UK Paintball Pt 2

[Nick Brockdorff]

Pete - let's not get dragged into a prolonged debate here - we both want the same thing - we just disagree on the means

All I'm saying is, that if it was as easy as you say, many more fields - not just in the UK - but all over Europe, would be doing it.

I know SC is an extreme example... and I was using it to illustrate my point only

My fear is, that loads of fields go down this road, find it doesn't work, and abbandon the idea... I've seen it happen many times over here already - and the reason is always the same... the work and expenses are not justified by the revenue.

I strongly feel that without the big suppliers to the sites taking an interest, and coming up with schemes that makes it plausible the sites can derive serious revenue from starting up a walk on business - nothing positive will come of the attempts.

You have to realise that by far most site owners ARE your average "Del Boy".... and it will take more than pretty words and assurances to make them do all the work needed to get this off the ground.

Most sites will need on hands support from industry and - dare I say it - teams.... to even attempt to make the effort

Nick

 

[Mario]

i worked at the NPF in brum for years and it seems they are possibly a model which robbo would like for all site owners to emulate.

They have their punter days every week with turnover of 300 - 400 depending on the weekends. Twice a month they run walk on days which are advertised at their site in prominent places, and in a few magazines. They have retail shop which sells wdp products and the staff are mostly friendly and knowledgeable.

they had a supair field when i was there that they changed to a speedball/hyperball field and then acquired some land in which they've set up supair pitches and they have monthly sessions to which teams can turn up. theyve been open and perceptive to what the teams have been saying and im sure that they are doing better business now because they have made these changes.

Its possible for site owners to do this. they've just got to have the balls and the gumption to do it.

I can only assume nick that the examples you know of failed for some unknown reason as i cant not see how the model shouldnt work?!

however its all my humble opinion and as such may not be as informed as id like

edit: spot the double negative

 

[Robbo]

I agree with all you say Nick and I think the common ground we both head toward does actually provide a more defined blueprint as to what needs to be done.

We both agree that the present state of affairs is dire.
We also agree things need to change.

The teams and players can't do it for obvious reasons as a top down approach is a non-starter.

This leaves the emphasis for change firmly at the feet of our much maligned (and rightfully so) average site owner.

I agree with what you say about 'loads of fields' but here is where I need to clarify things a little further and this clarification I think will have you and I on the same footing.

There is a natural number of these sites that can be sustained by the market and here I am talking about the market that needs to be generated, that of the walkon conversions.

If too many sites got involved then of course there will be financial casuatties but that's financial life mate, sh!t happens but just because there will be casualties should not in any way prevent the program from being initiated.
The natural order and survival pressures of the market place will weed out the weak and leave us with the more healthy of the enlightened.

In all honesty, this is all academic because I don't believe we will have any wholesale conversion of site owners going on here, they are just too damned stupid or greedy.
But hopefully, we can get a few more people like Dale, Sid, Markie and Chuck (Jags) involved in helping our sport evolve.
We got nowhere near enough yet but it might change a little and any change is welcome at the moment.

 

[AUPaintSoc]

It really does make a difference when the site owner is or was a keen paintballer him/herselves... They have a better appreciation of the needs and desires of the average paintballer, and can offer facilities appropriate to them.
Aberdeen Uni Paintball Society plays at a place near us run by a friend who falls into this category, his prices run at £20 for the day (inc equipment etc etc + 200 paintballs), then £5 per 100..
But what he does for his regular customers is offer them a special price after they have been to the site 5 times. After this entry is free (with own equipment I believe) and paint drops to £3 per 100, and this is for the remainder of the calendar year.
Compare this to the Bedlams and Skirmishes which apart from charging upwards of £10 per 100 paintballs just dont care about return customers or even, so it seems in Aberdeen, the sport at large...

One thing I did agree with Robbo's post is that of the facilities offered at rec-ball sites. How can we call paintball a sport, compare it to any other so-called sport (that wants to be taken extremely seriously, not, for example, diving or something).
What other sport offers lean-tos and fast-food vans to their high-paying customers, think of any sports centre with its showers, changing rooms, cafes, etc etc etc. I appreciate that a lot of centres do offer these facilities, but I would argue these are in the minority. Again, it all comes down to spending more money on customers, which a lot of places would be uncomfortable doing...
A lot of it comes down to getting customers in and out quickly, getting their cash, then getting them off site. If site-owners feel that they dont need to offer anything else (as Skirmish Aberdeen did to our society when approached to see if we could work something out), then they really wont. They feel they have a business model which works, brings money in, and have a regular turnover. How do you propose changing these peoples minds, when for them the paintball industry works, they have no problems and see no need to change entirely, especially when there is a risk of losing money as well?

 

[Robbo]

As an addendum to this, I wanna finish off with this; I started all this cr@p because I want us Brits to give a better account of ourselves on the international tourney scene and I had realized we had the wrong demographic of player base on our tournament scene if this was to happen.
I’m afraid a displaced walk-on population wasn’t gonna hack it if we are to pitch ourselves into competitive paintball in the Millennium as was so evidenced when I looked at the final rankings for 2005.
Basically, we couldn’t argue with rankings.

