Hi Guys,
Paint for Tippmann Challenge Is now available ,
http://www.bzpaintball.co.uk/product.php?p=Tippmann%20Challenge%20Paint%202012&t=Paintballs
Everything that you buy at an event goes towards putting the event on. The event ticket is only part of the equation. If you buy a burger, box of paint, can of coke, photoset, pint of beer - everything pays for the event and those present at the event (organiser, traders, tech support, catering, photographers etc etc etc) to be there to give us players the experiences that we want.
For the game in Croatia - we used exactly the same paint (clear Stirling) but it was £55 a box. It didn't cost us a penny more to get that paint from Stirling when we sold it at £30 at ctd2 in Sennybridge. But those attendings understood that it costs a lot more to put on a game on a desserted island than it does at a paintball site in Wakefield. It's all got to be paid for mate.
TCUK is no different. It's an extraordinary event and if as a company Shoreline comes out of it losing less than £10k then we'll be lucky. The wage bill alone will be nine times more than a standard event and the venue is three times the price of a normal site.
BZ have to stock millions of paintballs. Stock that if it does not all sell, will see them lose a similar amount to us on the event as they can't resell that paint in quantity afterwards. So between Shoreline and BZ, we could be looking at a £20k loss on the event. That is why nobody else in the world does events like this, because no other companies will swallow those kinds of loses just to put on a good weekend for their customers. But the people who run those two companies are paintball players. People who have paint running through their veins and that is why we do what we do - when nobody else in the paintball world will.
We appreciate that there is no reason why players should know this sort of background, neither company shouts about it. But it may explain why we snap back sometimes when people have a go about a fiver. We are all passionate about what we do and sometimes respond in a passionate manner. But trust me when I say, both companies are run by paintballers and both go out of their way to look after our fellow ballers. If the cost to a player goes up by a quid, you can pretty much guaranteed that behind the scenes, the cost to us will have gone up about ten times more.
From a personal point of view, I never usually justify our pricing. We're the best in the UK at what we do and arguably one of the best in the world, so we're comfortable with where our prices are. But I felt some background on this occassion may be useful to any players wondering why the paint from BZ is a fiver more than last year. Just remember that in Jy Shoreline sold the same paint at £55 a box and nobody questioned the value of Croatia. It's a case of horses for courses and some courses are more expensive to run on than others.
Hope this helps.
Tim