Staffing a Paintball Field

Of all the jobs involved with running a paintball field, staffing and dealing with employees is probably the most difficult, in my opinion.  The number of staff we need at our field varies greatly.  For instance, if my business partner and myself are both present at the field when open for business and we only have a small group of players (which happens often on weekdays with small private bookings), we only need one extra staff member.  On the other hand if we have several games going on simultaneously with 150 or more players present at the field, we might need 12 or even more staff.

Therefore we need a sizable list of part time, on call employees to draw from.  We can’t promise these employees a lot of work, because there often is not a lot of work available for them.  Yet on occasion we do need them, desperately.  Luckily by offering discounts to employees, we have quite a few regular players that are willing to put in a shift now and then.

Like any business, we see a wide range of employees.  Some are great, others, not so much.  Those that don’t do so well, get called back very infrequently, or not at all.  Those that do really well, get called often.  It’s only natural.

One of our competitors advertises that they use only adult refs.  It’s an obvious dig at us, as we have both adult and teenage staff members.  And I’ve seen many a forum discussion over the years about how “kids” shouldn’t be allowed to ref.  Kids can’t handle altercations that take place at paintball fields and can’t stand up for themselves, is the main argument.  It’s a fair statement, IF those things are commonplace at those fields.  But they aren’t at our field.  The intensity level is low enough that altercations are rare.  We also have adult or senior refs on duty every day that could step in if necessary.

Could we have only adult staff?  Yeah probably, but the overall quality of the staff would slip seriously.  Why?  To get 12 or more refs for busy days, we need an extensive call list.  We usually have about 40 or so names on the list to draw from, but sometimes, that’s not enough, especially in the summertime, which also happens to be our busiest time.  Most competent, responsible adults have other full time employment as well as having other adult responsibilities.  Imagine trying to have 40 or more responsible adults on call to put in a shift at a paintball field every once in a while.  It would be nearly impossible.  Sure, you could probably find 40 irresponsible adults that might be willing to show up now and then, but who wants them?

On the other hand, the younger teenage staff we have to draw from is quite extensive.  They are also eager, at least many of them.  For many it’s their first job and coupled with discounts on playing the game they love, they usually try quite hard.  They are often in better physical shape, meaning they can run to paintchecks much quicker.

Some of our younger refs over the years have stayed with us to become adult refs, but most move on to bigger and better things, which is what I expect them to do.  If they are good, eager teenage employees, then chances are they are going to become responsible energetic adults.  They aren’t going to stick around working at a paintball field when there is so much more out there waiting for them.

Therefore, when a paintball field advertises that they have only adult employees, then my radar goes on alert and I wonder how good the overall staffing is.  Unless the field has very little business and needs very few refs, my intuition tells me that some of those “adult” refs may not necessarily be stellar employees.  By not discriminating by age, we have the ability to attract and keep more good staff.  That’s the way I see it anyway.

Bucking the Trends

I was reminiscing today at the field about the good old days of being a teenager.  We were talking about the parties we went to.  They were usually house parties with a lot of attendees where everyone gathered to get drunk.  The music was usually blaring so loud; you couldn’t have a conversation with the person beside you.  Every once in a while someone would put their thumb up and say something along the lines of, “Isn’t this great?”  Of course I would agree, because to disagree would make you an outsider.  People would think you were weird.  Looking back at my youth, those times were not very memorable.  I can honestly say that i didn’t actually enjoy those big, loud parties and I have a feeling most of the other people, if they were truly honest with themselves, didn’t get a lot out of them either.  But it was the thing to do and if you wanted to fit in, you attended.

That’s sort of the way I feel about big scenario paintball games.  I hear people who go to these games and they come back and say stuff like, “It was just insane.  There were so many people there and there was so much paint flying, it was crazy”.  And I believe them.  But was it fun?  I’ve been to big games and it was OK, but I have to say that for the most part, I found it quite frustrating and less fun than the average day of paintball at the local field.  With the number of people on the field there was much less chance for movement.  Being the type of player that likes to be at the front lines and get as close to my opponent as possible, I got shot by my own team in the back more than by the other team.  When I did hit players (with a pump, I only hit them once), more often than not they didn’t call themselves out.  There were never enough refs to make sure people followed the rules.  In general, I just didn’t enjoy it that much.  And I’m quite perplexed that others do.  But apparently they do, because they keep going back.  I’m just not sure why.  Is it just because it’s a big paintball event and they want to be able to say they took part in the insanity?

