and why the hell not ?? its the way they do things that was more to the point, not the scale. you have to compare the two else its just burrying you head in the sand
Thoughts
- Thread starter Robbo
- Start date
Money could be a problem here
There IS a cost implication to all this.
Elsancho mentioned the general state of sites like Elsham - well does he know what it would cost to build decent staging areas, supposing planning permission could be obtained, and assuming the increase in business rates for the site were acceptable? Have you a good idea of what it costs to prepare ground properly, put up scaffolding/telegraph poles/netting etc and maintain it? Buy a supair field, and again maintain it as they do tend to get damaged? This would be on top of all the usual purchase and maintenance costs of equipment etc.
And then he comments on the placing of the venues themselves. Most paintball sites aren't where they are just because that's where the woodland is, it's also because they are where there is land available and affordable. There is no way someone could get the kind of prime fields we would all love close to a town at the same kind of money as they can get them out in the sticks. Rates are higher, and people have other uses for them. I've never been to Northern Quarter yet (an awful long way from Kent!) but you say it's next to a sewage works. That's probably why Markie was able to get the land and afford it, and afford to put all the necessary equipment up.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to see tournament style paintball hit it big in this country and there have been some very good ideas brought up by Robbo in his threads on the subject and in the replies, but when I look at the financial implications of some of this I cringe. Even the majority of site operators who are in the business because of a passion for the sport have to make a living out of it, pay the mortgage & feed the kids and the like, so they could have a real problem funding the kind of setup we would all like to see. Apart from a few majors, most sites seem to be single sites with a maximum capacity of 50-100 players - not the kind of organisation that could do this kind of thing.
Those who would have the most to gain from tournament style paintball becoming big in this country should be those who finance any push i.e. the equipment suppliers, but most of them still seem to look on Europe in general as the poor relation who comes a very remote second to the US in tewrms of marketting and expenditure.
There IS a cost implication to all this.
Elsancho mentioned the general state of sites like Elsham - well does he know what it would cost to build decent staging areas, supposing planning permission could be obtained, and assuming the increase in business rates for the site were acceptable? Have you a good idea of what it costs to prepare ground properly, put up scaffolding/telegraph poles/netting etc and maintain it? Buy a supair field, and again maintain it as they do tend to get damaged? This would be on top of all the usual purchase and maintenance costs of equipment etc.
And then he comments on the placing of the venues themselves. Most paintball sites aren't where they are just because that's where the woodland is, it's also because they are where there is land available and affordable. There is no way someone could get the kind of prime fields we would all love close to a town at the same kind of money as they can get them out in the sticks. Rates are higher, and people have other uses for them. I've never been to Northern Quarter yet (an awful long way from Kent!) but you say it's next to a sewage works. That's probably why Markie was able to get the land and afford it, and afford to put all the necessary equipment up.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to see tournament style paintball hit it big in this country and there have been some very good ideas brought up by Robbo in his threads on the subject and in the replies, but when I look at the financial implications of some of this I cringe. Even the majority of site operators who are in the business because of a passion for the sport have to make a living out of it, pay the mortgage & feed the kids and the like, so they could have a real problem funding the kind of setup we would all like to see. Apart from a few majors, most sites seem to be single sites with a maximum capacity of 50-100 players - not the kind of organisation that could do this kind of thing.
Those who would have the most to gain from tournament style paintball becoming big in this country should be those who finance any push i.e. the equipment suppliers, but most of them still seem to look on Europe in general as the poor relation who comes a very remote second to the US in tewrms of marketting and expenditure.
Whenever I see a first time poster dive headlong into an established thread it normally means trouble but in this case I can see why you did it and don’t mind.
Our tournament sites do need a lot of work as you suggest, with some needing an AWFUL lot of work but the provision of facilities at these sites is as a direct result of investment.
That investment is itself determined in some part by the amount of revenue site owners can generate from holding tourneys.
I can think of a few sites that have sent he light where they have realised the potential and are working to provide the facilities.
