Tournament Prices to go up next year?

[Nick@skirmish]

How to keep costs down for a tourney, in fact how to lower the costs is so easy.

Years ago any tourny you went to the site operator supplied Fields,tropheys,catering,staff and the most importantly the paint.

Because of the trade ( wholesalers ) selling paint direct to the players ( you ) then calling it (Sponsoring) to justify the low costs the site operator has only one avenue left to make any profit and that is through the admission charge.

When and only when the trade stops selling direct to the players and you booked in to a tourney and bought paint on site from the site owners will the overall costs come down.

The real villians are accually the you, the players, allways looking for a better deal. Paintball to all players is a game, but to the site operators it's a business and for any business to survive and improve its got to make a profit.

To make a cheaper game all tournys should be limited paint, not just a pot & hopper but for example a box per player, bought from the site operator only. All things are level, number of players in a team, size of fields, lenth of games, why not number of paintballs allowed to be shot. Yes give the players a choice of paint Zap, draxxus,rps,severe whatever the player wants, but let the people who organise the tournament make a bit of money.

I played the PA cup in county durham, 11 teams turned up, the work and effort put into the event was fantastic. With 11 teams in Hatts made a loss. If he had sold paint he would have made a profit & you would have seen more regular events like his simply because it was financally viable.

If you the players want better and cheaper tourneys start buying paint from the site operators its that simple!!!!!!!

 

[Liz]

Last time I played a decent sized "site paint only" event was Mayhem when it was still in the woods down near the south coast. We were paying £95 for a box of 2500 and no choice what make, whereas my team was paying around £40 for a case of 2000 normally, using the paint we preferred. You also had the ridiculous state of top Pro teams having to shoot paint other than their sponsor's stuff. And in the case of the Pros it really was sponsorship not just discounted wholesale type prices, so teams like the Preds would have a bill of around £200 EACH more than if they'd been able to shoot the paint they usually had for free.
Site only paint lead to rip-offs for the price and the POTENTIAL for the site owner off-loading any rubbish they had in stock - though I'm definitely NOT saying there was anything wrong with the paint I shot that particular weekend, it was fine.

I don't agree that the reason tourmanets are getting more expensive is down to the site owners not making their margins on the paint at all. Rather, I put it down to the current demand for sup'air fields and nice venues. It costs an awful lot more money to set up netted arenas on flat grassland or in arenas than it does to just use existing woodland fields that are used for rental customers every week, we're talking £1000s more here for a decent tourney. Game fees in the "old days" for a woodland tourney used to be around £25 per player, and I'm going back around 10 years here. For an arena type tournament set up from scratch at the venue to be only £10 per player more all these years later doesn't seem unreasonable to me!

 

[Mario]

Originally posted by Nick@skirmish
When and only when the trade stops selling direct to the players and you booked in to a tourney and bought paint on site from the site owners will the overall costs come down.
...
The real villians are accually the you, the players, allways looking for a better deal. Paintball to all players is a game, but to the site operators it's a business and for any business to survive and improve its got to make a profit.
...
To make a cheaper game all tournys should be limited paint, not just a pot & hopper but for example a box per player, bought from the site operator only. All things are level, number of players in a team, size of fields, lenth of games, why not number of paintballs allowed to be shot. Yes give the players a choice of paint Zap, draxxus,rps,severe whatever the player wants, but let the people who organise the tournament make a bit of money.
...
If you the players want better and cheaper tourneys start buying paint from the site operators its that simple!!!!!!!

i'm sorry but thats just bollocks. no offence nick but if thats what you really think then i'm gonna go laugh. Like liz said it's the cost of flat grassy venues, marquees, loo's, damage that the players do (not a gripe), marshalls, and other items that are signifigant that keep the costs up not the amount of paint shot and who sells it. also if tourneys did go that way then we would go nowhere on the world scene of paintball because other countries would laugh at us for being so stupid. i'm not bashing lmtd paint tourneys. they are the perfect way to get small/new teams into tourney ball and thats a good thing but really.......just no

also why would shooting less paint make a better tourney for the players?!?! it wouldn't be better coz the players would not get what they want. simple as.

this wasn't meant to cause offence but it did make me laugh....

 

[Roland]

Originally posted by Nick@skirmish
How to keep costs down for a tourney, in fact how to lower the costs is so easy.

Years ago any tourny you went to the site operator supplied Fields,tropheys,catering,staff and the most importantly the paint.

Because of the trade ( wholesalers ) selling paint direct to the players ( you ) then calling it (Sponsoring) to justify the low costs the site operator has only one avenue left to make any profit and that is through the admission charge.

When and only when the trade stops selling direct to the players and you booked in to a tourney and bought paint on site from the site owners will the overall costs come down.

The real villians are accually the you, the players, allways looking for a better deal. Paintball to all players is a game, but to the site operators it's a business and for any business to survive and improve its got to make a profit.

To make a cheaper game all tournys should be limited paint, not just a pot & hopper but for example a box per player, bought from the site operator only. All things are level, number of players in a team, size of fields, lenth of games, why not number of paintballs allowed to be shot. Yes give the players a choice of paint Zap, draxxus,rps,severe whatever the player wants, but let the people who organise the tournament make a bit of money.

I played the PA cup in county durham, 11 teams turned up, the work and effort put into the event was fantastic. With 11 teams in Hatts made a loss. If he had sold paint he would have made a profit & you would have seen more regular events like his simply because it was financally viable.