As I’m getting older, I’m feeling quite comfortable in my skin and I really don’t care a lot about what others think.  I like to make up my own mind about things and I try to form my own opinion, based on how I feel rather than how I am expected to feel or react.  Maybe I’m just not cool anymore. Maybe.  But I just don’t care.

Low Impact, Low Intensity Paintball

The launch of the newly released JT SplatMaster (you can read about it here if you’re not aware of it yet, http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?t=3840774 ) has got my mind churning.

From a business perspective, KEE/JT has aimed selling these to kids playing in their backyard and that is what their promotional videos clearly demonstrate.  I’m sure kids will have a lot of fun doing just that (I’m not so sure mom and dad will have as much fun cleaning the paint stains off their siding and their SUV in the driveway though).  The market KEE/JT is aiming at is huge.  I’m sure they will sell quite a few of these.  The novelty, like any toy, I’m sure will wear off, but like the Hoola Hoop, hundreds of millions will be sold to kids all over the world before the novelty wears off.

The whole thing has got me thinking though about how I could use something similar in my business to provide fun to smaller groups of younger and timid players, players that just aren’t quite brave or tough enough to play our current format of paintball.  That market is also very big.  I know from being a field owner that I could get lots of younger players’ (9 to 12 year olds) birthday parties at our field, if the impact of the paintballs and the intensity on the field were considerably milder than what it is now.

But the JT Splatmaster doesn’t quite cut it for me, from a rental point of view.  The upside of the marker is that it needs no air or power source other than that of the user compressing the spring with a pump handle.  That’s awesome.  No CO2 or air needed.  It’s also inexpensive.  The downside is, it’s made of plastic.  Also, shooting 50 caliber paintballs at 100 to 140 fps, although creating impact that hurts very little, seems to be just a little too slow.  I’d have to do some testing, but I think I would like a marker that shoots a 50 cal paintball more in the 175 to 200 fps range (adjustable velocity of course).  I’d also like it made of aluminum.  Without an air source needed, a simple aluminum marker would still be plenty light enough for the 9 to 12 year old crowd.

I realize that to shoot even a 50 caliber paintball at 175 to 200 fps would require a much heavier spring that that in the JT SplatMaster.  That now becomes an issue with strength needed to cock the marker.  I’m not an engineer (nor have I ever played one on TV), but I’m thinking that something with a lever action cocking mechanism could overcome the strength that would be needed issue.

So, are there any engineer/designer/machinists out there up for a challenge?  Assuming you do it right, I’ll take 40 right off the bat and I have a feeling there would be many other field owners out there that would want something like this.  What I’m envisioning is something light, 50 caliber, easy enough for the average 9 year old to cock, removable barrel, spring powered, adjustable velocity (I assume this could be easily accomplished with an adjustment knob at the back to compress/decompress the spring), and a detent (probably a simple wire or rubber one that’s easy on paintballs).  Also, since I am envisioning low intensity games for younger players, the feeder would not have to be large at all.  A “stock class” tube running parallel with the barrel would easily hold plenty of 50 caliber paintballs.  Kids could be given one or two tubes with another 15 or 20 paintballs in them.

So who is in?  I have a feeling there would be a big market for something like this for the “outlaw” crowd as well.  Cheap 50 cal paintballs and no air needed.  Sounds like that would make for a fun weekend up at the cabin.

Odd Day

Today was an odd day at our field.  It was the first day of our 2 for 1 Wednesdays, we are hosting every Wednesday during July & August.  It came just two days after a big sale we had this past long weekend (It was Canada Day July 1, so virtually the whole country had Monday off as well), so we had a feeling it would be a slow day.

We were right.  Only 15 people showed up, not one of them renting.  That’s very unusual for our field, although the gear owner numbers having been increasing over the years, with a smaller percentage of our customers renting (the number of renters is not decreasing, just the percentage).  I’m not overly concerned about the small numbers and the fact that we lost money today.  We’ll make up for it on other days.  That’s just the way it works in business sometimes.

I did not actually work today as I had overseen Monday’s and Tuesday’s games, so it was my business partner’s turn today.  But I did take a look at the pictures that he posted to our Facebook page tonight.   You can see them here:  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.411769118858710.79310.160099750692316&type=1   What stood out for me was the number of pumps the gear owners were using and how many of the gear owners that weren’t using pumps, were using 50 round hoppers, with no visible pod packs carried.  Yeah, there were two or three players there with 200 round hoppers and look like they had pod packs as well, but the vast majority didn’t.

