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Delta Force... good for the sport or not?

Mark Vickery

Member
Mar 25, 2016
34
19
18
55
London
Right, so my partner and I are doing a documentary covering off all aspects of Paintball worldwide( not just the US perspective), it's history and where it might be headed.

So I was having a chat with Robbo via text when I was approached by someone from Delta Force asking if I wanted to try out Paintball.

I laughed.

Then I got thinking. After a long hiatus from Paintball and only have only been playing in the UK for 12 months... I really know naff all about them other than I have seen them doing the same thing all over London... and Sydney... and Brisbane too I think.

I got the impression they are the corporate sharks of the paintball world. They take take take and give nothing back to the sport...

However, my girlfriend was curious and had a look at their website and said she was really impressed and thought that all paintball fields should look like that (or words of that general nature).

So having no real experience with them, other than their hard sales technique, I thought I might throw out the question to those of you who actually have experience with them.

Force? Or Farce?
 

Tony Harrison

What is your beef with the Mac?
Mar 13, 2007
6,516
1,874
238
Good at making a ****load of cash off the back of first-time players. Otherwise, bunch of ****s.
 

Tom

Tom
Nov 27, 2006
4,082
1,211
198
Salisbury
www.TaskForceDelta.co.uk
Delta Force are not totally evil.

What is often forgotten by paintballers with pricing is that Delta Force is a rental site and has pricing in line with rental prices. Their pricing structure is the same as any other punter price, but they do tend to be a bit higher than independent sites - that is because they really are the national giant complete with national advertising and everyone else has to compete.

Delta Force give people a good day out, and have the resources to put in the infrastructure.

On a site by site basis the service they give is as good as the manager and staff they have there.


Street sellers are valid for the bad reputation. This is now run under the name IPG, which allows them to have inflated ticket prices on the IPG website and the sellers 'discount' the tickets to £6.99 for a book. The £6.99 or whatever they charge the individual on the street goes to the marketing charges (to the shopping centre etc for their pitch and wages to the sellers)
The ticket book gives the buyer the contact details for the booking office and then it costs normal punter prices to book their day and to buy paint
Some street sellers blatantly lie. In the U.K. the IPG/Delta Force sellers (in the majority) don't give the worst lies. Those that do tend to be one off casual sellers, and they result in complaints and refunds.
10 years ago we had a number of street ticket brands, most of which were dodgy tickets sold for any site in the U.K. with no co-operation with the site.
Joe Bloggs bought tickets then arrived at a site, they could get turned away but sites would typically honour the tickets and take the income from paint sales. (All the site lost was the deposit amount and the inability to manage the right number of marshalls)
The other ticket sellers have gone out of business in the U.K., hounded out by Trading Standards.


What this does is cover the marketing costs and make the tickets 'valuable' to the punter. Instead of taking a free flyer and then not bothering to pursue it, or not getting out of bed on game day - the money paid for the ticket motivates the group and turns someone into a group organizer to coordinate and motivate everyone

I have seen things recently online on Facebook about Delta Force tickets in the US. These gave the impression that sellers were selling fake tickets. If that's the case deal with it highlighting to the shopping centre & local authorities etc. But if they are selling valid tickets (and are just hyping them up) then it's marketing

We have small communities of regular players.
As a scenario player I was there in the hey day about 10 years ago, and I was also looking across to US scenario and US / UK tournament paintball which looked to be booming.
On some threads people are saying that UK/European tournaments are in decline, and there are a couple mentions of scenario booming.
There is good stuff going on in scenario, but it's still not how it was in the old days.

I would say that tournament, scenario, magfed all have their numbers, and I feel that walkons are probably where it is at the moment.
There are some solid teams, but that takes money, dedication and travel for scenario, magfed and tournament. Walkons give something local for people to play as often as they can.
The real numbers are in punter play, with people playing only once or a handful of times in their life, whilst some come back again and again.
This is where Delta Force and independent sites shine and are the backbone of paintball

Personnaly here in Salisbury there were local ticket sellers who regularly slandered me. This was either because everyone I knew referred to my team and that if we were given leaflets then we would take a major group to a good site, or the sellers were lieing to pretend to disassociate IPG with the Delta Force name
Abuse was given about me and my team (Task Force Delta) either for some unknown personal reason to hate us, or lies/ignorance about the difference between TFD & DF

I'm no fan of Delta Force, and have never played a DF site. But I know people who have, and they have come back happy
This includes my nephew who had his first paintball experiences with me at walkons scenarios and also running scenario events
He arrived into great quality scenario events in the U.K. run by people such as the Wild Geese, but also came back saying how good Delta Force was on a basic punter day.


Delta Force = national corporate punter / rental sites
IPG = marketing method to sell tickets
UKPBA = pretend association in name only, fake version or the UKPSF
 
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Mark Vickery

Member
Mar 25, 2016
34
19
18
55
London
Delta Force are not totally evil.

