Hi all,
I have a commercial building in West Yorkshire, and think it would be great for an indoor paintball centre. Is anyone in the area currently considering starting one up? If so, please message me
Thanks
Eleanor
An indoor site has many problems of its own .... which means you’re right to look for someone else to run it, as long as they are experienced in running Paintball site sites and/or events
A commercial building has the added expense of rates etc in comparison to a woodland site (particularly if construction is ‘temporary’) but that may or may not be an issue as you already have it - of course any venture has to be financially viable which could make a difference if it’s unused and you are after something to make use for a period of time
Indoor venues are more successful for airsoft than Paintball as some of the issues are lesser.
One particular example is the mall in reading, a closed down town centre shopping centre. It would be sat there unused as a money pit until one day it gets redeveloped. It’s used for airsoft and ‘experiences’ such as zombie survivial etc
We had one Paintball event there which was a disaster.
Originally it was to have an event run by very experienced organisers in indoor / urban and unique venues, but were hit by a severe personal loss, the business transferred to another individual and the event was still going ahead
The first plan was to use Powderballs but there was an insurance issue as no manufacturer would sign off on the safety.
In the mean time a small Paintball team who had been playing small private days there managed to secure an earlier date and put in a limited paint event. Then things got difficult when they realised the cost of the full weekend, marshalling, etc making it unviable, they changed to unlimited paint
On the day the paint was bad (probably too new due to the custom clear batch, as soon after all our teams paint had ‘bedded in’ and performed well when we were firing it off at our local), the first game turned the corridors into ice rinks with the amount of paint, they stopped and everyone waited hours for them to go shopping for sawdust etc which changed the ice rink into a soggy sawdust rink.
the team running it wanted to play rather than Marshall, someone said yes to a couple of people about paint refunds which almost caused a riot when everyone else wanted refunds.
There was due to be a ‘player assisted’ cleanup but with the people running it screwing the event, and many of them leaving rather than clean up with the players, people left rather than cleaning up because of the cost, lack of gameplay, bad paint, abuse from organizers etc
We were among the last to leave, doing a few hours of cleanup but it was an endless task - you would wipe down walls and sweep up the floor (if you found a broom) only to turn around to a flood of paint coming down the wall again
The organizing team broke up, money vanished (word is that one of them did a runner with the cash) the site were not paid
The original proper event never happened and for months airsofters were slipping and falling from the paint oozing out of the building
Paintball is bannned from the mall
That was the prime example of how not to run an indoor paintball event
Depending on your building it could be used in an urban style for magfed/limited paint and as an’experience’ centre with a zombie/apocalypse theme or with ‘special forces instructors’ etc (that just means an ex squaddie who can talk the talk and give someone a fun day out kicking in door, or if it has very open areas that can be controlled and cleaned then it could possibly be an indoor speedball arena with soft mat flooring, Astro turf, inflatables and don’t forget netting - even though it may be an enclosed room the netting will allow people to watch and also catch paint before it embeds and soaks into the wall
Good luck!