It makes me proud to know that with our policies we have created a field where most people choose to shoot lower volumes.  We have no rate of fire restrictions other than no full auto or ramping.  We don’t limit the amount of paint players can carry on the field (except our refs who are not allowed to carry pods of extra paint as they get paint at a discount and it would not be fair to others who do not get the discounted price).  But people choose to shoot less paintballs.  People also choose to come to our field more than any other field on Vancouver Island, by a good margin.   It’s not because we are the cheapest.  We’re not.  It’s because of the atmosphere.

When own gear players choose to take out only 50 paintballs in a 15 minute game, you can be reasonably sure they are not going to go hog wild on other players.  It’s rare when you hear strings of high ROF paintballs during one of our games.  I hear it when I play at other fields all the time, but at our field, I only hear it occasionally and only for short durations.  Because of that, our customers tend to have fun, on any given day, even on days when there are no renters around.

Three Strikes...You're Out!

I wrote the following on another site (View From the Deadbox) as a response to someone whose opinion I respect who suggested the industry hasn't/hadn't done enough to promote tournament paintball, but instead pushed "warlike" recreational paintball too much.  Since I haven't posted much here because I'm getting lazy (or too busy, you choose), I thought I would throw it up so y'all don't think I'm doing nothing at all.  Here goes:

I’m not sure what else you wanted the industry to do. You certainly didn’t expect Tippmann and the like to abandon their very profitable business of supplying their customers what they demanded did you? If you did that was just wishful thinking. The industry has always made efforts to supply a broader market. Abandoning non-competitive type play for competitive type play will never happen. Product lines expanded and many, many fields opened with tournament type only fields and many others added tournament type fields to their mix. When I went into the business, the buzz I heard everywhere was that the future in paintball lay in speedball. This was 2001. I fully intended to go into the speedball market (who in their right mind would want to miss out on a shifting trend?), as were most of the other fields in the area. My competitors were actively recruiting players from the “rec” business to join the fun on the speedball fields (the owners themselves were heavily involved in tournament play, so it was their passion). But in the end, after all their efforts, they could never attract enough participants to make it a viable business, it was always a sideline that they had to inject funds into (rather than take funds out of).

Now, had all us field owners abandoned their “rec” businesses completely and speedball were all that was offered, then sure, competitive paintball would have grown more, although most would just be playing “rec” paintball on speedball fields, but we would have also alienated a huge portion of the market that does not want to play on small fields, with extreme rates of fire, and large numbers of paintballs. What (intelligent) industry would abandon a large part of their customer base to try to convert them into customers of their other product line and in the process alienating (losing) many of them? We don’t see cheap fast food restaurants closing, in hopes that everyone will start eating at high end restaurants.

If the “sport” of paintball wants to grow, then it needs to concentrate on its product. Competitive paintball, although using similar equipment as recreational paintball, is a totally different business, with a totally different product, and totally different demands of their customer base. Tournament type paintball needs to stop thinking about converting rec players, but needs to concentrate on creating something that enough people want to take part in, and more importantly, can afford to take part in. If you want to create “Demand”, which is what you are trying to do, then you need to “Supply” what people might want at a price they feel is worth spending.

I agree that a lot of people want to play sports and I believe there is a much bigger demand for competitive style paintball than is currently being supplied to. I know many, many “rec” players that tried to get into the competitive paintball scene, only to be jaded, mostly by the cost (although that is not the only issue). The product that is being supplied at the cost demanded of the customer, can’t keep those customers, even though they dearly want to play the “sport”. I’m sure we all know many people like that.

The problem I see with the evolution of tournament paintball, is that field owners tried to build a product based on “volume”. However, the “volume” was paintballs, and not customers. They figured if they could get everyone shooting more paintballs, they would sell more paintballs and make the whole thing profitable. That whole concept has three very basic flaws though. First, as you sell more, the price goes down, so the field owners end up making the same or maybe even less per customer. Second, supplying a product based on extreme rates of fire, eliminates a very large portion of the population. Third, those that are willing to take part, because of the high volumes of paint necessary, even though relatively cheap, need to spend a lot of money compete. Now you’ve created a product that only a small percentage are willing to take part in due to the extremity level, is very costly for those that do want to take part, and is not profitable for those supplying the product. Three strikes....you’re out!