Save Paintball

[Aslan]

Yes and No

I think $100 is to high, $80 is pretty good, but paintball fields need to make money to stay open, other wise we've go noware to play. 90% of the fields are only open on weekends, that's two days to make enough money to cover all the expenses, not only paying the Refs, but buying supplies upkeep of equipment (rental gear, air stations) , paying for insurance and the rent for the land or property taxes if by chance the field owns the land. What if there is a rained out weekend, hardly anyone plays and up in the northing states, Illinos, Wisconsin, Indiana, most of the fields are only open 9 months a year.

I realize they need to make money...I was trying to offer them a way to make MORE money by attracting more and more people to the sport and growing their customer base. Lets say a field charges $40 for a day and $100 for a case of paint. Lets say 20-50 people show up each day. They'll make maybe $4000/day depending on how much paint, exactly how many people, other equipment rentals and air refills, concessions, etc... Lets say they reduce the entrance fee to $35 and the paint to $30 (if you paid admission for the day). Now maybe after a few weeks of the word spreading...you start getting 60-200 people showing up. Now your field is making around $8000/day and you reduced both prices! More importantly, you probably quadrupled you client base, many of which will come again and more often because of the lower prices. Sure, you would need to add some refs, maybe make some field upgrades to acccomodate the influx...but if there are too many players, you can always raise the fees just a little bit to trim the numbers.

[Jaan]

People wonder why stores are struggling...it's simple...everything is overpriced. A person goes to Wal-Mart and sees a Tippmann 98 for $119 on sale and PMI paint for $40 a case. Then they go to a paintball store and the same gun is $219 by itself and the paint is $60/case. I understand it's often times hard to compete with Wal Mart volumes...but from a consumer standpoint...in an age when almost anything can be done online...what do you (the paintball store) really offer your customers? It used to be variety, quality, and knowledge. But I've seen less knowledgeable store clerks, empty display cases, and cheaper and cheaper paint going for more and more $$$.

One of my friends owns a local paintball store. I can tell you as a customer what I see ... he's knowlegable, he gives a one year warranty on every gun he sells, a free pass to one of two local fields for ever gun purchase, a discount based on how much you spent in his store, and his paint is fresh, not like the WalMart stuff where it might have been sitting forever. Oh yeah, his prices are good too. New players go in not knowing much about the sport and come away not feeling cheated. Usually, the first thing he'll say to new players is "If you're only going to play once or twice a year, you're better off renting". Yes, he's turning away a customer but a lot of them come back in a year or two when they're ready to buy thier own guns. I think customer service is vastly underrated these days and internet ordering isn't all it's cracked up to be. You only have to get ripped off once or twice before you realize maybe price isn't the only thing to consider.

[Paintchucker]

Here's my alternative proposal: Make paint at the field cheap. Charge an extra $10 entrance fee, let $5 of that increase go to raising the pay of the refs (in an attempt to get better quality refs with better attitudes) and use the other $5 of the increase to offset the losses you'll incur in paint costs. Essentially, instead of marking a $40 case of premium paint up to $60 at the field...mark it down to $25 or $30 IF that person pays the entrance fee and buys it at the field. Charge $50 or $60 for it in the store, but have the salespeople point out that they could get the paint cheaper if they go to the field and play one weekend.

So by marking down the paintballs by $25 and charging an extra $5 in the overhead of the field fee... That means that there have to be 5x as many people show just to break even... And if the people that do show up, shoot more paint, you are making less margin...

Where did you study economics again???

Let us know how long your field lasts after you start it!

Good Luck...

[shartley]

[covadsucks]

Well said Shartley...truly well said.

[Konigballer]

"Well said Shartley...truly well said."

I second that. Why dont we start a movement to save AO from melodramatic threads about 'saving paintball','SP is evil', 'where is are sport headed..', 'mags our dying', 'woodsball vs. speedball', 'tournies are ruining the sport', and yadda, yadda, yadda...

Its just a game, and like Shartely said,"Paintball is a GAME. It is not a requirement." it will survive in one form or another.

PS: 50-60 bucks for a case of premium paint is a friggin' bargain compared to what I was paying for inferior 'premium' paint in the late 90's. The sport was NEVER cheap and will never be cheap. It has never needed to be cheap to gurantee is survival and sucess, because, as always, "people will come, Ray...people will most definately come."

[Meph]

...What idea do you have that you feel would most help the sport of paintball become more popular...

It don't need to be MORE popular. If anything it's getting too popular too fast. Paintball's this little known sleeping giant, and eventually something bad's gonna happen I feel.

Not a "death" of paintball. But something that will make the government suddenly decide to crack down on this game. If not wanting to enforce a registration like they do for hunters and fisherman.

[slade]

Paintball doesnt need to be saved. I'm happy with the way it is. I don't buy into the hype, I have great fields around me, and I can afford to play just about whenever I want.