So, what do we need as tourney ballers from a site?
We need a good playing surface, flat and generally well maintained.
We need on site air to 4500.
We need basic facilities, like reasonable food at reasonable prices, toilets, staging areas and so on.
This ain’t no rocket science this is basic customer provision but you’d be surprised just how many tourney venues fall short…ok, maybe you wouldn’t.
There are some people as I have mentioned previously in other threads who have seen the light, Dale from Jags with his enterprise in Northampton, Markie C in Manchester, Dave at Dartford and Warren in Ashford, Sid and I hear Jim Frensham is doing some good stuff.
That Wrexham site Wendy uses is a pretty good venue and it’s sites like those we need to think about.
These guys have realised the potential and are now in the process of developing their sites and infrastructure around a new philosophy of business in focusing their primary site direction toward the tourney player.
Tournament players need to practice and play tourneys…that’s the core business right there.
We obviously need to stimulate the number of teams we have here in the UK but the strategy for doing so is what this thread is all about.
The more I look around at our site owners the more I get despondent and it makes me even more resolved to not even reference them in trying to get them to change.
We need a new breed, a more modern breed of site owners with our existing portfolio of site owners being a disgrace to our sport.
I tell ya something, and I believe this to be 110% true, if we had refocused our marketing along tourney lines these past 5 years or so, had site owners like Sid, Russ, Jim and the rest of those I mentioned spread across the country, our tourney scene would be at least 10 times healthier.
That factor of 10 is not an exaggeration, we would seriously be sitting here with ten times the number of teams we have, ten times the business we do and yet the market bottleneck is ironically what traditional thinking had us believe was the bread and butter of our sport…..existing sites.
They stifle our sport, they strangle tourney ball and as Germany has now shown us, tourney ball is big business, tourney ball is where it’s at, tourney ball is our sport, a real sport with great business opportunities.
We need to radically change our thinking…..
Money could be a problem here
Liz, bottom line is this. for the most part, our sites and tourney venues suck.
You suggest this is an emergent property of lack of investment because of limited income...I say to you two words...Russ Steele...go look at his site and tell me it can't be done.
Site owners can bleat about this excuse or that excuse or whatever...Russ's site calls them liars or incompetants....takes your pick gal!
Liz, bottom line is this. for the most part, our sites and tourney venues suck.
You suggest this is an emergent property of lack of investment because of limited income...I say to you two words...Russ Steele...go look at his site and tell me it can't be done.
Site owners can bleat about this excuse or that excuse or whatever...Russ's site calls them liars or incompetants....takes your pick gal!
So my main questions are.
When did this boom start?
about 5 years ago I think but the growth rate has increased in more recent years
Was it the consequence of another action i.e. something happened to get Paintball into the psyche of the demographic?
In my opinion, it is to do with the natural assimilation any new sport has in terms of reaching the masses, it is an emergent property of two fundamentals, the marketing done and the product itself.
Why did everybody become so interested in it all of a sudden?
I refer to my last answer in I don't think it was all of a sudden, more an accelerated growth spurt on the back of an increasing awareness in the German public.
Where are the businesses advertising their wares?
German Paintball magazines but this in sense must be preaching to the converted and perhaps Bagpuss might be able to help better explain the way Paintball has hit the masses
Are the tournament oragnisers the equivalent to our site owners and effectively they are actually just setting up a sup air site in which they only play on a league basis?
Once again, I think Bagpuss is better able to answer this than I because he has more first hand knowledge of the German market
Re: Money could be a problem here
But I also know people who have talked to their bank about the finance needed to set up a major site with decent facilities, and even when they've offered to put their own house on the line as a guarantee they've been turned down. If they had the money there they would have possibly done great things, but without that finance available from the start they were hamstrung & gave up the idea.
Ive been to Russ's site near Bristol and I think it's fantastic, caters for all types of play with superb facilities. He has worked exceptionally hard to turn it into the great place it is, but I think even he will admit that the infrastructure available there has helped a bit in getting it to that level and that kind of infrastructure isn't all that available.
