M25 Hmmm

[sjt19]

The skinny on the M25 Event.....

First off i want to say that the event was exactly what paintball in the UK needs, it was well organised, the facilities were superb and the organisers had obviously paid attention to the small details. Ok, so the schedules were slightly off and the games ran later than expected, but it was the first event of the series and i am sure that it will not be the case in the next event. I think that the venue was superb. I talked to a few players who, including myself, thought that the venue was superb. the netting was high and safe (as good as at campaign last year), and the facilities were superb.

The marshalling was also something that has been poor in previous tournaments i have been to, but i thought that the marshalls today did a great job under difficult conditions. they were quick to make decisions, there were very little incorrect decisions, they were mobile and always right on top of the player for the checks to be done. the trade stuff was cool, thought that there could have been a few more shiny things, but on the whole the tech support was great.

It was a shame that some of the teams did not stay to the end and the presentation, but it was great to see people waiting around after they had finished playing to congratulate the winners. Shame that there were no finals, as this would have been a great end to a great day.

The game times were silghtly off, and there were a few teams that had a long wait between games, but this is something that is easily sorted out for next time. You all should have done what we did and throw a corner flag around like a javelin, and then launch a nerf rocket around for forty minutes!

On the whole it was a great event, and i think that the organisers can take a lot of credit for the venue, the way it was run, the prizes and the quality of the facilities.

My advice to you guys out there that didnt get in this time....book early for the next one, cos its gonna be a packed event!!

sam

 

[ally]

ah so it was one of u that nearly hit me wiv the nerve rocket then

 

[gaff]

The skinny on the M25 Event.....

Originally posted by sjt19
the netting was high and safe (as good as at campaign last year), and the facilities were superb.

The marshalling was also something that has been poor in previous tournaments i have been to, but i thought that the marshalls today did a great job under difficult conditions. they were quick to make decisions, there were very little incorrect decisions, they were mobile and always right on top of the player for the checks to be done.

sam

The netting comment i have to say is not very accurate, cos i for one got hit in the knackers from a ball coming under the netting, and one of the other guys that i was with got hit on the back of the head from one coming through the holes in the netting! this could have ideally been double thickness or without holes (that are actually the perfect size for a paintball to come through!) if you had any time around the sports centre entrance you would have seen streams of paintballs bouncing around and hitting cars etc!

The marshalls......mmmmm........on the whole yes they were ok, but we watched every single game played up to 3:30pm, and there were some seriously wrong desicions made (the stand up arguements and rows proved some of them!) there were several obvious hits on players that were not called, we had to shout at the marshall to tell them....they simply were not close enough!

last point is the paint being used, several teams were using a paint with either a yellowy green shell, and also a green and black shell. this paint bounced on concrete, bounced of scaffolding and took two hands and a hell of a lot of strength to break with your fingers!!!!! maybe enforcing tournament grade paint only would assist, because i personally saw one poor player get hit about 10 times and not one ball broke on him, the fact that he was practically unconcious led to his demise and subsequent elimination! this stuff should not be used at tourney level!

please do not think that i am dissin or trying to provoke any fights cos i'm not! Sparklie has done a fantastic job and can only be praised, but i am (hopefully) offering some "from the touchline comments" that i hope can assist in making the next one even better!

 

[Red_Merkin]

I spent the whole afternoon watching games, and speaking to players, and folks on the trade stands, I think the event went off very well.
For a first event, it was really good.

I've got a bit of constructive criticism for the organisers.
Your marshals weren't up to scratch. I know you had a lot of trouble getting good marshals, most teams would rather play than marshal. Your marshals were rooted to the spot, and they weren't checking players even when players were asking for checks. I saw numerous incidents where players were shot, and if the marshals had been moving around the field even a bit, they would have spotted the hits. One chap even got shot on his visor, asked a judge to check him, and the judge turned his head, looked at him, (probably couldn't see because he was looking strait into the sun) and then called the player clean! All he had do is move up the line a few feet, to the player who called for the check, and he would have seen a hit.
As well, if a player shoots his team mate, you'd expect that the player shot would be eliminated. Apparently one judge 'ruled' that being shot by your own team doesn't count.

Getting good marshals is tough. I think you could attract better (or simply more) marshals if you had more money to draw from.
I think you will attract more teams to your event if you charge £35 more per team (only a fiver a player) and use that money to get better judges (or simply more judges), you will improve the quality of your event.

Secondly, to get your event to run on time, you need to band and chronograph players before they go onto the field. Teams can even toss for ends before they enter the arena. This means that teams get strait onto the field, go strait to their start bases, and the games begin in a timely fashion. We used this at Campaign Cup, and it seemed to work very well. I'm not sure if this will solve all your scheduling problems, but I'm sure it will help.