What is there to save?

agreed.



sorry Aslan, but im getting sick of your posts. you play one game of speedball, one game, and then start a thread on how its killing the sport. and you keep arguing even though it was ONE GAME and you also keep contradicting yourself.

from the other thread, it seems like you think paintball is dying because new players wont play because they are intimidated by tourney players, and then also everything costs too much. so what do you propose? drop paint prices. that makes it cheaper, but then tourney players can afford more paint so maybe they shoot more which, according to you, would make new players even more intimidated and less likely to continue playing. but then the field needs to keep up its revenue, so you propose raising the enterance cost? sorry, but wtf are you thinking? then new players would just see it costs $35 just to walk on the field, PLUS money for paint and a rental if need be, and be less likely to play. if its $15-25 to enter, they will be more likely to play. remember, newbs generally shoot less paint so the money the field earns can come from paint from heavy shooting tourney teams. with the fields revenue coming from paint, new players will be much more likely to continue playing. and wait, then you suggest paying the refs more?? why?? that raises the cost of playing even MORE, and most of the refs ive seen have been fine.


ok, so youre a rec player, you dont like speedball or tourneys. fine. some of my friends prefer rec. but stop making 500 posts on why speedball is bad or why its killing the sport or why new players are intimidated! new players can start out fine at speedball fields - im proof of that. and rec fields, as well as pump play will not die anytime soon. if players dont want to start out with speedball, they can always go play in the woods. of the fields ive been to, there are two huge woodsball fields within an hour of me, and only one dedicated speedball field.

sorry, i didnt want to flame you because you seem to want to be nice and civil about this, but im sick of seeing your posts. you play one game of speedball and then say its the death of paintball, and then you keep contradicting yourself or changing your argument. thats why i left the other thread, it was just impossible to argue with you.


oh, and in case you havent heard, paintball is still growing. and yes, that is partially - if not mostly - due to speedball.

[tribalman]

good post above.

at my field we raise the price $10 on thursdays for byop. it was the usual turney players anyway so whatever. friday,sat, and sunday are the normal 10entry, 5 air, 85 case.


but ok, little math work here, follow along. at my field, there are always 3 ppl there. 2 refs, and 1 person running the register. now assuming they make $6.50(minimum wage) and the hours of the place is from 12 noon till 10pm( ease of math, what can i say, i'm lazy.)
3 ppl x 6.50an hour x 10 hours = $195.
for the next equation i'm assuming the normal entry of $15 will go to rent and electricty, and buying co2 tanks for refilling co2 tanks.
ok, now to cover the cost of employees ALONE at you need to:
$195 divided by $5 = 39 people to arrive on that day to cover the employees. i'm not seeing much profit margins. ok, i know i am making some HUGE assumptions and cutting LOTS of corners and there are tons of other factors, but just proving on an easy scale aslans idea will not work.

[Lohman446]

To those of you complaining about prices:

How many of you have actual business experience allowing you to understand the ideas of profit, markup, and overhead? Honestly serious question because it seems to me that a lot of people telling us how business should be run (not all)... well don't have an honest clue.


____________________________________________

[MadPSIence]

What would save paintball? Ettiquette and Integrity. The foundation of every team sport in the world except for paintball.

[JRingold]

The rising costs of paint and field fees, is just another incentive to play stock class.

[Jaan]

The rising costs of paint and field fees, is just another incentive to play stock class.

Well, how about a semi auto stock class? Guns would have to be mechanical, unmodified except for barrel. Have a list of acceptable gun, such as spyder and tippmann 98. Something along those lines. Many other sports have those limitations in class, why not paintball?

[Meph]

Because mechanicals can still rip pretty fast. I'm not the fastest in the world by any means, but when I had a cocker I could get 10bps consistently w/ 12bps bursts. And that's only what the chronograph reads out, I don't knwo what I was doing after all that adrenaline was pumping through my fingers.

So a (semi) mechanical class really doesn't hold anything special.

The prize that is Stock Class (pump) is the fact that it is PUMP. It's not just mechanical but uber-mechanical. You don't have streams of paint flying, an entire team can use 1 case of paint all day long.

[Jaan]

Because mechanicals can still rip pretty fast. I'm not the fastest in the world by any means, but when I had a cocker I could get 10bps consistently w/ 12bps bursts. And that's only what the chronograph reads out, I don't knwo what I was doing after all that adrenaline was pumping through my fingers.

So a (semi) mechanical class really doesn't hold anything special.

The prize that is Stock Class (pump) is the fact that it is PUMP. It's not just mechanical but uber-mechanical. You don't have streams of paint flying, an entire team can use 1 case of paint all day long.

That's why you make rules. The same sort of graduated firepower scale that pump gun stock class already use, and pretty much any sport that is centered around equipment like auto racing and firearms competition also use.

In fact, what I was thinking about specifically is the Civilian Marksmanship Program. It's a rifle competition where you basically can only shoot a stock M1 or M14. That's it, no real mods apart from what a good cleaning and adjustment would give you. I like that idea myself, compete against skill and not equipment.

http://www.odcmp.com/

I mentioned a list of acceptable markers for a reason. Mechanical 'Cockers and 'Mags shoot fast and might be out of the question. The point is to have a paintball game where people who DON'T want to spend a lot of money on a marker can play and not feel outclassed by super duper guns. What's wrong with that?