Are we just a bunch of saps or do we have any power?

[Dusty]

Yes it's all well and good saying make it cheap, there's no incentive then for site owners to accomodate a very small number of tourney playets who will require a substantial investment in a supair field, netting, repairs, maintenance kits, air supply etc etc.

Believe me, been there, done it, got nowhere.

If you think Scotland is bad, try living over here. I'd say on the whole island between scenario and tourney players you're looking at a total of 60 people. If even.

 

[StubbsPKS]

Yes it's all well and good saying make it cheap, there's no incentive then for site owners to accomodate a very small number of tourney playets who will require a substantial investment in a supair field, netting, repairs, maintenance kits, air supply etc etc.

Believe me, been there, done it, got nowhere.

If you think Scotland is bad, try living over here. I'd say on the whole island between scenario and tourney players you're looking at a total of 60 people. If even.

I'm not asking for it to be cheaper, I just don't want it to become more expensive so that only the rich can afford it. That's really upsetting to hear that it's even worse off than Scotland... At least here in Scotland we have several teams who want to play and are (probably) willing to get out to events in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, etc if we could just get that Scottish League back up and running.

It is the same situation in the US as well. The fields know that their bread and butter comes from walk-ons rather than the tourney players, but they still accommodate both types of player because the owners care about the sport. It doesn't hurt that most of them run shops and are then able to sell the newest £1200 marker to the tourney guys the day they come out

Stubbs, I do agree that it is unbelievably difficult to get a new team running because of hte costs involved and I do think that there should be some major changes to the way things are done. Whether it is creating rookie divisions with rules to keep costs down, or leagues having some kit that they can rent out for the duration of a tournament to allow teams to get some experience of tournaments, just something to try and make it easier for people to get into.

One other thing I would love to see more of is teams setting up acadamies, providing the kit for new players, giving them training, getting them to play tournaments. It would allow new players to get into the sport without having to fork our a huge amount of cash upfront to buy kit, and if they enjoy the sport and wanted to continue then they would be able to do so without feeling isolated, because they would have already had experience of playing & training with a team and would be a damn sight more knowledgable than they would if they were thrown in at the deep end by themselves.

Perfect example of this as far as I am aware is Academy 49 run by Marc Harwood. He bought a load of Dangerous Power G3s, decent entry level tournament markers, and got plenty of youngsters who hadn't played before involved, made it as cheap as possible for them to start, provided a training site, sorted out the paint. It meant that kids could try the sport without having to fork our money for kit straight away, without having to search all over for somewhere to train and now he has a team of talented young players who have all progressed well, bought their own kit and love the sport.

If there were more people like Marc actively trying to get people involved in the sport, accepting some financial outlay to begin with, then I think the paintball scene in the UK would have a much brighter future.

I know for a fact that when I started playing about 5 years back that if there was anything like what Marc is running near me that I would have kept playing, rather than sticking with it for 6 months and then stopping for 4 years. I bought all my own kit up front, payed my way for tournaments & training, and after 6 months I couldn't afford it any more, so I had to sell my kit. If there was something like Academy 49 I would have been able to start playing without spending hundreds of pounds on kit, would have had more money for tournament entries, and could have played for longer, but as nothing like that existed I had no choice but to give up the sport for a few years.

Anyway, rant over!

You're absolutely right!

We're not buying kit for people, but Din Eidyn (the team I'm on) are holding a Speedball introduction night at Urban Paintball in Edinburgh tomorrow night (Didn't think to mention it on here until now) to try and get the average punter interested in owning their own gear. We've set it up mostly geared toward Edinburgh and Napier paintball societies, but I am pretty sure that there will be walk-ons there as well.

I know it's nothing huge, but it's a start. If more teams would do things like this at their local fields then maybe we could drum up some more interest in tournament ball in this country. The amount of times I've told people I play paintball on a team and they look at me funny and say they've never considered it a sport makes me sad...

 

[Fisz]

I think the latest comments can be bottled down into "It's expensive to play paintball and someone needs to subsidise it". The problem is that increased competition between manufacturers of equipment and paint led to prices going down and there's no more space for it going down. At the same time companies have been setting money on fire for years by giving out outrageous support deals which for the most part only served those who were receiving such deals (few notable exceptions, Planet & XSV, Dye & Ironmen,...).

