Millennium - Barcelona/Costa Dorada - April 8-10

[Spikerz]

I asked Heat, Damien Ryan, and dozens and dozens of German,Nordic, players.
None had heard about these laws or that there would be issues as they were perfectly happy to have gear shipped in, and the law was enforced in a hodgepodge manner. The cops didn't even know what to do. Some wrapped whole bags, some the market case. Some were escorted to the plane with them in separate bags, some not.

 

[slam]

Now I fully agree that from what I heard the law was carried out in a very, very hodgepodge way, but the daltons run foul of this law a few years back when they entered a spainish tourney runby one of the eurorefs so not sure how new the law is.

 

[Shepherd:03]

Apparently the law was only confirmed in December - from what I've heard on facebook most of the problems were with the airlines struggling to understand that although everything was now marked up as firearms, they were only paintball markers. Or missed flights after having to spend time getting the forms filled in. Spikerz was there first hand of course!

http://spanishnewstoday.com/paintball-guns-classified-as-firearms-in-spain_47820-a.html

 

[Spikerz]

Yea for my guy Andy. He was yanked out of line, missed his flight and it was a total cluster.

Me I had BA which because it was suddenly labelled as a firearm meant I had to call them three days in advance but I couldn't because I didn't know it'd be a firearm!

 

[fillingham]

Yea for my guy Andy. He was yanked out of line, missed his flight and it was a total cluster.

Can confirm, was a complete clusterf***
the reason didn't bother me, yes i should have read up on the laws and such, my bad.
but what really riles me is that we were given our bags and told to go all the way back past passport control and past security completely unsupervised,
they knew full f***ing well they were not firearms or any bit dangerous or they would not have allowed us near them in a place where you can't even have a 150 ml bottle of shampoo.
even worse the next day we had four markers checked through and taped as "firearms" yet at BHX they just shoved them through oversized luggage and they were on show for anyone who wants them while we were looking for a security officer so we could maybe sign for them or receive them, but they were just left out for god knows how long.

bonkers

 

[shoaibaktar]

Things seem to have changed a little in Spain since the last time, when the biggest issue was an ash cloud emanating from Iceland!

I detected some jitters from the vendors etc. on Thursday/Friday when the police were doing the rounds of the site, there were a couple of things that I am aware of but not at liberty to discuss that happened over the weekend, I don't think the MS knew of, or expected what has happened today at the airport.

It would appear that, from a bit of internet research, players should have possibly had some form of temporary permit authorised by the local municipality in order to play over the weekend. This may have been addressed by a blanket permit granted to the MS as an an event. Obviously, the travel issue is a separate one. As the law seems to have changed in December then this weekend would have been very much a test of it.

From what I have seem, teams that decided to take early flights got some of their bags scanned and detected, bringing the issue to light. As far as I know, nobody has had a gun confiscated or destroyed, they have just been delayed by the customs/security process.

There as an Ash cloud this time as well! It was the steam coming out his ears as he missed his early flight and pay for his original ticket ! Dedication right there!