Amenities

Two of the most common complaints about paintball fields that I see by players on paintball forums are first, it's too expensive and second, fields don't have enough decent amenities. Of course it's really no different than what customers want from any business; more for less.

The market dictates the prices that can be charged by a paintball field. That in turn determines who and how many are willing to supply the facilities. Amenities cost money. Sure it would be nice to have pristine washrooms cleaned hourly. A locker room would be nice too. Preferably with showers stocked with fragrant soap and shampoo. How about Hooter type employees walking around the staging areas supplying free fruit beverages (sorry, can't do the Champagne at a paintball field). The staging area would be heated and cooled with freshly filtered air of course.

Yes, there really is no limit to amenities once you start dreaming. But in the end, it comes down to what the customer is willing to pay for. Since the biggest current complaint about fields is the cost, take a wild guess on when the average field is going to make big improvements on its offerings. Although the more I think about those Hooter type employees, the more I'm believing that might be something that a paintball field's customer demographic would be willing to pay for. Hmmm....how do I word that Want ad?

Word of Mouth

It has long been believed that the most cost effective advertising for a paintball field is word of mouth. The cost is zero. The benefits can be great...or not so great.

How does word of mouth advertising work? The name basically explains it. Basically your past customers are spreading the word about your business for you. It's very effective for many types of business but really effective for businesses in the entertainment industry and even more so for businesses in the entertainment industry where customers interact. Night clubs are a good example of how a business can succeed through word of mouth advertising. A popular night club is for a great part busy because it is popular. Now you are reading that and saying to yourself, Reiner, that makes no sense at all. Let me explain.

With word of mouth advertising, a business will be advertised more if there are more mouths in the community spreading the word. There is a big difference if there are 500 people out there singing your praises rather than 100 people. Makes sense right? Therefore, if your business has lots of customers and assuming those customers leave your facility happy and go out and about saying good things about you, word of mouth advertising will work great for you. That's why the busy, popular night club stays busy and popular. Large crowds of people are having a good time and then telling their friends that they should come and have a good time with them next time. The nightclub down the street that might be just as tastefully decorated, similar pricing structures and ambience, might only have one quarter of the customers. Even though those customers may have a great time and would most likely return, that's only one quarter as many people out in the community advertising for them. Therefore the popular night club stays more popular.

Entertainment businesses where customers interact very little, like a movie theatre for instance, will benefit much less from word of mouth advertising. When going to see a movie, it really doesn't matter if there are hundreds of other customers there or not. The entertainment (the movie) won't be significantly different for the viewer.

At a paintball field, the interaction between customers is huge. Even though the other customers may be perfect strangers to you, you are forced to interact with them, at least while playing the game. But even in the staging area, between games, it's very common to see people who were total strangers just minutes ago, tell each other their versions of their "war stories" or congratulating them on their roll and actions on the field. On busy days at our field, the staging area can feel and sound like it's "buzzing". Even those that tend to be quiet and shy, are at least in the midst of the "buzz" all around them. That feeling isn't there on days when there are relatively few players present. Sure the players will most likely still have fun, but it's not the same. Therefore a popular paintball field, just like the popular night club will in part stay popular because it is popular.

Let's back track a bit. At the beginning of this post I said that the benefits from word of mouth can be great or they can be not so great. Word of mouth advertising can be great when it's working for you, but it can also work against you. If your customers are having a good time, they go back out into the community and advertise in a positive way for you. However, if you customers, or a good portion of them, are not having a good time or didn't feel they received good value for what it cost them, it can work against you. Now you have past customers out in the community slinging mud instead of singing your praises. That's not good. Therefore, obviously, it's extremely important that your customers leave happy and satisfied.

So if word of mouth advertising works best when you have lots of customers singing your praises, what do you do if you don't have that large volume of customers? Answer: You get them. One way or another, you will need to attract people to your field using other means. That's where other forms of advertising, sales and public relations come in. If you are a new field and do not have the large crowds yet, or if for some reason the larger crowds have dwindled some, waiting around for word of mouth to get you to the top may not work out too well for you. If your field is really good and better than all your competitors, word of mouth alone may get you to the top eventually, but it may take a long time. Maybe too long.

So yes, word of mouth is the most cost effective form of marketing, but it alone may not do the trick. If the crowds aren't coming, you need to act.