If you the players want better and cheaper tourneys start buying paint from the site operators its that simple!!!!!!!

The vast majority of tourny's are not organised by site owners but by organisers who rent the site for the day.

You have a simple choice, charge more, run another punter day or do both as you have in the past. You don't have to allow tourny's to be run on your site.

We are at a stage now where a paintball site is not needed to run a tourny, everything that is needed to run a tourny can be brought in.

Last time I was at your site you were charging £90.00/box (I think) for paint! If it ever costs anywhere near that, even for Ltd paint tourny's, then I for one will retire.

 

[Chris - Nexus Eclipse]

damm beaten again.....i have to agree with mario.

 

[Nick@skirmish]

Thanks for your comments, everybodys got their thoughts. I have based mine on being involved in paintball for the last 18 years, having bought & sold nearly 100 million paintballs of all different brands and played at virtually every major in the UK.

Roland if you check the UK rental costs we are spot on for rental customers £6.00 per hundred £90 a box is cheap!!!

Paintball wholesalers excist in the UK for one reason only, to service the sites, If the site were not there tourney paintball would die

I am no fool to how to cost out a game be it rental, rec ballers or tourney players, if a site operator supplys crap paint, then the customers will not come back, if they charge too much they will not come back, if they give bad service they will not come back.

You are the customers of the site owners / tourney organisers and they should be the people selling the paint, the BYO has destroyed the margins, give the margins back to the people who organsise the events and watch the entry fee come down !

Question, When was the last time you went to the pub and bought a bottle of Bud £2.30 ish. Did you complain about the price ? Its only 65p in the cash & carrys but you are happy to pay the price. When was the last time you went out for a meal, its cheaper to buy it from the supermarket & cook yourself.
Why not try this one, Buy a 4 pack of bud and walk in to your local pub. whats the land lord going to say ( i know the answer )

What would the landlord say if a wholesaller set up a truck in his car park and sold beer direct to his customers ( i know the answer to this one too )

 

[stongle]

Yet again, people are seeing Paintballers (of all varieties) as a homogenous group.

Comparing or lumping together Recballer / one of punters and tournament players is incorrect in the extreme. It's like comparing football and hockey and saying it's the same game cos a ball goes into the back of a net.

The needs of the rec-baller and the needs of the tournament player are completly different.

As a site owner catering to walk on punter clientele of course you need to charge 5-6p a ball, they don't shoot enough to make the running of the site viable. Tournament ball on the other hand, is a different kettle of fish. Going back to limited paint because it costs 500 quid a day to shoot at your prices will kill Tournament ball in this country and some of the wholesalers you see as only supporting Recsites.

In all honesty Tournament Ball needs to be moved of sites and into proper sporting facilities (as per M25 league). In this way a proper differentiation is drawn and Sites can cater towards Rec players and the Tournaments be effectively be paint at cost to the player. Entrance fees and revenue from retailers should contribute to the cost of putting on the event.

I'm not criticsing the cost of site paint at all, overheads have to be met, but a sport is not about meeting overheads and costs (this comes later). A seperation needs to be made, if sites cannot put on a tournament for one day due to costs, best not to facilitate them, just take revenue from your satisfied recballer client base.

My view, not a criticism, just how I see it.

 

[Liz]

I've been thinking a bit more on this and can't remember playing ANY site paint only tournaments except Mayhem (in the old days), having been playing or attending tourney paintball for somewhere around 14-15 years now. Maybe that was the norm in the midlands, but down in the south east at places like Sidcup, Eurosplat, Detling, Darenth, Holmbush, Finmere, Maidenhead, Campaign/Wicked, Arenaball at Meopham etc it was always BYO paint.

I know enough about both tournament and rental paintball to understand that they are completely different when it comes to costs etc. For rental customers, you have the extra costs of purchase and maintenance of equipment, cleaning clothing & goggles, food and so on which you don't have for tournament ball. These extra costs aren't covered by the rental game fee, which is usually significantly less than that for a tourney, so a much bigger margin needs to be charged on the paint to make up for this. Trying to say walk-ons and tourney players are getting a great deal paying "only" £90 for a case when the attendant costs of servicing this players are minimal just doesn't add up.

 

[sjt19]

Originally posted by Nick@skirmish

Question, When was the last time you went to the pub and bought a bottle of Bud £2.30 ish. Did you complain about the price ? Its only 65p in the cash & carrys but you are happy to pay the price. When was the last time you went out for a meal, its cheaper to buy it from the supermarket & cook yourself.
Why not try this one, Buy a 4 pack of bud and walk in to your local pub. whats the land lord going to say ( i know the answer )

What would the landlord say if a wholesaller set up a truck in his car park and sold beer direct to his customers ( i know the answer to this one too )

Then why do you not just do the above? I assure you that even if you bought down the entry fee costs you would never get any teams attending an event if it was run like this. Sponsored teams would never attend as they get deals/free paint from sponsors like Draxxus and so on. If the big teams decided not to go then a lot of the smaller teams may view the event as worthless. (this is the reason why events bend over backwards to ensure the participation of teams like Nexus, Shockwave and Tigers, because it increases the appeal of the event. So why not try this magical new formula and see how successful the event would be if you ran it like this.

 

[Mario]