paint prices

[DaveB]

No, I do believe we should, paintball is a fantastic sport,

What I am saying is that I don't think cheap paint prices should be on public forums where the public can see them especially when they are proping up paintball for you an I to play.

Tourny players are in a very privelaged position where they can get trade prices and ride on the back of sites. That's fair enough until the sites start to get upset when joe bloggs turns up on his site with own paint brought from a so called reputable shop and accusing him of ripping them off or accuses a site of overcharging because they know that paint is available at £... because it says on the P8ntballer forum, or any other public place.

Shops are in the most vulnerable position, their business is based on sites doing well and staying open to sell their equipment, then the next thing you know thay sell paint at trade encouraging the customer to try and sneak the paint onto the site they are playing at.

And don't think that that doesn't happen because it does with alarming regularity.

So just to recap.
Yes I think Paintball is great,
I do think that it should be played,
I do think that people should buy their own equipment.
I don't think that tourny players should look down on sites that don't do tournaments,
I don't think that paint prices should be discussed on public forums,
I don't think that shops should sell paintballs (only sites) and
I think that tourny players should count themselves lucky that there are sites that are willing to put comps on for them at no gain to themselves other than standing in the tourny community.

 

[TonyF]

Originally posted by Eric The Troll
Hmmmm, I wonder,


YOU MUPPET !


and if you are paying full retail for stuff you must be really ugly, smell bad or both.

I've been playing for 13 years and the last time I paid full retail for anything (other than my eblade) I had a Golden Eagle STP in my hand.

Nice to see you live up to your user name!
I enjoy both rec and tourny. For DaveB to assume I only played tourny is incorrect.
You have been playing a long while and maybe you are getting some good sponsership deals.

The retail prices I was refering to are those offered by the shops/online, not the rec sites site.
The original post on this thread asked for paint prices at tournys in the UK. This now seems to have degenerated into a Rec v tourny debate.

On reflection, I have edited this post. As I feel once the personal insults begin, any chance of a sensable discussion are lost!

 

[Cassidy James]

hm...

In the states, the mosh expensive thing round is marbalizer which is $20 for 500(for those who cant devide, $4 4 100). Well, at least its the most expensive thing round here.

 

[SCRUB]

I payed 74 i think at my local field for blaze but that was back when they had some local store selling paint and stuff at thier feild. IMHO the store was way over priced of alot of things and i dont like them but the field got rid of them and now they sell their house paint for about $40 or $45 a case and are $5 i think for all day co2(the store people out there were selling it for $14)

But anyways now that they charge alot less to play i can play more and while i do understand what you are saying about the site having to charge enough so it can turn some of a profit, i cant end up paying about $100 so i can paintball, now that they have lowered their prices significantly i can play more there.

Now some people like DaveB might have the money to pay more money to paintball but im just not made of money and there are plenty of other people just like me who just cant afford to spend lots of money to paintball

Besides its not like its the only field around my area so i could go to a place more resonable. So my point is if a site wants to charge alot of money to play insted of other methods of finding more customers to help cover their costs then i will just go somewhere else

 

[Cassidy James]

Now some people like DaveB might have the money to pay more money to paintball but im just not made of money and there are plenty of other people just like me who just cant afford to spend lots of money to paintball

I hear ya man, I spent enough on my gun

 

[Micah]

With paint prices like that I'm amazed that more people in England don't play pump.

DaveB - I feel that it is down right silly for you to assume that a person who has played paintball more than once would not know that cheaper paint would be avalible to them should they desire. But If the player chooses to play at a Field paint only site then by going to that field they agree to pay the entry fee and shoot the field's paint. That's the agreement. If players were not willing to pay the fields markups on paint, the players would simply not play there.

You need to relax and let people talk about what they are going to talk about. No one is guilty of libel here.

It's also näive to think that all tourney players ride on the backs of field owners and get all their gear at cost. True, some top team (Nexus for example) have earned deals on stuff and in cases free stuff.

I feel it ridculous for places to charge what they do for paint. i don't agree with it, but I understand. You gotta make some profit and you need to ensue that even on slow days you are going to at least break even.

My solution: When I go some place that are field paint only, or I'm broke and *need* to play, I play stock class with 10 round stick feeders. I shoot between 100 and 250 for a whole day and it makes the little punter games much more entertaining.

Just my So-Cal Perspective...

-Micah

 

[stongle]

DaveB,

You answered my point precisely. If you can't turn a profit you look at other ways of reducing costs and increasing revenue. If that means consolidation and closure of some sites so be it (in some cases a good idea).

The point is if you continually rip it out of your punter base, you lose repeat custom, cut off the stream of people moving into the sport (thus affecting manufacturers of equipment revenues) and move the sport out of the main stream into the hands of pseudo military nutters (before I get flamed, I'm not associating these dicks with people who play rec-ball as a hobby, but we've all seen these nutters).

The format and types of games on offer to the majority of rec-ballers and punters over the past 10-12 years has hardly varied at all. Despite this the tournament scene has developed and innovated. Shame on you for not offering some of this innovation to the general punter population. If you think in 5-10 years time people still want the same old get lost in the woods game for 30 mins, your living in cloud la la land. I play both rec and tournament, and I can honestly say that one of the biggest criticisms of rec-ball days (from many rec-ballers), is the inability to turnaround games quick enough. Often you play one 15 / 20 min game, then spend 30 - 40 mins farting about and walking between fields. Put games on smaller fields where you can actually see the opposition, increase turn around times, and you've got too sure fire ways of making people shoot more, thus increasing revenues.

Not all sites are listed in the above, as their are some sites that offer a wide range of scenarios and fields that mean people can enjoy more intensive / adrenaline packed days.

If you represent the attitude of site owners, I'd be prepared for a rude awakening in the Future. Positive promotion of the sport in the US (both rec and tournament), will (UK Government ban on people having fun dependent), filter to the UK market. Although this will not be over night and likely take some time, it will almost certainly happen. And given that consumers are going to be more careful where they spend their money this year, I would fully expect them to demand more "Bang for their Buck".

Oh and as for the three hundred players I was just using somebody else's figures (I think he said between 100-300 on a Sunday alone). Oh and as for the I box of paint per player at a tourney a little conservative on that estimate.

JohnJ,

I already made the point that I was talking Paint Revenues only, I know their are other associated costs. The point I was making was relevant to variable and fixed costs, and that maybe through positive promotion of the sport we might see an increase in people at sites thus increasing revenues (then reducing paint prices). Rent, facilities, even utilities are all fixed costs to a degree so not affected by the amount of people (until capacity is reached). Marshals wages only become variable (to a degree), once a capacity level is breached as you N on site regardless of numbers. My point is wholly related to the attitudes of certain individuals who are only interested in short term revenue protection.

So to sum up, yes this has all been discussed before, but it seems the attitudes of a small minority of people who should be promoting the sport, are intent on keeping Paintball down to a limited number minority sport with no vision to the future.

 

[Eric The Troll]

Originally posted by TonyF
Nice to see you live up to your user name!
I enjoy both rec and tourny. For DaveB to assume I only played tourny is incorrect.
You have been playing a long while and maybe you are getting some good sponsership deals.

The retail prices I was refering to are those offered by the shops/online, not the rec sites site.
The original post on this thread asked for paint prices at tournys in the UK. This now seems to have degenerated into a Rec v tourny debate.

On reflection, I have edited this post. As I feel once the personal insults begin, any chance of a sensable discussion are lost!

Appologies Tony, I was in a pisser as well last night.