Simple Things

I don’t like to have to think too much most of the time. That’s probably why I like my paintball simple. I play with a pump. A Phantom most of the time. It’s about as simple as a paintball marker can be. I have in the past and do still own semis and I have even owned electros. Well just one electro back in the day when I toyed with competitive paintball. But it was too complicated for me. It had a regulator and a dwell and buttons I needed to press to make sure the eyes worked. It shot great when everything was working right, but when they weren’t I just found it frustrating.
The whole competitive paintball scene was much too stressful as well. I have a lot of respect for those that play competitively and play well. It wasn’t for me though. Paintball, when I’m playing, is leisure time for me. I want nothing but fun and good times and I don’t think I’m alone. As a matter of fact I built a paintball business around the knowledge that there are lots of people who want to have nothing but simple fun and good times.
Paintball doesn’t need to be complicated. It can be, for people who like that, and over the years, with higher technology, the game definitely has become more complicated. And more stressful. But that is not necessarily what everyone wants. The marketers would certainly like us to think that we will be better off with more gadgets and gear. But let’s face it. In the end, paintball is just a game much like games such as Tag and Hide and Go Seek that we played as children. Simple games. Fun games.
The very first time I played paintball, it reminded me of games I played as a child. It brought me back to simpler times of my youth, when playing simple games was the most stressful thing we did. I fell in love with the game and to this day, almost a quarter century later, it still does that for me.

A dying Sport?

As a paintball field owner, I have met and known lots of people who got into to tournament play. Almost all of them enjoyed it, at first anyway. Very, very few of them have ever stuck with it for any length of time. Almost all of them tell me the reason they quit playing competitive paintball is because they couldn't afford to shoot as much paint as they felt they needed to on an ongoing basis. If competitive paintball did not mandate huge volumes of paint, there would be far, far more people playing it.


So why aren't limited paint competitive tourneys/series more popular? I think it's because paintball is thought of as an extreme sport, so the highest level (and competitive players feel they are playing at a higher level than the rest of the genres), players feel they must play at the most extreme limits. Limited paint competitive play verses high volume competitive play are seen as being similar to flag football verses full contact/tackle football. It can be fun, but it's not for serious competitive players. Since a high percentage of competitive players are males in their teens and early twenties, they aren't going to play a "wimpy" form of paintball. For that reason, competitive paintball has very little chance of ever amounting to anything.

In recent years, as the industry has felt the need to pull out of sponsoring competitive play (or realized there is little fiscal value to support it), the game has become that much more expensive for many players who are now no longer subsidized by manufacturers and even most fields and stores. Competitive paintball, in its current formats will never regain its former levels, recession or not. The economics of the game (again, nothing to do with the recession) hinder the growth that is needed to make it a viable sport, in any commercial sense anyway. Long story, short...what those that play competitive paintball WANT to play and what they CAN AFFORD to play are two different things.

Moving on Up

I want to revisit or expand on a subject touched upon a few weeks ago in my A Step Between post (can be found here: http://reiner-schafer.blogspot.com/2010/11/step-between.html).

It’s been fairly widely accepted in our industry during the last few years that we must protect those trying paintball for the first time and provide a less extreme environment for them in hopes that they won’t get discouraged on their first visit and may actually decide to come back, hopefully again and again. I certainly share this view and feel that as an industry we are slowly making strides in that direction, although we still have a long way to go.

But I think there is a problem if we as an industry think this is enough. I constantly see people saying things like, “well a field needs to keep renters and gear owners apart so that the renters don’t get overshot”. Again, I don’t disagree that this is a bad idea, but I also don’t believe that by itself will fix our problems.

Another thing I see very often is players that have been involved with paintball who have quit, or are thinking of quitting, because they don’t like the way the game has changed. These players are not new players but are experienced players. These would be the players that are thrown together into the “gear owner” group, keeping them away from the renter group. They don’t like play at their local field anymore. I see this sentiment voiced often, but I wonder how many times it happens (players quitting for such reasons) that we don’t hear about it, when players just disappear off the paintball map never to be heard from again.

If seasoned players are quitting because of the way the game has become more extreme, how many new (no seasoning applied yet) wannabe players are we losing? I suspect that number is very high. Making efforts to attract and make the first time players’ experience a good one, only to throw them into an environment that is too extreme for many of them to want to continue with, seems like we are only going halfway with our efforts.

At our field we have more or less given up on trying to keep renters and gear owners separate. It’s not that I think it’s a bad idea, it’s just administratively a hard thing to do. There are many days where one group or the other (usually the gear owners)are not of sufficient numbers to have a decent paintball game. Yet we have still had tremendous growth over the past years, during times when many field have not. Therefore I know that keeping renters and gear owners separate, although not a bad idea, isn’t a necessity. There are other ways that can keep both groups playing together but still playing “nice”. Nice enough to encourage growth of both renters and gear owners (turning renters into gear owners and keeping them around).

