Madrid

[RKL]

...The quickest way Millenium can have consistent quality events is to stop trying to be a major public spectacle of a sport and run your events at established paintball fields. When you get rid of all the extra effort that goes into temporarily turning those stadiums into paintball parks, the remaining amount of work and effort can be spent on the things that matter:

- Refs, and... refs.

Not sure whether this is really a valid alternative. I don't think I've ever seen an "established paintball field" that has more than one field set up with inflatables and netting.

Your typical field is set up for the rental crowd and is situated somewhere with woods.

The conversion effort would be the same whether at a typical field or at a stadium. You must agree that a stadium has better facilities for even handling the crowds of players. The rental cost might come down if a less popular stadium was used but the buzz of playing in a "big city" is/ was, for me, part of the attraction.

Saying "I played in Woking" lacks the panache of "I was in London this weekend"

Cheers, eh
Bob
Ottawa, Canada

 

[Chicago]

My point is, you have to decide what you think is important. If playing in/near major stadiums is your priority, then you're going to have to accept some shortcomings elsewhere.

 

[Robbo]

I'll trade green grass for good refs any day of the week. Bad fields are usually uniformly bad for both teams, bad reffing tends to have random, drastic effects on who wins games.

I've been involved in paintball for well over a decade now, and I remain absolutely amazed that Millenium/NPPL/PSP tournaments somehow always manage to finish by end-of-day Sunday.

Chi town, I been in Paintball now for 19 years and I seen every type pf tourney imaginable from the sublime to the ridiculous and what I do know is this, for the money we pay in entrance fees, we shouldn't have to do a trade off between such considerations as competent judging stuff and playing surface etc.
These should come as 'gimmes' and as part and parcel of any Millennium type tournament.
I agree there is a balance to be struck in providing things like event site location, judging, facilities etc but we shouldn't have to trade off...
The scale of monies taken at these events allows for good judging, appropriate and imaginative event site selection and good facilities and if you think I am talking sh!t, then think about Toulouse...think about Marseilles......if it can be done once, even twice, then for the most part it's reproducible.

It's all about organisation, imagination and a commitment to the customer base.
Once the Millennium Board have gotten over this recent embarrassment, then I believe they will return to the course they originally talked about, albeit one less on the bridge.
I honestly believe that Laurent and Steve Baldwin will now take over the Millennium management and I have also got every confidence that Mannfred and Barry Fuggle will provide the necessary back up to put ensure the events are now organised and run properly.

 

[Chicago]

I don't agree. I think when events go really well, it's because the person who happens to be chiefly in charge runs them in their own back yard and gets a little lucky.

So, if our prerequisite is that every major event is run by a qualified promoter who is running it locally to them, then maybe you've got something. That's why NE Open is always a run-off event and why HB is by far the best NPPL (and until this year, best paintball) event of the year. But I don't think any league has enough qualified people willing to put in the work for the money they get from it.

I understand that we all pay a lot of money to play major league events. But just because it's a lot doesn't mean it's enough. You may feel like you deserve more, you may believe you can be provided more, but neither feelings nor beliefs will change reality, and the reality is that the total of entry fees plus the total of other revenue is not enough to consistently provide the kind of event that players expect for the money they are paying.

It appears that the willingness of the promoters to continue to run events for little to negative profit is at an end, so either players are going to have to adjust their expectations or we're going to have to get better at getting money from other sources.

Most likely, it'll have to be some of the former until we do some of the later. But no amount of complaining or player union forming or other such effort is going to get any more blood out of the turnip. It'll be just like the NPPL/PSP talks in 2002 - NPPL demanded more, PSP couldn't give more, so they split, and PSP continued to run the same quality of events they always had and WDP (and the players and the other sponsors) invested a lot of money in getting Chuck a TV deal.

 

[Robbo]

I don't agree.

Always your prerogative of course Chicago but usually not such a wise course of action to take, come on Chicago, you have in the past elected on several occasions to ignore wisdom and follow an almost blind rationale to keep your point of view alive.

I don't see how you can explain away the consistent promotion of Toulouse as 'lucky', it has as you also mention got a lot to do with the promoter and as such if one can achieve it, then the collective can also reproduce it, it's merely a case of following a blue print and adhering to the book of requirements the Boards already has in place.

I understand that we all pay a lot of money to play major league events. But just because it's a lot doesn't mean it's enough.

Now ya see, that's my point, the entry fee is the same no matter what event you play ... surely I don't need to spell out the conclusions we can draw from that.

