Thoughts Please ...

[ListerOfSmeg]

Great, I'll try not to go into a long post or anything because I'm sleep deprived and what I would say probably wouldn't make much sense.

I think it would be a great idea to see UK paintball united under one banner, I don't think anyone can deny that if run properly (I know it's a big if) it would certainly sort things out, or at least help towards it.

Part of the problem for tournament paintball is that the majority of UK players are playing in the woods as has already been said, and new players who are still getting to grips with everything and trying to understand all the different types of gear and events and lingo are getting put off tournament play because they see the pro players cheating, overshooting, swearing at each other and starting fights on YouTube videos, without realising that these people represent the minority of players in the UK.

I think partly what's needed to bring new players into the tournament scene is more KOTH style events, but held regionally. As far as I know (I admit I could be very wrong) there are 2 KOTH series run, one down south somewhere, and one that follows the Masters around. If there were events held on the same date each month at multiple venues over the various regions (North, South, East, West, Midlands, plus whatever I've missed), you've got a KOTH league of what will probably become regular players and a base of budding tournament players.

I hope that actually makes sense, like I said I'm a bit sleep deprived.

 

[pestilence]

As has been highlighted, I think the progression from recball/woodsball through to Sup Air tournaments is a key factor.

IMO: 2 points here: Perception & Pull through.

I'll put forward the latter first: Dodge is right on the money... How many independent sites are there 'out there' nowadays, compared to 15 years ago. There must be less... would Bully have any statistics here? assuming as well that the money grabbing site owners are now alot older and cant be arsed to push a team, whereas 15 years ago, the money grabbing site owners were also players. I'm not saying there aren't any that do promote tourney ball, of course there are, but they are the exception, not the norm.

Consider also the damage done by big conglomerates like Deltafarce - with it's mass, high cost, consumer driven approach. How many teams come out of a Delta-site? Again the drop away/through percentage must be staggering considering the number of sites/ punters they put through... and by Damage I mean the damage to the perception of paintball to Joe public. They do have a face in many shopping centres (I hate the term 'mall') It's all camo and Rambo, with guns and green face paint, endorsed by people with only a limited knowledge of what they represent for paintball.. Certainly in my area anyway.

Which segues nicely with my second post - Perception: People nowadays expect a certain value for their £ (and rightly so!!) Back when us oldies were playing toourney ball, we were quite happy to play in smelly dirty woodland, with the (any?) facilities largely requiring a great deal of bravery and a nose peg - and that was just the food! The transition from a bumble feck tourney to the first Campaign held at Crystal Palace... you could hear the gasp of awe as people walked up those bleeding stairs. I remeber Niall Squires speech "Paintball had finally arrived!" When it went back in 2005 the shiny veneer had certainly fallen off. It was scummy and crime-riddled, the Americans had pretty much gone and the event never could quite get that magic back. People simply want more nowadays. Campaign now goes a little way towards it, but it's over priced, and over complicated for what it does.

combine that with no more PGI.... and there is very little to snare new people (regardless of age) into the sport at all. You wanna fix it? start there....

 

[tommy"the gun"webb]

i agree with buddah........its all about the new blood.............!

so....seen as pretty much everyone goes from wood land to tourney how do we get them from there to here.....now i know why i did....and that was the attraction of sup air....and wdp/npf did a wicked job as i was sucked in like a homosexual on pride day...!


i personally also believe in giving back to paintball...!...so ...

how many of us have facebook accounts, whos up for some kind of mass group for the promotion of say...."have you ever experienced tournament paintball" with videos gear and other stuff...you never know it may bring one more person or 100 into the sport....

any of you who know me, know that im an absolute pipe dreamer...but..!,...at least im dreaming...!

 

[Edwards]

not a full response but will have to do

After another year of tournament turmoil ....

I would like a to National league system, BECAUSE

This year we have had far to many events !! for the regular player who feels they have to play every weekend .

I am going to go back a few yrs to begin with . There are still a lot people on the circuit that used to play the pro tour , lots and lots of people slagged it off in the beginning . it was a great little event that was being tagged on to regional events .

