Gossip, scandal, bragging rites and all that Jazz ....

[Tony Harrison]

I think the most surprising thing was the Preds coming 7th in their division, so you might want to have a chat with Marcus to get his view.

As I said yesterday, I saw a few players (Joy, Lucky 15's) having some choice words with the refs - not that it is unusual at a tournament, but one field didn't even know how long the games were and called "game over" two minutes early. With the senior CPPS refs playing the event (including some who have years of woodsball experience) I felt this left a gap in the ref crew.

The staging area for the GCC teams needed to be bigger, particularly so as Paintfest is known for bad weather. Rushers had Billy and a few youngsters, including @James ECI's brother.

A lot of teams ordered custom jerseys especially for the event, and NWC & Venom wore Tiger Stripe. A lot of players used EMEK's, including most of the Baggers. Other teams were using Cockers and CVO's. I used a M170R and didn't need to get my Autococker out of the bag.

Did you know that EMEK bodies are only £16 new from Planet, and you can cut them 90's style or hydrodip them? You can also buy coloured bodies, and even 3D print them. A lot of interesting designs were on show.

Trade stands were out in force - including Simon Cole and Enola Gaye - and Planet was even loaning guns & gear out to players.

Everyone enjoyed it, despite the appalling weather. It was worse on Sunday, so they cancelled the lunch break and played through to get the games done quicker. One team pulled out because their tent had collapsed overnight and they were all soaking wet.

Nick was talking about putting on a 10 man Hyperball event at Skirmish Nottingham in October.

 

[Tony Harrison]

And the sun came out on Monday. Annoying.

 

[Robbo]

I think the most surprising thing was the Preds coming 7th in their division, so you might want to have a chat with Marcus to get his view.

As I said yesterday, I saw a few players (Joy, Lucky 15's) having some choice words with the refs - not that is unusual at a tournament, but one field didn't even know how long the games were and called "game over" two minutes early. With the senior CPPS playing the event (including some who have years of woodsball experience) I felt this left a gap in the ref crew.

The staging area for the GCC teams needed to be bigger, particularly so as Paintfest is known for bad weather. Rushers had Billy and a few youngsters, including @James ECI's brother.

A lot of teams ordered custom jerseys especially for the event, and NWC & Venom wore Tiger Stripe. A lot of players used EMEK's, including most of the Baggers. Other teams were using Cockers and CVO's. I used a M170R and didn't need to get my Autococker out of the bag.

Did you know that EMEK bodies are only £16 new from Planet, and you can cut them 90's style or hydrodip them? You can also buy coloured bodies, and even 3D print them. A lot of interesting designs were on show.

Trade stands were out in force - including Simon Cole and Enola Gaye - and Planet was even loaning guns & gear out to players.

Everyone enjoyed it, despite the appalling weather. It was worse on Sunday, so they cancelled the lunch break and played through to get the games done quicker. One team pulled out because their tent had collapsed overnight and they were all soaking wet.

Nick was talking about putting on a 10 man Hyperball event at Skirmish Nottingham in October.

Morning J, and many thanks for your appraisal of the event at the weekend - I've now spoken to about 8 different people, not all of the same opinion but it's fair to say there are some common elements of criticism - Not all of them under the control of either Nicky Truter [co-promoter] or Ged Green [Site owner and co-promoter].

I'd better quickly declare that Nicky is a mate of mine and any criticism I may make is purely to help the promoters address any problems that might need looking at.
We need to grow this sport of ours and not bury events under a hail of criticism.
The way to advance our beloved sport is not going to be achieved by slagging off anybody and so I'm going to try and focus on the plus points but at the same time acknowledge any problems.

The last thing Ged or Nicky would want/need is to promote an event that doesn't give the players/vendors value for money and so any shortfalls were definitely not intentional.
I've got a few interviews coming in from Magued [Owner of Joy Division and winners of the event] and also from Ledz [Owner of Planet and The Sandbaggers].

I've already talked to Twizz and Rob Johnson who attended the event as captain of Nam Wreckin' Crew, the team my brother and myself created back in 1986.
On the subject of my brother, he played with the Turks at this event and so hopefully he'll be sending me some pics and copy concerning the event.

In the meantime, if anyone wants to add anything to this thread then please feel free …..

 

[Tony Harrison]

Cheers, Pete. I saw Mel, and we had a good game against NWC. I did a DMW against the Turks, shot one guy then his mate lit me up.

 

[Robbo]

J, the dead man's walk was first ever done by a member of NWC back in 1988 - When we [NWC] went Stateside for the first time in 1990 to Nashville, we introduced the DMW to the Yanks - apparently, we weren't playing in the spirit of the game according to some of the Yank players and judges but they had to abide by the rules of the game which I hadn't contravened in any way - This was pretty ironic when seeing some of the shenanigans of the refs and Yank players when playing against us but that was a long time ago buried deep within the bowels of international paintball

 

[k4p84]

Some levelled feedback is always great, paintballers can be rather hot headed at times and let emotions and conditions on the day effect there immediate response.

I was at the event helping anyone I knew out rather than slinging paint and I will give a bit of feedback of what I saw / experienced.

Amenities:
The GCC event layout had both fields entrances maybe 100-120M from the team staging area.
There was a wonderful trade presence and the paint was available 50M from any of the staging areas.
There where adequate food vendors and toileting facilities again in close proximity to staging.
The concept field had a spectating bleacher
Air was provided by HPac, there was rarely a queue of more than a few players and I managed to fill above 4000psi during the day.
Each team had staging space equivalent to two regular gazebos with two tables.