What is often forgotten by paintballers with pricing is that Delta Force is a rental site and has pricing in line with rental prices. Their pricing structure is the same as any other punter price, but they do tend to be a bit higher than independent sites - that is because they really are the national giant complete with national advertising and everyone else has to compete.

Delta Force give people a good day out, and have the resources to put in the infrastructure.

On a site by site basis the service they give is as good as the manager and staff they have there.


Street sellers are valid for the bad reputation. This is now run under the name IPG, which allows them to have inflated ticket prices on the IPG website and the sellers 'discount' the tickets to £6.99 for a book. The £6.99 or whatever they charge the individual on the street goes to the marketing charges (to the shopping centre etc for their pitch and wages to the sellers)
The ticket book gives the buyer the contact details for the booking office and then it costs normal punter prices to book their day and to buy paint
Some street sellers blatantly lie. In the U.K. the IPG/Delta Force sellers (in the majority) don't give the worst lies. Those that do tend to be one off casual sellers, and they result in complaints and refunds.
10 years ago we had a number of street ticket brands, most of which were dodgy tickets sold for any site in the U.K. with no co-operation with the site.
Joe Bloggs bought tickets then arrived at a site, they could get turned away but sites would typically honour the tickets and take the income from paint sales. (All the site lost was the deposit amount and the inability to manage the right number of marshalls)
The other ticket sellers have gone out of business in the U.K., hounded out by Trading Standards.


What this does is cover the marketing costs and make the tickets 'valuable' to the punter. Instead of taking a free flyer and then not bothering to pursue it, or not getting out of bed on game day - the money paid for the ticket motivates the group and turns someone into a group organizer to coordinate and motivate everyone

I have seen things recently online on Facebook about Delta Force tickets in the US. These gave the impression that sellers were selling fake tickets. If that's the case deal with it highlighting to the shopping centre & local authorities etc. But if they are selling valid tickets (and are just hyping them up) then it's marketing

We have small communities of regular players.
As a scenario player I was there in the hey day about 10 years ago, and I was also looking across to US scenario and US / UK tournament paintball which looked to be booming.
On some threads people are saying that UK/European tournaments are in decline, and there are a couple mentions of scenario booming.
There is good stuff going on in scenario, but it's still not how it was in the old days.

I would say that tournament, scenario, magfed all have their numbers, and I feel that walkons are probably where it is at the moment.
There are some solid teams, but that takes money, dedication and travel for scenario, magfed and tournament. Walkons give something local for people to play as often as they can.
The real numbers are in punter play, with people playing only once or a handful of times in their life, whilst some come back again and again.
This is where Delta Force and independent sites shine and are the backbone of paintball

Personnaly here in Salisbury there were local ticket sellers who regularly slandered me. This was either because everyone I knew referred to my team and that if we were given leaflets then we would take a major group to a good site, or the sellers were lieing to pretend to disassociate IPG with the Delta Force name
Abuse was given about me and my team (Task Force Delta) either for some unknown personal reason to hate us, or lies/ignorance about the difference between TFD & DF

I'm no fan of Delta Force, and have never played a DF site. But I know people who have, and they have come back happy
This includes my nephew who had his first paintball experiences with me at walkons scenarios and also running scenario events
He arrived into great quality scenario events in the U.K. run by people such as the Wild Geese, but also came back saying how good Delta Force was on a basic punter day.


Delta Force = national corporate punter / rental sites
IPG = marketing method to sell tickets
UKPBA = pretend association in name only, fake version or the UKPSF
Thank you. That was very helpful.
 

Missy-Q

300lb of Chocolate Love
Jul 31, 2007
2,524
1,132
198
Harlem, NY
31 fields in the UK, 17 in Aus and NZ, and they just opened their 6th field in Canada.
That's a hell of an operation!
They also buy new fleet, often. Far more often than your average paintball field. Meaning that they keep their equipment up to date, including their masks. I wish all fields did that!
They are bringing on 50cal and offering Low Impact Paintball. I see this as the future of recreational play, as it is so much kinder on the players. Having DF go that route is a big deal, and shows they do care about their customers and the future of the game.

To say that a company that runs over 50 paintball fields, and has dozens of full time staff, does not care about paintball, is counter-intuitive. My guess is that they care more than most people. They have way have more to lose than any other field.

Delta-hate stems from envy, and from losing. In my experience, if a Delta Force field opens in an area, all the fields in that area do better, because Delta Force will advertise and promote the game in the region. All that business they create does not end up with them. Some of it goes to the other fields. It is an individual business-owners choice whether to view Delta Force as a threat or an opportunity. Most will just see the threat, and I feel that's a little short-sighted, given what I have seen happen in the market..
 
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Missy-Q

300lb of Chocolate Love
Jul 31, 2007
2,524
1,132
198
Harlem, NY
You want Ivan. He's in charge of UK ops.
I can't remember Ivan's last name, but he played for the Turks back in the day, so Razordave may know.