The simple fact is if you look throughout Europe as in Germany and France they have a very healthy league system , also they have good young, up and coming teams because they are playing GOOD teams on a regular basis ,hence these teams become a lot stronger, a lot quicker!! At the moment we have the too many leagues in the UK and to many people trying to line there pockets .First and foremost , I have no problem with organizers earning good money its a lot of effort to put events on , I just feel that 2-3 events a month is killing our paintball ,

There are many people out there that just want to play paintball as fun, that’s fine, this post is not directed towards them I am looking towards the youth that want to get better and be the best of what they can be.


This is a Pipe Dream, But would it not make sense to have the 5 GOOD English events 2 weeks before the MS , Rather than the 40 we have now, So people can have any spare money in there pocket for the rest of the month or go to practice the other weekends?

Most of the stronger teams only play MS in the UK ,So would make sense to use this format . The league would be 8 /10 teams 2-3 matches a day , This could be bolted on to any 5 man event ,then the smaller younger teams get to see a good standard of paintball and MAYBE want to aspire to want to play to that standard !!


The other flip side of this we could use training sites , pay for 8 refs between the 8/10 teams , the training site is happy for the custom and we all get what we want ?


We as the “so” called better teams in the UK get to play each other which can only be a good thing for UK paintball .


This is going off in a tangent if you want to start a new thread if you think its pertinent to do so .

Just another random thing for running events , Why organizers are not running similar kind off events to the forest national events , which were without doubt the most cost effective paintball out there , as you knew your cost before the end of the day .so no nasty surprises before the end of the day .Just to break it down for you .

You would turn up on site pay your green fee , in that you would get 5-6 boxes of paint this had to last you your 8 prelim match’s ,It did not matter how u used it , but once it was gone it was gone , if you qualified for the finals you would get another 3 boxes .

Very simple format , why it does not used I don’t know and don’t say its due to people having paint sponsers and it will cause conflict , as there is only about 5 teams in the country that any type of given sponsorship opposed to pricing support !

After that I am going for a lie down , next to my thin GF peter !!

 

[Ledz]

Stop posting its more and more to read

I've started my response, i'm going out for meat and beer now so i'll get it posted up tomorrow..

BTW.. Robbo... I NEVER eat Pizza with a folk.. Pizza is finger food !

LEDZ

 

[MissyQ]

Chris has a thin GF called peter?
Got news for you, Peter is typically a boys name.
You might want to check under the hood

 

[tommy"the gun"webb]

The other flip side of this we could use training sites , pay for 8 refs between the 8/10 teams , the training site is happy for the custom and we all get what we want ?


We as the “so” called better teams in the UK get to play each other which can only be a good thing for UK paintball .

BANG...what an idea....!

 

[Buddha 3]

A few people mentioned site owners here, saying that a lot of them don't promote tournament paintball (or even woodsball for that matter), just punter days.

I know I was lucky that when I had my first day ballin', it was at a site that also ran a store and a distributorship, so this guy had a lot to gain by getting people hooked.
But look at it from the point of view of the guy that runs a small site, with no room for a Sup'Air field and no shop. Just a rental site, with one or two fields in a forest...
What does he have to gain from telling people to get their own gear? Not a damn thing really. Every player that switches to tournament ball, or even recball after having bought their own gun is a player lost to that guy. It's one more person nevercoming back to his site. Simple.

So as far as getting all the site owners involved (and that also includes people such as Deltaforce), forget about it. Many of them have nothing to gain from it.

So instead focus on the sites that do have a Sup'Air field as well, or at the very least the sites that allow people to bring their own guns. Even the latter have something to gain, despite probably not having a shop. Sure, the avarage expense per day per player will be lower for the guys that have their own gear when compared to the punters, but they do frequent the site more often, so in the end they end up spending more money (with less overhead, as these guys usually require less staff to be around compared to the punters).

 

[Amac]

Some input from a non UK citizen aka a Canadian.

I didn't really know what to expect when I move over to England but one thing for sure was that the playing that I was used to the paintball industry in Canada playing in the CXBL and traveling to the PSP and NPPL events made me slightly interested to see what was offered in Europe.