The paintball industry is still going through the period of readjusting itself and the pruning of the herd is not over. Smaller companies are more likely to fall off the face of the earth but that doesn't mean the big ones are immune to it - case in point: Procaps LOC being recalled by the bank which resulted in a hasty sale to Richmond Italia. Meanwhile the big 2 tournament companies continue to strengthen their hold on the market without consideration on how that impacts their dealer networks. The Real Big 2 companies are as usual shrouded in mystery and their moves tend to remain shadowy until they decide it's time to show their cards. And Mr Postorivo is leading his own war against Kee and Procaps and tends to find the weak points of both and strike there.

 

[Liam92]

glad to see this thread has been pulled up again and raised a few more good points.

with regards to comments on the availability of supair sites in Scotland and Ireland, this for me is the number one cause for a complete lack of teams breaking out of these areas. as mentioned above if there is the opportunity to play in local tournaments at a relatively low cost then you will see more beginner teams forming and progressing through the sport. over the last season anyway there has only been one all scottish team i know of that have been able to travel down south to compete for a full season (as a result of having at least some access to some training facilities) with a few others such as myself taking a big financial hit every time to make the journey to play with teams made of players from around the UK.

fortunately it looks like 2012 will be a little better for the Scottish scene with a few new airball sites looking to open across the country and i'll guarantee that there will be more teams playing up here in 2012 so long as provisions are made to allow for teams to play competitively at a local level.

seems selfish but in my view its the responsibility of site owners with the ability to provide for new players (NOT JUST RECBALLERS) to help save the sport. once the facilities are in place its the existing players that need to help get fresh young blood into the sport. its essentially saying that you cant swim if you don't have water i suppose.

 

[StubbsPKS]

I had a post and lost it

The basics of the post were:

I don't think it's TOO expensive, I was simply replying to the guy who has been saying that we need to pay more in order to grow the sport.

The problem with shifting blame to the site owners is that we (tournament players) are not their bread and butter. We do not keep their business running. The walk-on/rec ball players do this, and that is who they must cater toward if they want to remain in business.

We are lucky enough to have a field local to us that is willing to support us in any way they can, but they just don't have the ability to get a field set up that represents what we'll be seeing at CPPS due to space constraints.

I would LOVE to kickstart the Scottish League again, but I just don't know the first step in getting this done or if there are enough teams/venues interested in this.

 

[Liam92]

The problem with shifting blame to the site owners is that we (tournament players) are not their bread and butter. We do not keep their business running. The walk-on/rec ball players do this, and that is who they must cater toward if they want to remain in business.

the reason tournament players cannot be considered their 'bread and butter' is because there isn't any! as you've already mentioned the best potential scottish paintball had was the CSPL and it was reflected by the number of players turning out for the very first outing, despite it having relatively little publicity.

well now the problem is that because there is no opportunity for tourney players to play then obviously they just can't exist. yes recball needs to be accounted for but the sport will never be sustained for tourney players if they don't even have the possibility of playing, and thats before we even start talking about money. as per my previous post, now that we are hopefully seeing a return of supair sites in scotland aimed at tourney players and not recballers then there WILL be an increase in players/teams.

 

[StubbsPKS]

I hope so too. The problem is that there are a finite number of tournament players, but an almost unlimited number of people who will come out and try paintball once or twice at a site for a laugh.

Catering specifically to that small number is very difficult even in the US where the number is larger. The fields that do airball in the US (at least near where I was) also have 2 or 3 woodsball fields bc those guys are the ones making money for the site. If we could just convince the site owners that have room to put up a speedball field (I'd settle for hyperball at this point) that is something like what we'd find at CPPS we'd be in better shape.

I am pretty excited to hear about these airball fields as I'd only previously heard about one so far. We just might be able to restart the league if there are going to be 3 or more fields to host tournaments on...

 

[Dusty]

We have the facilities in place for practice and have even run the odd one day event, up until a couple of years ago it was always well attended. The harsh reality is that a lot of people were hit very hard during the recession, had to pull out of playing ball and it hasn't recovered. Paintball is a leisure activity, when it comes down to choosing between groceries and fun time, guess what wins?

Being on the brink of another financial crisis means people are simply being more careful with their money, including business owners.