How to get new players in to the sport?

[jack-amo]

This topic has always been of interest to me. Im always trying to get more people in to paintball. It really is such an awesome activity hiding in plain sight

Having your own kit is definitely the hook in paintball. It is the great enabler. Rental kit really does hold you back even at a beginner level of play. Give a new guy a good mask and marker after they’ve suffered the rental kit for a game or two and nine times out of ten they are gunna love it and want to take it up as a full time hobby.

But that’s one way to get people to want to get in to paintball. Helping them get up and running is much more difficult.

As has been pointed out in this discussion, there are loads of barriers to becoming a baller: money, kit, knowledge of good events and venues and finding people to play with.

Money will always be a problem with bringing people in to paintball. But that’s just tough. If you’ve got no money, paintball is just not for you. End of. Money is not a problem for everyone though. Plenty of people out there are in work and CAN afford to play paintball.

Kit is a huge barrier when starting out. As it’s been pointed out if you ask “what kit should I get?” in a public place you can expect to be slapped in the face with a shed load of over-information and more opinions than atoms in the universe.

Knowledge of events and venues is another big problem for starters. I was fortunate enough to accidently attend a walk-on the first time I ever played paintball and it really was an eye opener. Anyone I had ever talked to about paintball had said how it costs £10 for 100 paintballs, and there I was blasting through 2000 for £60 (and over time cases have seemed to get cheaper and cheaper!). I found the guys at the site pretty helpful and they took me under their wing. Not everyone is that lucky southernP8nt describes how it is for new guys looking for a place to play perfectly.

Finding people to play with may be yet another problem, but I also firmly believe it is the solution. If a newbie can find an experienced player who will take him/her to events, show them the ropes, and essentially steer the newbie towards their educated opinion of what kit to get, then its problem solved.

To make the sport grow, all it would take is for every player to take a friend a walk-on (preferably somebody with a job!). Let them use your marker. Trust them to treat your kit with respect. If you don’t have a spare gat, play with a rental for half the day and give them a taste of a proper paintball marker

If they get the bug, take time to bring them in to the game more. You might want to rinse-repeat with the walk-on a few times. If you play tourney, lend them kit and take them a practice day when they get confident. Eventually they are gunna want to get their own kit. When they do, they should hopefully trust you enough to take your advice rather than having to resort to the internet.

It is simple really, we could near double the amount of active players if everyone took the time to get a mate in to paintball.

Keeping players in the game long-term is a far bigger challenge. Money is the biggest killer. I am a repeat sufferer of losing people to money as most people I’ve introduced to the game are students If anyone knows a secret to keep people in id love to hear it xD

 

[Care_Bears]

Nice Post Jack.

 

[Buddha 3]

There is some good feedback in this thread, particularly from the new (ish) and irregular players. And for that I am thankful, as some of that feedback can be used to improve this site.

Thanks.

 

[southernP8nt]

I think we have all had ideas about how the UKSPF could improve their web presence and give back to the members more... however I don't think they can afford the time or man power into such projects. Steve does a lot for the £15 pp he gets from us already. So maybe if a few of us with a bit of tech savvy donated our time to set up such projects for / with the UKPSF we could achieve the same outcome.

Setting up a simple website that contained all the necessary information would take virtually no time, it could be done in a day if you knew what you were doing, web hosting for it would cost bugger all and once it was set up then it wouldn't require much time at all to maintain. Kit would need updating every couple of months to reflect changing prices, the walkon and tournament dates & info would probably need checking every month or so, hardly a lot of maintenance.

In terms of establishing a website that had all of the information that a newbie needs in one place wouldn't take very much time or money at all.

 

[F3Z]

In terms of new players, there are so many conflicting opinions that a definitive new players guide will be nearly impossible. I don't think time or money is the issue there as using already existing web space such as p8nt or ukpsf would be free and time well as long as it would take to write really as the designs / layouts for the site already exist. Besides half of the fun for a newbie to go and explore all of the possibilities of paintball for them selves and see what suits them rather than getting told how to do it.

 

[southernP8nt]

In terms of new players, there are so many conflicting opinions that a definitive new players guide will be nearly impossible. I don't think time or money is the issue there as using already existing web space such as p8nt or ukpsf would be free and time well as long as it would take to write really as the designs / layouts for the site already exist. Besides half of the fun for a newbie to go and explore all of the possibilities of paintball for them selves and see what suits them rather than getting told how to do it.

I'm not saying that new players should be told exactly what to do, I'm saying that all of the information should be available in a very clear format on a single site.

So the site would contain a description of what speedball is, of what woodsball is, a few videos of each, a list of good sites around the country for both, walkon dates, team contacts, and recommended kit for a variety of budgets (not telling people exactly what to buy, but recommending a few options for each price range).

It would still allow new players to make their own decisions, but it would provide them with the sort of information that they need in order to make a decision without it being difficult.

 

[3AJ12]

I'm a new player myself. Played speedball with my new team for the first time last sunday, hooked already. I think a big drawback for new players is that when people think of paintball, they think of rental guns and partys in the woods. Paintball needs to be advertised as we see it, electric guns, diving into snake and ramping, not infernos and 98's!

 

[Care_Bears]

Get yourselves onto this ?? .... NOW and over the Weekend = http://new.livestream.com/accounts/1614555/mstv?origin=Event Broadcast&mixpanel_id=a38181cb4aa34-08855ac1e-43681f0a-2ee000-a38181cb4bf44&acc_id=1691125&medium=email

 

[Ricki_diego]

If the site is big enough...

Sites to run customer days on the same days as walk ons, to allow interested customers to mingle and ask questions to walk on players.
resulting in customers seeing another side to paintball which isn't just a stag doo or cooperate work event ...a sport

 

[Gaz #68]

I emailed everyone at work and invited them to come and try paintball at our local site. I had a number of friends who also played and they all agreed to come and play but to help coach and encourage at the same time. We kept the group size to 20 and changed the sides up of they weren't balanced. Anyone who had never played before was put with the most experienced players. As long as we had at least 20 players our local site made this a private game so we had a good group of like minded people. We had our first event and it went well so we ran three last year and have now opened it up to friends and family. We scheduled three events for this year and the first one has already passed off successfully with an age range of 15 to 50. A lot of these players are repeat attendees but as far as I know do not play much outside of these "in house" events. As CPPS is local I do invite them to come and watch to see a different side to the game but the majority are happy just to play woodsball casually a few times per year. A few have bought a few bits of their own gear (we always recommend mask first) but it is mainly the youngsters who have bought there own gear and moved up to coming with us to walk on days a few times a year. Hopefully these players will go on to keep out sport going as us older ones bow out. After playing the sport for over 20 years this was the easiest way I could think of to give a little back and hopefully keep the sport going so my son may enjoy the same experiences I have had