On closer investigation we discovered our average site owner’s business approach was the main problem here in not providing their customer base with sufficient choice or education.
The chances of re-educating these site owners is virtually zero, they are what they are and Del Boy site owner could no more become a responsible businessman than Rodney has of becoming a mixed martial arts fighter.

And so, we need another avenue to explore if we want to improve our national status when it comes to producing top teams.
The responsibility for this has now inevitably to fall on us, the people who take our sport seriously enough and ain't in it just for the money.
And after reading some of these posts and reading some of the emails and PM's I have received recently, I am really encouraged to see we have some really dedicated and driven ballers out there.

If we look at the Yanks, their top teams are generated because they have huge numbers over there and evolutionary processes produce a much higher quality of play purely because of the number crunching.
The more players you got, the better the top players must be…..simple Darwinian logic.

We can’t emulate this, our site owners ignore the American model of business and thus stifle development.
But for us, hope is at hand because Sergey has shown the world of paintball that we don’t necessarily have to play the numbers game, we can become more sophisticated in our approach to development through training.
The day I rely on any moral conscience from our average site owners to aid us will be the day I wear a lace thong round my head on the front cover of PGi.

We as ballers, have to get our ass into gear and consolidate what we have got, there are sites out there who cater for us, we all know who they are, they have Sup Air there and allow walk-on days and team practices.
We as serious ballers need to make what we got better because this is the ONLY way left open to us.

And the only way to make things better is not to pay lip service to training anymore, we need to train more seriously.
If you got guys on your team who are not serious enough and always wanna play ****ty little tourneys instead of using these tournaments as part of the training process and not an end in itself, then get rid of them, throw them off, they are stopping you and the rest of the guys developing.

Teams and players need to reconsider why they play this game because this is the deal, most of the teams in the UK are made up of two types of player, the ones who play for fun and the ones who play because they are sportsmen.

These two can and obviously do reside together and this is another of our problems because if we could re-arrange players so that all the serious guys could get together and all the 'not so' serious could all play together, then it immediately recalibrates the quality levels of our team base.

The momentum for this regrouping must come from the serious guys because they have to view their playing of paintball as a goal, and this goal is either hindered or encouraged by the team they are in, if individuals feel they are hindered then they have to either change team (where the environment is conducive to improvement) or get the guys off the team who are not so serious.

If this is done, then we effectively change the face of tourney ball over here….think about it, all it needs is for people to realize why they play and to adjust accordingly.
If we go some way to achieving this reconstitution of our teams then there is hope, if not, there is no hope…because we then have to default to relying on site owners and you guys know how that one’s gonna go ......

 

[Chuck]

The momentum for this regrouping must come from the serious guys because they have to view their playing of paintball as a goal, and this goal is either hindered or encouraged by the team they are in, if individuals feel they are hindered then they have to either change team (where the environment is conducive to improvement) or get the guys off the team who are not so serious.

If this is done, then we effectively change the face of tourney ball over here….think about it, all it needs is for people to realize why they play and to adjust accordingly.
If we go some way to achieving this reconstitution then there is hope, if not, there is no hope…because we then have to default to relying on site owners and you guys know how that one’s gonna go ......

Pete, there are a couple of things that we can get up and running well before the start of next season.

Sites (Sup Air) with good facilities and "Academy" style coaching available.The venues need to offer more than just an area and bunkers for "Just playing games"
Markie C has his going already, Mikie at J10 had a busy one with a good crowd in attendance (which I think we can carry on at Campaign Paintball Park, Team Basic and Jags were re- surfacing the playing area this Sunday) . Warren has his new place near Ashford and I will be making my place more available in Colchester.
These type of places with a resident "Pro or 2" to give advice, critique and run drills etc, will give the teams with genuine drive somewhere to meet up with like minded teams on a regular basis. The individuals that come along to street ball and improve / get noticed have somewhere to go or get picked up and if there are enough form new teams.

These type of venues form a filter because the very point of them is individual / team improvment. The once a month brigade of dis-posesed Rec ballers wont go. So if we can support them in the early days until the numbers increase enough to support themselves then Bingo we have a number of little talent factories on line.

Re Ball, this may give the serious minded player the tool that they need to make repetative drills affordable. We may have one of these in the south sooner than I thought possible.

Things look better already ( but then my glass is always half full)

Chuck

 

[Robbo]

Chuck, the ones I know of are Markie's site up north, you at Colchester, Warren in Ashford, Dave at Dartford, Dale at Northampton (when it's ready), Sid up in Scotland, if anybody knows any more then please post them up here so we can at least make people aware of where they can go.

 

[NIALL]

Once a month at Campaign. Starting Jan.

Good Idea Chuck

 

[Robbo]

Originally posted by NIALL
Once a month at Campaign. Starting Jan.

Good Idea Chuck

Niall, you need to get a grass covered playing surface down there mate if it's gonna be of any help as I believe that not only is it a woodchip surface you got but also you got trees stuck in the way so it's not really gonna emulate what we will be playing on.
If we are to make this serious then the playing area has to be free from obstructions and with the ability to train sliding and diving.

 

[Markie C]

That's what we are thinking of next year starting a "Academy"
for new people and young one's just trying to get the farmer to give us some more land

By the way SC Villige is closing it has been bought out by some houseing company or so i've been told

if any one has any good idea's about how to run a "Academy" for player's iw would love to hear your thought's any input would be great email or pm or phone