Oh I know it's possible, and certainly when it comes to the bigger organisations there is no excuse for not putting the investment in except the fact that a large majority (though not all I hasten to add) are very short term in their outlook. I understand that you need to speculate to accumulate as well, which is an understanding that seems to be in rather short supply in the paintball world in general!
But I also know people who have talked to their bank about the finance needed to set up a major site with decent facilities, and even when they've offered to put their own house on the line as a guarantee they've been turned down. If they had the money there they would have possibly done great things, but without that finance available from the start they were hamstrung & gave up the idea.
Ive been to Russ's site near Bristol and I think it's fantastic, caters for all types of play with superb facilities. He has worked exceptionally hard to turn it into the great place it is, but I think even he will admit that the infrastructure available there has helped a bit in getting it to that level and that kind of infrastructure isn't all that available.
Re: Re: Money could be a problem here
Liz when it all comes down to it, when all the bull is cut out and discarded; Russ reinvested his money back into his site, it's a self-generating success curve.
This opportunity is open to everybody who owns a site Liz, not just Russ. If you can't get the necessary finance to at least begin a program of development then you really don't deserve to be in business.
It doesn't take big bucks to start, it does however take a lot of work.......
I am not for one second ignoring Russ's infratsructure here and the fact that site owners are not so well provided for but this is such a bad excuse if people rely on that nugget to justify inaction.
Sooo many sites are just lean to's and a wood, that's it..I need say no more.
If there was a gold medal for making excuse, we would be sitting atop the medal table.
Liz when it all comes down to it, when all the bull is cut out and discarded; Russ reinvested his money back into his site, it's a self-generating success curve.
This opportunity is open to everybody who owns a site Liz, not just Russ. If you can't get the necessary finance to at least begin a program of development then you really don't deserve to be in business.
It doesn't take big bucks to start, it does however take a lot of work.......
I am not for one second ignoring Russ's infratsructure here and the fact that site owners are not so well provided for but this is such a bad excuse if people rely on that nugget to justify inaction.
Sooo many sites are just lean to's and a wood, that's it..I need say no more.
If there was a gold medal for making excuse, we would be sitting atop the medal table.
Don't get me wrong Pete I know that the majority of site owners are in it for the fast buck and nothing more - half of them have never even played themselves let alone have the love of the sport and passion for it that we have. But maybe unfortunately for all of us, people with the vision and energy of site owners like Russ, Markie, Chuck, Jimmy F, Dave and so on are quite rare in this country, I've seen it in other industries as well in the UK. People in the UK, and paintballers expecially it seems, in general seem to think they have a right to have everything handed to them on a plate. Some know they have to work at it a bit harder, but when it comes down to are they going to have their first hilday for 5 years, or are they going to replace the broken washing machine at home, then the redevelopment gets put back a couple of months, then another couple of months, and so on.
Remember that the people we've picked out here & in other similar threads are exceptional, most site operators are just ordinary human beings with ordinary human faults. I know & understand the points you've been making, and agree with much of it, but I've put forward a slightly different point of view because I'm also an ordinary person with ordinary failings and can see their side of things as well - we can't all be demi Gods sadly!
Remember that the people we've picked out here & in other similar threads are exceptional, most site operators are just ordinary human beings with ordinary human faults. I know & understand the points you've been making, and agree with much of it, but I've put forward a slightly different point of view because I'm also an ordinary person with ordinary failings and can see their side of things as well - we can't all be demi Gods sadly!
Liz, playing that last card is a bit unfair because none of what I have been saying or suggesting is rocket science and certainly doesn't require the status of a demigod to either interpret or understand.
What you have just conceded above is exactly what you were already aware of Liz, nothing you have written above is news to you, not one bit.
I have never suggested the likes of Russ and co are representative of our average site owner any more than the poverty stricken few you refer to.
I am always referring to the vast majority of site owners and defending their case Liz on the back of a beleagured few is not really helpful if we are to truly address the problems we face.