: this place is not yet closed, and will certainly remain open to visitors for several weeks.
If the deadlock is not resolved in Hungary, and then what will be the fate of the collection, it may be too early to talk about. We really wish the whole collection to stay together - in order to present it in another country with a foreign partner, or to make a traveling exhibition of it across Europe to reach more people.
The coming months are going to provide an answer to the question whether we'll find a solution to this, or the further destiny of the collection becomes uncertain.
We would be happy if lots of you could come visit us, so in this last period we'd like to express our thanks to you in the form of a discounted ticket structure, because we always felt you were with us, and a really strong pinball community could form. Until mid-June the full ticket price will be HUF 2000 (instead of HUF 500 + HUF 2000), and the discount ticket will cost HUF 1000 (for students and seniors).
Regards (trusting in the best),
Balázs Pálfi (founder/owner)