You may feel like you deserve more, you may believe you can be provided more, but neither feelings nor beliefs will change reality, and the reality is that the total of entry fees plus the total of other revenue is not enough to consistently provide the kind of event that players expect for the money they are paying.

BS, if it's achievable at one event (and others) then any collective that plays host to these 'successful' promoters can then duplicate these type events.

It appears that the willingness of the promoters to continue to run events for little to negative profit is at an end, so either players are going to have to adjust their expectations or we're going to have to get better at getting money from other sources.

You are banging the same drum here and it still ain't making any noise !!!

Most likely, it'll have to be some of the former until we do some of the later. But no amount of complaining or player union forming or other such effort is going to get any more blood out of the turnip. It'll be just like the NPPL/PSP talks in 2002 - NPPL demanded more, PSP couldn't give more, so they split, and PSP continued to run the same quality of events they always had and WDP invested a lot of money in getting Chuck a TV deal.

It's not a turnip, it's full of our money and the initial premise you draw is flawed and therefore everything you say that comes after is similarly flawed.
They have enough financial resources to promote good events, end of !

All they need is the blueprint (which they have) the management skills (which they have) and the resolve to carry it all thru (which they now have).
Madrid was a big hiccup, Pedro will now have to pay the price for the sake of the collective and when this is done, you will see the rest of the event series fall into the very category you mistakenly believe is unachievable, that of a consistently well promoted circuit.

 

[neil m1]

Quote
It appears that the willingness of the promoters to continue to run events for little to negative profit is at an end, so either players are going to have to adjust their expectations or we're going to have to get better at getting money from other sources.
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Bullsh!t, do you honestly think that people are going to organise events at a loss or no profit at all. would you do it? do the maths first.. teams spend a lot of money going to these events and should expect to get there moneys worth.

 

[jotajotaZ]

Ait's merely a case of following a blue print and adhering to the book of requirements the Boards already has in place.

And since this book holds the information about what should be considered an standard MS event, it should be public. That way we might know in advance what can we expect from our money.

As it is now, all we can say is: "this event is much, much, much worse than these other events, so we think it's not up to MS standards". If we knew in advance about what we are promised we could make the decission about wether or not we're getting enough from our cash and act accordingly. It would also make it easier for us to complain when an event is not up to standards which is probably the reason we won't ever see that book.

 

[Chicago]

Bullsh!t, do you honestly think that people are going to organise events at a loss or no profit at all. would you do it? do the maths first.. teams spend a lot of money going to these events and should expect to get there moneys worth.

Absolutely. Virtually EVERY business operates at a loss for a considerable amount of time before it becomes profitable. People do it because they expect that if they invest in their business it will be profitable for them later.

And paintball people do it for another reason - a lot of these guys would rather make little or lose money doing it than allow someone else to have control of it.


As for "expect to get their money's worth", who says the players are not getting their money's worth? I can go to the BMW dealer and scream all day that I'm not getting my money's worth if they won't sell me a car for $10,000, but the problem isn't that I'm not getting my money's worth, the problem is I'm being stupid to expect that $10,000 can buy me a BMW.

Paintball players are stupid to expect they can have consistently good* paintball tournaments for the amount of money they are paying. It doesn't matter that it's a lot of money to you, it's not enough to pay to run events the way players claim they want them run.

*I should specify that I think it's very reasonable to get good tournaments for the amount of money they are paying, but not when "good tournaments" includes urban-area events on perfectly manucured grass/turf next to stadiums.

 

[Chicago]

All they need is the blueprint (which they have) the management skills (which they have) and the resolve to carry it all thru (which they now have).

Madrid was a big hiccup, Pedro will now have to pay the price for the sake of the collective and when this is done, you will see the rest of the event series fall into the very category you mistakenly believe is unachievable, that of a consistently well promoted circuit.

I don't believe it's unachievable. I think it's unrealistic to expect consistent quality with the financial resources available. Toulouse is good because Laurent has always put a lot of work into it. If Millenium drops Madrid, are you now going to expect Laurent to run two events? Why would he want to take time away from whatever businesses he's involved in that actualy feed him to invest it in another paintball tournament that isn't going to make any money?

 

[Robbo]

Paintball players are stupid to expect they can have consistently good* paintball tournaments for the amount of money they are paying. .

I may be many things Chicago but stupid isn't one of them; I am not gonna say you are stupid to hold the opinion that you do, I am just gonna tell you, you are wrong !