My final criticism is that there wasn't enough effort made for spectators. There seemed to be a lot of foot traffic through the leisure centre, however there were several things that may have hampered spectator's enjoyment of the games.
First was the netting. You need to hold the bottom of the netting down with sand bags, so the netting has some 'give' in it. This would allow people to stand near the netting without getting coated in paint when paintballs hit the metal grating. If you need to keep people off the netting, then the metal fences are a good idea if you move them back from the netting a few feet. Secondly, when you seam the netting, it would be ideal of you put the seam several feet higher. This way people could stand and watch the games having to peer through two layers of netting.
Third, you need seating. There must be some sort of portable 'bleacher' rental that you can get that would give people a place to sit and watch games.
Finally, a few times we had a hard time figuring out who we were watching. Imagine that you know nothing about paintball, and you go to watch. Maybe you could have the head judge of each field announce the teams before the game begins?
Also, posting the running order beside the entrance of each field, would be a good idea.

Overall I thought this was a really good first tourney. There was no mud, the fields looked pretty good, there were a few vendors with wares for sale (smart parts, why would you show up with no halo spares? Do you not want my money?) and almost everyone seemed to be enjoying them selves. There were several very exciting games to watch, and the venue was one of the nicest places I have ever seen for paintball in the UK.
Good Job Sparklie, Liz, and the rest of the crew. See you guys in a few weeks.

 

[TonyF]

I agree!

I think Gaff and Red_Merkin are spot on about the netting ect. As Gaff says some teams were using low grade 'rec' paint which was bloody hard. I had one come through the holes of the netting, hit me on the head then bounce of a car parked near the tea stall!
Only other comment was some of the bad langauge. I know we all do it in the heat of the moment, but, on some of the games it was totally uncalled for. Thing to remember here is sparklie is trying to get the public interested in paintball., hence I suspect this venue. I would say 75% of the people visiting the sports centre had small children with them yesterday, and quite a few stopped by to take a look. This really doesn't put paintball in a good light, if the first game little tommy sees, results in him learning a whole new string of words to tell his teacher on monday morning.

 

[manike]

Originally posted by Red_Merkin
As well, if a player shoots his team mate, you'd expect that the player shot would be eliminated. Apparently one judge 'ruled' that being shot by your own team doesn't count.

Oh it definitely counted when Beaker shot me...

I guess he wanted to get at least one elimination for the day

At first I thought it had bounced because it came out of nowhere (read behind) and shot me from below up and underneath my leg pocket so I couldn't see the paint.

I was trying to work out where it could have come from and what was going on, and then Beaker tell's me I'm out... and I look down to see the pink paint dribbling down my leg under the pocket... I walk off and work out what happened...

Muppet.

(yeah, yeah, yeah, I bet he did it on purpose also )

 

[Red_Merkin]

I would say 75% of the people visiting the sports centre had small children with them yesterday, and quite a few stopped by to take a look.

if you want to stop players from swearing, have the judges pull the players when they do it. If the tourney promoter does not ask the judges to enforce this, then they have to be responsible for what the spectators hear from players on the field.

 

[Stan]

Marshalling - Sparklie tried to ensure that the level of marshalling was higher than usual as this was one of the biggest critiscms of tournament series that ran in the South last year. She went out of her way to try and get the marshals up to scratch by organising (restarting) the UKPSF Marshalling course which in itself can only be a good thing! If some of the marshals were not on the ball i'm sure that it wasn't intentional but maybe even that isn't a good enough excuse.

Colin and Gaff feel that the marshalling was lacking in quality but sjt19 reckons it was good... Is this not always the case? You get some dodgy calls in every sport and when you have two players going in for a double mugging it is obviously difficult to sort out who got hit first. I'm not saying that it's impossible - just difficult!

Do you feel that the marshalling was incompetent across all three fields or any field in particular.

Colin i agree that getting players and teams sorted out ot go on field whilst still playing the previous game is a logical idea and where possible we tried to turn round games pretty quickly. However, i don't think any of the marshalls on our field moved more than 10metres away from the field all day. We had 8 marshals on our field including the chrony judge and i don't think we could have spared anyone to prep teams for the next game. How many did you have at Campaign?

Oh and as for the marshalls not being close enough... My girlfriend and i played a game called 'count the bruises' last night... I was shot 21 times yesterday but then again, maybe i wasn't close enough!

Oh and in one game a player intentionnally stood on me.

I really enjoyed my day. I hope the players did to...

 

[Beaker]

I really don't think the marshalls were to blame. There were generally enough marshalls per field and seemed competent enough, we only had "odd" calls on the middle field, including our player trying to call himself out 3 times (he had felt hits and put his hand up) and the marshall insisting he wasn't out as he was clean - weird

The event was well set up, the layout was top with the "alleys" next to the fields, although I agree the netting wasn't up to scratch in all places.

Yes the event wasn't perfect, the schedule ran well behind and it would have been a disaster if it had rained as that one small marquee (sp?) wouldn't have held 210 wet paintballers by any stretch of the imagination!

But as a first attempt by sparklie to run such an event it was a hell of a stab as many people more experienced than her have done far far worse so I'll give her fair credit for it.

I'm sure she and the crew will learn from it and would encourage constructive comments so by the end of the season they'll be up to the standard you northern monkeys seem to get all the time

 

[DOA Robbo]

The points about the judges are in most accurate!

After reffin all the SWL i know that its the hardest job going. u have to except the odd dodgy call like in any other sport. In most cases the judges were tryin hard. Some of the judges were to far away and there seems far to many neutral calls.

But like i said they put in the effort and they will get better as the series goes on!