Are we going about it the wrong way?

[Munkeh]

Im going to use an analogy now that involves fishing so please stay with me. Fishing in the UK is a sport/hobby/pastime that 1:20 people take part in. Yet it has no exposure on television? So how do people get into fishing? Because they start as a bit of fun with a parent/friend, find it fun and then get into it from there. So why not do the same for paintball? I remember reading that 500,000 people go paintballing each year in the UK.

So, how many people do you think know that there is more to paintball than running around the woods? 5,000? MAX? So how about informing players at a grassroots level? Just put up posters of sup' air ball... videos of Milleniums etc. Then best case scenario 1 out of every 10 people will start playing at some level. That would give us a playing base of 50,000 people. Increasing each year. Now to me this seems like a much better plan than spending a lot of time and money trying to attract TV interest.

Discuss,

 

[Cro]

We have pics on the walls and copies of PGI and PBUK laying around for people to read where I marshall. Whenever people ask me do I play I always tell them about the different aspects of paintball other than rec, like walk on (ok pretty much the same but a whole different type of game if that makes sense) scenario and of course tourney. Most of the time people ask whats the difference with tourney so I show them pics from the magazines and try and explain a little about it. I find people are usually quite interested, don't know how much it will influence the sport tho if everyone did it but it can't do any harm I spose.

Cro

 

[garycarrot]

I think you got a good idea. Word of mouth is the best form of advertizing.

How about instead of just running around in the woods, we get "punters" to play the sport as well as the game.
Organize mini tournys instead of war game type games???

 

[Cro]

originally posted by garycarrot
How about instead of just running around in the woods, we get "punters" to play the sport as well as the game.
Organize mini tournys instead of war game type games???

It's a good point and something that our site owner is thinking about at the moment.
If more sites organised something along the lines of local 3 man tourneys, rec players being in different leagues to walk on players, that I believe would introduce lots more people to the sport. You wouldn't need to put up large amounts of prize money, just a percentage of your profit, and you wouldn't necessarily need sup air either, just a tyre field would do for this sort of thing.

Cro

 

[IanC]

I think the big problem you are missing here is that rental site owners have absolutely no desire to see people take the sport further. Many sites do not allow walk-ons, and of those that do most aren't true walk-ons as you have to buy the sites paint.

Rental players make up 90% of the paintball generated revenue in this country, most of which goes to people in the "Leisure" industry, not what many people percieve as the "Paintball" industry. Yes, a few sites are doing what they can, and this will help to generate little pockets of players, but do not live in hope that one-day every site will be pushing the "sport" forward. It just ain't gonna happen. If you go trawling back through the forum you'll find a thread asking why pgi didn't do an intro to tourney/rec-ball for distribution through rental sites.

Rancid popped up and answered that they did, but not a single site owner would take a copy, even though they were free. Who can blame them, its called looking after you interests

Laterz

Ian

 

[Munkeh]

Well... Yes and No... I think site owners have very narrow vision regarding these matters. I mean get someone who interested, get them to buy their own marker and give them "membership" to your site (read - cheaper paint) and they will play much more than your average once/twice a year punter. Hence generating a lot more income for the site. You could also offer a site shop, hence generating more income that way!

 

[IanC]

Originally posted by Munkeh
Well... Yes and No... I think site owners have very narrow vision regarding these matters. I mean get someone who interested, get them to buy their own marker and give them "membership" to your site (read - cheaper paint) and they will play much more than your average once/twice a year punter. Hence generating a lot more income for the site. You could also offer a site shop, hence generating more income that way!

That makes sense, one of the Phoenix sites at Kelvendon Hatch had signs up offering something along those lines, but I have no idea how successfull it is. But I think the big stumbling block for any plan along these lines is the wonders of the internet. Someone gets a little interested in Paintball, runs along to google or any other search engine and rapidly comes accross websites telling them all about it. Also telling them how much the little things in life, like paint, actually costs.

Although most people on boards tend to be carefull about how much, if anything, they pay for paint so to avoid upsetting other teams, sponsors etc. The webshops that sell paint obvioulsy have to say how much it costs.

I think that if more sites were prepared to offer a walk-on service then we may start to get somewhere. Perhaps they could strike a medium between needing to make money on paint sales, and still leaving it cheap enough to play regularly. As site near me does very reasonably priced walk-ons, you can bring your own paint but at the price they sell a combined playing fee and box of paint for, you'd be mad not to take it.

Also I guess another major stumbler for getting prople into the sport is the cost. We all love our blinging markers, and their ability to lob 4.6 billion balls a minute. This however makes it very difficult to get into the sport. Maybe we need a series of blow back only tournies, or a blow back only division within tourneys. This way people could get into true, competitive paintball without the massive expense.

Hell, i'd love to break out my trusty T3 Inferno (E-class, of course ) and give it large in a sort of stock class tourney!

Any thoughts on that ?

Ian


P.s. Sorry, I appear to have ASCI Diaoreha today!

 

[Munkeh]

Yep, the whole walk on scenario is a double edged sword. But I think if the UKPSF do something about encouraging sites to have "membership" programs then it would aid the sport no end. But I am not convinced about a "blow back" class. I mean look at KOTH, Coldsall Fire (?) used site markers and took down Sad FA (I think, correct me if im wrong) As long as blow backs are reasonably set up, the only thing they lack is RoF. With new E-framed blow backs being cheaper and cheaper I think it is now easy to pick up a marker for £150 and for it to be competetive with higher end markers in terms of pure functionality.

I have thoughts on everything!

 

[rancid]

A compromise would be to produce a 'this is paintball' flyer. Not advertising other sites, but just showing the full breadth of the sport. I don't think this would suddenly see a big influx, but it might capture the imagination of one or two 'punters'.

When I first started to play Essex had a very healthy tourny scene - primarily aimed at new blood. There were a number of three man tournies, and even two man all-in tournies (ie 20 2-man teams on the same field at the same time). Gradually this built into First Blood tournies, where these 2 and 3-man teams joined together and the entry was restricted to REAL novice teams ie those who'd never played tournies before, or who had only played one or two. PGI was a sponsor of many of these and we got one big Pro team to come along at each event. So you could face The Guardians of Thunder one game and the Preds the next. The Preds' score didn't count, but it allowed teams to see what the next step was, and you had the pros helping with tactics or guns or just giving advice.

I can only speak for Essex but I know that a good 20 teams (many of which are now defunct -15 years on) grew out of this scene.

 

[IanC]

Codsall Fire vs. Sad FA

Well I didn't know about that game, but that wouldn't really be the norm. Yes, a good player with a poor gun can still do damage.
Not blowing my own trumpet but I took 3 Am B players out on the X-ball field at Amsterdam with my defunct Halo sitting at my feet, feeding in 6 balls at a time by hand.

Perhaps had the opposition noticed I was hopperless things may have been different!

What I was hoping to achieve with the blow back class idea was that newbies wouldn't feel intimidated by the sheer firepower being rained down upon them. It never really bothered me when I started as there's no way that 5 players could ever throw as much paint as 60 punters on an oversized speedball arena. Marshalling punters certainly reduces the fear of being shot!!!