Been a veteran of many years of Millenniums I can say having all of the above facilities so close and working well is not always the case so was very pleasant to see.

Staff:
All the staff I encountered outside the netting where helpful and the ever smiling face of Mr and Master Truter ensuring teams where aware of changes (playing through lunch break on Sunday) or that there next game was coming up was exemplary.
There will always be grumbles about ref performance, not every call was perfectly consistent and knowledge of the rule set could have been better but they where running around the field performing checks and I thought they dealt with the usual suspects being vocal in a very levelled way.

Fields:
The concept was a combination of barricade types and there was plenty of action across the field with it being common to see 2-3 players sharing a 50 line bunker.
The woodland field I did not walk and I did hear comments of one end had less favourable cover but woodland fields will always be impossible to "balance" but possibly introducing a couple of new bunkers may have solved this but I am sure then the leaves would not have been green enough!

Effect of the weather:
Let's be honest it rained basically the entire event following a week of record breaking hot weather, this will strain any event.
Teams could have had a larger staging allocation but 10 players did not need to bring full sized kit bags to get in the way and with everyone trying to keep under cover it was crowded.
The site got muddy but staff brought bales of straw and spread it over all the walkways and staging areas.
Paintball and rain are not good bed fellows, it effects all of the equipment and saps player moral and brings out the worst in us. It is a lot harder to see, especially for the refs who get no reprieve so those glancing hits or puffs of paint you rely on to either make a call or go in for a closer inspection can be missed. Standing on the sidelines without goggles on, it is easier to notice and comment on them.

As a whole I would say for a first time (I'm guessing) at organising an event I think it went rather well. Had the weather not tried to dampen the affair I feel it would have been an even greater success.
The consensus from the people I know is that they will be back for more

Ed

 

[Tom]

....Joy....

(Slight deviation, but it is Paintfest related)
Preamble .... We (TFD) ran the killhouse on behalf of Enola Gaye and NPF, with our 4th instalment of the Battle Royale series, and at the party were harrasing anyone and everyone to come down on Sunday. (Paintfest & AirFest players)

After Joy Division were on stage with Kerry giving a potted history (25 years of Joy Divison etc) and me bidding on their signed jersey (I didn’t go into the triple figures), and after I spoke to a few of the Joy players telling them about BR ....




Then after me, one of our guys approached Joy Division and asked ~ “Are you guys airsofters or paintballers?”

 

[Robbo]

Some levelled feedback is always great, paintballers can be rather hot headed at times and let emotions and conditions on the day effect there immediate response.

I was at the event helping anyone I knew out rather than slinging paint and I will give a bit of feedback of what I saw / experienced.

Amenities:
The GCC event layout had both fields entrances maybe 100-120M from the team staging area.
There was a wonderful trade presence and the paint was available 50M from any of the staging areas.
There where adequate food vendors and toileting facilities again in close proximity to staging.
The concept field had a spectating bleacher
Air was provided by HPac, there was rarely a queue of more than a few players and I managed to fill above 4000psi during the day.
Each team had staging space equivalent to two regular gazebos with two tables.

Been a veteran of many years of Millenniums I can say having all of the above facilities so close and working well is not always the case so was very pleasant to see.

Staff:
All the staff I encountered outside the netting where helpful and the ever smiling face of Mr and Master Truter ensuring teams where aware of changes (playing through lunch break on Sunday) or that there next game was coming up was exemplary.
There will always be grumbles about ref performance, not every call was perfectly consistent and knowledge of the rule set could have been better but they where running around the field performing checks and I thought they dealt with the usual suspects being vocal in a very levelled way.

Fields:
The concept was a combination of barricade types and there was plenty of action across the field with it being common to see 2-3 players sharing a 50 line bunker.
The woodland field I did not walk and I did hear comments of one end had less favourable cover but woodland fields will always be impossible to "balance" but possibly introducing a couple of new bunkers may have solved this but I am sure then the leaves would not have been green enough!

Effect of the weather:
Let's be honest it rained basically the entire event following a week of record breaking hot weather, this will strain any event.
Teams could have had a larger staging allocation but 10 players did not need to bring full sized kit bags to get in the way and with everyone trying to keep under cover it was crowded.
The site got muddy but staff brought bales of straw and spread it over all the walkways and staging areas.
Paintball and rain are not good bed fellows, it effects all of the equipment and saps player moral and brings out the worst in us. It is a lot harder to see, especially for the refs who get no reprieve so those glancing hits or puffs of paint you rely on to either make a call or go in for a closer inspection can be missed. Standing on the sidelines without goggles on, it is easier to notice and comment on them.

As a whole I would say for a first time (I'm guessing) at organising an event I think it went rather well. Had the weather not tried to dampen the affair I feel it would have been an even greater success.
The consensus from the people I know is that they will be back for more

Ed

Great post Ed - it made the necessary points from what felt like an unbiased perspective and so I think we can trust your opinion and observations.


Tom, can you reduce the pic size [15-20% should do it] in your post above please mate?

Cheers Tom ...

PS Sorted - I reduced the pic size Tom and deleted the doubleton image.
Thanks

 

[smudgerebt]

Can I just add, so happy to see So-Manc get into the Pro. They did exceptionally well, certainly surprised a few teams!

I did play, but smashed my ankle going into a bunker on the Saturday, so missed all the Sunday games.

Will have a think and a natter with others and do an edit later.

 

[Robbo]

I've interviewed Ledz re the weekend's event and so as soon as I've got it checked I'll post it up later tonight.
Hopefully, it'll be of some interest to those who attended and maybe those who didn't ……..
Let's see what Mr Leadbetter has to say for himself …..