My first event that I attended was a Masters event and it was well organized although the weather didn't cooperate and the event was called off early one thing that was very different was the amount of support for teams from players on different teams, either that be loaning markers, filling pots etc. It might just be the Canadian way but there always is teams helping others out off the field, as soon as you step on the field you will rip their heads off to win but off the field everyone supports each other. I have noticed this also in the Millennium Series, where it is really needed with lower numbers for pit crew sideline help etc.

A national league is what I think is needed, something to aspire to as a player. I would use the CXBL as an example, in Canada you an play your local tournament series and be the big fish in a small pond but when you take it to the larger national leagues that is where the competition is at. The league is also layed out so there is the CXBL (Canadian Pro) MXL (Semi-Pro), RXL, and CX4 so there allows a path for players who start out to see the top and try to make their way up there if they are good enough.

Something for all the players to attend not to mention the vendors, the problem with people traveling all over for different events is that they have to chose which ones to attend due to the costs from what they have allotted to spend in the season. Each event is at a different field out of a group of usually 4 fields and goes on a rotation system. So each of the field owners is still happy that they get a large amount of players to their field, exposure etc. The fields still host their local events so they can still have their income and support the teams who they sponsor.

While I know this model will not work perfectly in the UK there are many concepts that could be used to start making the path to where the UK paintball industry has been and where it should be today.

 

[MissyQ]

Some input from a non UK citizen aka a Canadian.

I didn't really know what to expect when I move over to England but one thing for sure was that the playing that I was used to the paintball industry in Canada playing in the CXBL and traveling to the PSP and NPPL events made me slightly interested to see what was offered in Europe.

My first event that I attended was a Masters event and it was well organized although the weather didn't cooperate and the event was called off early one thing that was very different was the amount of support for teams from players on different teams, either that be loaning markers, filling pots etc. It might just be the Canadian way but there always is teams helping others out off the field, as soon as you step on the field you will rip their heads off to win but off the field everyone supports each other. I have noticed this also in the Millennium Series, where it is really needed with lower numbers for pit crew sideline help etc.

A national league is what I think is needed, something to aspire to as a player. I would use the CXBL as an example, in Canada you an play your local tournament series and be the big fish in a small pond but when you take it to the larger national leagues that is where the competition is at. The league is also layed out so there is the CXBL (Canadian Pro) MXL (Semi-Pro), RXL, and CX4 so there allows a path for players who start out to see the top and try to make their way up there if they are good enough.

Something for all the players to attend not to mention the vendors, the problem with people traveling all over for different events is that they have to chose which ones to attend due to the costs from what they have allotted to spend in the season. Each event is at a different field out of a group of usually 4 fields and goes on a rotation system. So each of the field owners is still happy that they get a large amount of players to their field, exposure etc. The fields still host their local events so they can still have their income and support the teams who they sponsor.

While I know this model will not work perfectly in the UK there are many concepts that could be used to start making the path to where the UK paintball industry has been and where it should be today.

Hey, a Canadian! Welcome eh?
I know what you mean about the CXBL, but I don't think thats what they are looking for in the UK, or that they are really at a stage where it could be implemented. Its a shame to say that, because the Brits used to be 2nd only to the yanks in paintball-indstry hierarchy. Canada is WAY more advanced now. It has more teams, a higher average quality of team, a legit World-ranked Pro-team and plenty of series to choose from that offer a decent level of competition. There's the CXBL, the TOC, the MR Series, the BCPPL, to name just a few. Thing is, even in Canada 85% of what is sold goes to scenario players - and there are a lot of them, so tyhere is money to spend and invest in promotion and sponsorship. Business is basically healthy in Canada, there are plenty of stores and fields, even a great network of indoor fields too, so people can play year-round.
There's even a decent field just opening on PEI, which should please you in particular.
I don't think a comparison can be drawn really. Canadian Paintball is healthier than US ball right now )on a pound for pound basis), and totally eclipses the UK scene, at least as far as I know, although its been a couple of years since I took a really close look at the UK, but since Pete started this thread, I have to assume that there has been no real changes.