Woodland Events - A flash in the pan ? ..... [Poll Test]

[Robbo]

James, I managed to do the interview with Billy Ceranski the other night and got his thoughts on where we are going, on both sides of the Atlantic - his thoughts were somewhat sobering.

He outlined the present state of paintball and added his views on what was to come, and what could be expected.
It’s important that we, as an industry, need to acknowledge what brought us to this point, and more importantly, why.

It will make for a difficult read for some people when I post up the interview, today sometime.

 

[James ECI]

James, I managed to do the interview with Billy Ceranski the other night and got his thoughts on where we are going, on both sides of the Atlantic - his thoughts were somewhat sobering.

He outlined the present state of paintball and added his views on what was to come, and what could be expected.
It’s important that we, as an industry, need to acknowledge what brought us to this point, and more importantly, why.

It will make for a difficult read for some people when I post up the interview, today sometime.

Im sure itll be an interesting read.

What matters most is what happens going forward into 2020 and how the industry, promoters and players behave moving forward.

 

[Robbo]

I'll say this much - the present marketplace for paintball is unique especially when set against the backdrop of our industry as it was 15 years ago.
People didn't have to work too hard to generate year on year profits back then - I ain't saying industry people didn't work but as it stands now, that same level of 'work' done back in the day just won't cut it these days.
15 to 20 years ago, growth came knocking on our door but now, we have to go get it .... if we sit on our ass and rue times past then we are truly fuhk'd.

Delta Force

I was always critical of our industry when it came to Delta Force - DF attracted a hell of a lot of criticism from the established hierarchy of our industry most of which was unwarranted.
Delta Force's crime?
They never really commited any serious misdemeanours as far as I could see, what they did do was grow into the largest site business in UK paintball ... and more importantly, stayed there.

How did they achieve this?
They achieved it in a way that the rest of us just didn't do …. DF got up off their asses and sold the **** out of their business.

They took our game out to the unwashed masses in shopping malls all over the country pushing paintball to all those who walked past their stands - Foot-traffic marketing, arduous yet undeniably effective.
The vast majority of us have seen their stands in shopping malls over the years.

As to why the rest of us in the industry didn't follow suit?
Oh, that's easy to answer - we were doing fine without going to the trouble of marketing paintball all over the UK.

The truth of the matter was, we all thought we were doing fine in spite of not marketing our sport as Delta Force did but we could have done a lot better if we had followed their marketing strategy.
Let's face it guys, it ain't fuhkin Quantum Mechanics here - we are talking about Marketing 101, FFS !!


We have to take responsibility of our own historic inactions and should follow the lead so clearly defined by Delta Force, and go grab some of our market-share back from the likes of Airsoft, Video games, etc etc.
The paintball landscape has changed and unless we modify what we are prepared to do, we're well and truly fuhk'd and all we're really doing is allowing Airsoft to undermine our marketshare every frikkin' day.

And the irony is, there is absolutely NO way Airsoft is a better experience than paintball - I totally refuse to entertain that possibility.
We are letting it slip away from us and for those of us who've been around far too long, we know the values and virtues of our sport and it's a crying shame we allow this slide to continue one more day.

In the article I did with Billy Ceranski, Head of Gi - he told me something that gave me hope - and that hope came from a really unexpected source leastwise to me, it was.
I'm naturaly skeptical and pessimistic and it's served me well enough over the years but Billy told me something that should rock our industry to its core ...
I'm not over-dramatising anything here, or indulging myself with inappropriate hyperbole but I now have real hope for us when there was little to none.
And I'm not referring to anything like the recent woodland renaissance, I'm referring to something even more fundamental than that.
I'll be back with Billy's ray of hope later today.

 

[BigVic1971]

Its really good to have some bigger conversation on this site again!

The pool of players has gotten smaller over the years - I started in 2007 - and there is less players but what this means is, for those who do still play, the events need to be that much better. Either in terms of service provided, atmosphere or the players perception with regards to value for money.

With a bigger picture in mind, the original idea with the intial 7 man was that established sites would pick up the torch after the proof of concept was done, that there were woodland players.

Nothing sprouted so we did what dave mentioned previously.

If the player pool is to grow further, "Paintball" cannot just look just to the UKWM, it needs sites in different regional locations to run something. Smaller events need to be put on. Dave Elliot up in Scotland, plays for the Turks, but flies down to play our events. At his site he will put on smaller events so that his player base can play competitive woodsball.

There is no reason to keep to the same format either. Diversity is one of the best things about paintball. All that needs to happen is for a seed to be planted and an enthusiastic promoter to take this to the next level (and not think only the of the ££££)

Trying to keep paintball afloat in Scotland, we are a small group based out of the old Major Day Paintball field just North of Glasgow. We play a couple of times a month mainly mag fed or limited paint. A tenner on the day let's you play and get unlimited tank refills. Bring your own gear and paint or borrow an old rental marker and buy a box of paint for thirty quid. You can find contact details on the Major Day Facebook page. Happy paintballing!!!

 

[James ECI]

edited

 

[Missy-Q]

Just people letting other people know where they can play...

......but wait, did you just post a little ad for UKWM/wildwoods? Wow, that really melts the outer tendrils of my flake!!

 

[James ECI]

Just people letting other people know where they can play...

......but wait, did you just post a little ad for UKWM/wildwoods? Wow, that really melts the outer tendrils of my flake!!

oops sorry missy thought this was on my forum

 

[Robbo]

Hopefully, my situation will resolve itself [No, I'm not banged up in Belmarsh …… Wormwood Scrubs actually] … as soon as everything returns back to some semblance of normality, I'll be back - as to whether that'll be a good thing, or bad?
Who the Fuhk knows but my fingers will be crossed.
Apologies for all the doom and gloom … the signs are, the New Year should bring with it, a New Year …. leastwise in my clan.

 

[parisa78]

very good

 

[Chosen83]

Hopefully, my situation will resolve itself [No, I'm not banged up in Belmarsh …… Wormwood Scrubs actually] … as soon as everything returns back to some semblance of normality, I'll be back - as to whether that'll be a good thing, or bad?
Who the Fuhk knows but my fingers will be crossed.
Apologies for all the doom and gloom … the signs are, the New Year should bring with it, a New Year …. leastwise in my clan.

get a jersey back on