The kind of venue you book for a paintball tournament is quite a bit different than where you're holding your raves, especially at the national level.
I can book a paintball tournament at a paintball field in about 10 minutes. Booking a paintball tournament at someplace like Disney, or the Home Depot Center, or Phoenix Stadium takes MONTHS the first time around. And it's sometimes not even possible to get firm dates until a few months in advance because you're 2nd priority to "real" events.
Or, put another way, you're probably paying the going rate for the building when you do your thing. Paintball tournaments are usually using facilities where ANYBODY ELSE using that facility instead would bring that facility more money.
A lot of players seem to think that booking venues is like booking hotel reservations, and it just isn't.
I never booked a field for a local tournament. Never had to, had one about two miles from the office. I'll give you a hint of what I'm talking about: What's the largest series in Europe? I'm sure you know the answer... I've been on the business end of the major leagues when you were still only doing the college thing, so a little less of the seasoned veteran attitude would be fitting.
It doesn't take months to book a venue for a large paintball event. It takes some people months to book a venue for a large paintball event. The only time consuming bit about it is finding a suitable location, but frankly, if you haven't found a suitable location yet, you shouldn't say you will have an event within 5 months. Common business sense. Being second choice, as you call it, is your own fault. We never were.
Truth be known, your attitude, of trying to make right what is wrong, is exactly what is f*cking over paintball. This whole "we are so different" argument is the biggest bunch of BS since somebody suggested the Somme would be a good place to launch an offensive. Paintball is no different from any other product in the events business, we only think it is and keep making things harder for ourselves than they need to be. Believe me when I say that people have more positive asociations with paintball than with the events I now do. People are usually put off when I describe the amount of security and even police presence that is usually required. Paintballers are like a bunch of kittens compared to that lot...
But, to be fair, I have also seen why some people have a hard time getting things done in a timely fashion, and that's because many (if not all) of the guys here in Europe, besides promoting an MS event, also have a (sometimes large) business to run. But then again, if you don't have the time to do something properly, get help. Which they tried, but to be honest, many (not all) of the people that I saw that were employed for that purpose, were total imcompetents. Ulrich being a very good example of this.
Paintball needs more businessmen and less paintballers...
PS I don't do raves. Raves suck.
