Looking in from the outside, i was at Crystal Palace, and WOW!!!!, what an event. To me the only pain was the fact that the fields were thrown all over the place. I understand the space requirements and logistics of putting an event on of this size, but as a spectator you need to be able to get to each field easily and as the games are quite short you need to be able to move to different fields quickly, to catch the action. I missed about 75% of the games because they were so far away from each other, there was no point moving away from the centre arena.
It has been mentioned that other events have all the fields next to each other in a "U" shape, with the players and sensitive areas inside the "U", away from spectators. This would mean that arena areas would be unsuitable, as they would be too small, why do we need arenas? Look at Glastonbury, biggest music festival in Britain, a stage and a hill.
Let's look for an area that will house all the playing fields in a "u" or "O" shape with the players inside, and erect stands around this. Put the trade stands around the spectators, or at one end, and this self contained area has everything. Look at the layout of stadiums, the spectators surround the playing field, we just have a large number of playing fields, but of uniform size.
Paintball is moving fast people, and we need to move faster, we are part of the ultimate sport, at least it will be if the passion of the tourney player has anything to do with it.
Tom.
EDIT..... Just a little bit to add, spectators need to have it easy, need things to be simple to understand. Just look at American Football, people don't watch it because they don't understand it, even though it's simple. It's not as simple as our football, and that's why it's overlooked, by so many people. If we don't make things easy for the public they will give it a miss, and once that happens you will never promote the sport.
