Robbo,
While I understand your frustrations with the British stereotype of paintballers we need to look at some things. Your bog standard site owner won't promote paintball as a sport, usually because they have no passion for it as a sport and to be honest there is no money in it, paintball is a means to make money, pay the bills and their income. Also, let's look at site customers, from my point of view as a site owner.
40% of customers on site are outside stag weekends, obviously with a site outside Edinburgh we see alot of customers from all over the UK, these are guys out on the pi$$ for a weekend and playing paintball for the day is your typical day out, so these are pretty much non-starters, guys out for the crack.
30% are kids between the age of 12-15, so with no full time job no income you are hard pushed to convert them to tournament ball, in the 16 years I have worked on sites I could count maybe a dozen under 16 kids that have started playing tournament ball from either my site or sites I have managed.
15% are charity groups, you know, local council bodies that take kids paintballing.
So that leaves 15% of customers that come to the site in the bracket of 16-30, from this 15% you may have 2% actually show an interest in paintball as a sport, but here is the thing, we sell paintball as a sport on our site, we preach and preach how we would never play in the woods, show magazines, talk the talk, show them photos, talk about sky etc etc etc.......so from this 2% how many do you think will say yeah, I'm up for that???? You can lead a horse to water mate.......
If the German scene is purely tournament paintball then that's all they have, no choice, no woodland, and yes, from the point of view of increasing player bases brilliant.
I was at a walk on today that the Edinburgh Keltics ran, good day, all sup air, talk to new players, encourage them, help them improve their game. But here is a known fact, there is a larger player base in Manchester than there is in the whole of Scotland, in fact, there are probably more players in your street!!!!!!
The people that were there today and I would say there were about 30, 9 were Clan, 5 were Keltics, 7 were from Aberdeen Uni and looking at starting their own team which I'm helping with and the balance were either first timers using Inferno's or people with their own gear with no desire to make the move to tournament paintball.
So, how can we really change it when the UK typical paintball site is set in the woodland, and, your UK typical customer wants to roll around in the mud wearing camo gear and hiding in bushes?? Give them no choice but Sup' Air, UK market would plummet mate. When I first started A1 Paintball along with my friend we looked at getting an old golf driving range, building 4-6 set fields, all sup air, or tournament style fields, you know, hyperball, maybe hay bales, 2 or 3 sup air. But we didn't, instead we did our research and it came up woodland, thats where the general public want to play the game, thats what they associate with paintball, if I had a quid for everytime I have been speaking to customers about Clan, tournament paintball etc and they say"I didn't realise it was so big, and a real sport", fk I could put my entire team on the payroll and turn them into Pro's......and you know what Robbo, that public perception and lack of knowledge pi$$e$ me off!!!!!!
But heres the thing, people rant and rant about how do we change this, how do we bring paintball into the public eye??
Let's talk about what is now, from my point of view, tournaments are played at paintball sites, where are they, are they in the public eye, can the general public come and watch tournament paintball in the UK, no they can't, why, because A. unless your looking for it you will never find it and B. setting a tournament field up on the single track back road of the b6694 will NOT raise awareness.....you want paintball to be mainstream, then make it so, bring it into the public eye, show people what it's about. A1 paintball did a charity event two years ago for HMS Caledonia, huge event, we spent about a week drilling holes and setting up netting so we could put on a show of what paintball IS and not what people think it is, it was great mate, we had kids, adults, fathers and son's all standing on the sidelines watching my guys tear each other apart with brightly coloured gear and brilliant play, we actually had a pile of marines play us, yeah okay, they were girls and we had to give them a chance but this is what I mean, something like 5,000+ people saw that event, and hopefully they went away and spoke about this amazing sport they watched at an open day. Where as from a business point of view I could have had 6 guys in camo gear walking around handing out business flyers, maybe a tent with some camo netting, a Tippmans, set of goggles etc......no, it cost me over £2,500 to stage that event to simply raise awareness of Paintball....
You know Robbo you and I are the same kinda people, we both want to see something in this Country that is great, but how do we get there when we are faced with so many boundaries, whether it be sites, public perception, marketing of tournaments etc etc, I have been playing for 18 years this year, I have been in from the start, I have seen paintball evolve into a brilliant sport and luckily I can still make my starting line up on the Clan, even at 34 and 16 stone
, but here is another thing, paintball started in the woods, it's the grass roots, but now we want sup' air to be the starting block rather than woodland, and all the chanting in the world won't make that happen my friend...
You know me mate, I say it as I see it, and as much as I admire your passion I'm afraid we will still be going on about this long after both you and I are gone from the scene altogether, we can't change the industry, we can try though.......
And what you have started is not crap, it's fact, and yes people who disagree with fact call it crap.....
To make tournament paintball mainstream, you need to make paintball mainstream, not just a weekend event, the public still frown upon paintball as war games, do you know I have been running my own paintball company now for 3 years and worked in the industry for 16 years and people still ask me if paintball is a real job.....to$$ers!!!!!!!!!
But, changes are coming, and all it takes is one voice to stand above the rest and make a statement that people listen to, then maybe you get someone who agrees and then more people and before you know it you have change.
Oh my GOD..........just realised, I have just written a Robbo length post.............right no more beer for me!!!!!!!
You once again have my full support Robbo, as I said, I don't think you can change things overnight, but hopefully you can change things.
Sid
PS, why not get yourself up here for a weekend, or bring the family, Scotland is amazing mate, and if you time it right, we can go cliff jumping....150ft off a cliff face into freezing cold Scottish water......ah.....now what could be better than that??