I think our industry as a whole has a much bigger problem in thinking that once a player has made the choice to become a “paintballer” that they have also made a commitment to playing and accepting a much more extreme environment as they first experienced as a renter. Maybe there are players that want to play paintball more often and want to own their own gear (we all know the advantage of that) without making a giant leap to “extreme” paintball. Maybe there are many, many of them. Maybe there would be many more, if renters saw that a fun, less extreme environment was available and awaited them, should they make the commitment to gear ownership and regular play.

I think as an industry we are missing the boat in not making more of an effort in providing a safe haven for gear owners who seek it, just as we are trying to do for renters. I think it’s affecting the whole industry. For sure it’s affecting attendance numbers at recreational paintball fields, but it’s also going to affect sale of paintball gear and participation in every other genre of paintball including tournament play (tournament players most often rise up from recreational play). So why aren’t more field owners making efforts to do this? Is it too difficult of a task for field owners to accomplish or does the average field owner not have the capability to understand that not all gear owners want to play extreme versions of paintball? Or maybe it just gets back to field owners going after the fast buck and trying to sell more paintballs to customers? I don’t know, but I do wonder why there seems to be a lack of common sense in our industry.

Paintball is Expensive (mostly)

The most common reason I hear that people play less paintball than they want to, or they have quit playing entirely, or their friends don’t play is that paintball is too expensive. There are other reasons, but expense is by far the most common that I hear. The reason for that of course is that paintball, for the most part, is an arms race and those not wanting to arm themselves and load up as much as the other guys feel at a disadvantage. Yes, there are those of us who go out and actually enjoy being the underdog (as far as arms go), but we are not the average player. We are more the exception to the rule. Most people do not enjoy themselves as much if they feel they are being overpowered by others with better equipment and more ammo. In order to not feel that way, you need to buck up, financially.

This is quite obvious when you look around the paintball industry and you identify the trends of the last few years (and yes it started before the recession). Tourney play is down. Tournament play is the most expensive form of paintball if you want to compete even halfway seriously. Tournaments cost money to enter and even more money to arm up for. Take into consideration the money and time commitment (time is money) needed for practices and it’s not difficult at all to see why only a small number of people can afford to take part or stick with it for any length of time.

Big game scenario paintball has increased dramatically in the last decade. Players are willing to travel great distances, shoot lots of paint and even pay a premium sometimes for that paint. Does that mean that big game scenario paintball is bucking the trend? No. Because those taking part in the big game scenario games are playing fairly rarely, for the most part. Many of the participants are only playing a few games per year. Sure they are paying hundreds of dollars per event between entry, paint, travel and other associated expenses, but if they are only doing it 2 or 3 times per year, it’s a much smaller bucket than the tourney guys need to fill, for instance. Big game scenario games are well attended, but if they were readily available every weekend at your local field, they would not be, for the simple reason that players could not afford to play these events that often.

Local recreational field play has always and will probably always be reliant on new players and those that only play a few times per year. There are fields that try to cater mostly to “regulars” but those are also the fields that have suffered the most in the last few years (and yes, more so during the recession). But there are not enough people in most areas that can afford to play every week or even every two weeks for fields to not be reliant on the new and occasional player. It’s not that these people don’t have fun playing paintball. Many of them go home ecstatic, but that doesn’t change the fact that they can’t afford to come back week after week. But it does mean that a certain amount of recreational paintball fields can exist in most areas catering to the occasional players.

The trend also means that a certain amount of big game scenario games can be held and will continue to be well attended. If however the market gets flooded with big game scenario play, not only will the separate games be less densely attended, but the overall attraction to the events will fade away. This is because many players go to these big events because they are big events. I have met several people who have gone to big events, such as D-Day for instance, who said it was a great thing to experience and they are glad they did it, but it wasn’t something they would do very often. If the numbers were to start dropping at these events, the allure would fade. It’s much like going to a popular night club. Once the novelty wears off and the crowds start to thin, they tend to thin quite quickly.

Tourney play during the late part of the last century and the early part of this century was “the” form of paintball that was going to dominate paintball participation, or so many thought at the time. Technology brought prices of gear down and mass paintball sales brought the price of ammo down. With the falling prices, how could the game not gain more and more popularity? And it did. Recreational play also increased during those times, but the focus was on tournament paintball. But of course we all know now that the dropping prices of gear and paint didn’t make the game cheaper. It just changed the game (not just in tournament play). We had markers that could shoot higher volumes of paint more reliably and paint priced such that we could do so. In the end though, a player’s pockets were just as empty at the end of the day and the next practice and/or tournament was approaching fast.

Unless a player chooses to play a form of paintball that handicaps them or plays with a group of players in a version where it has been predetermined to play with a lower volume of ammo and/or reduced technology like pump play or hopperball (which will result in lower ammo consumption), paintball will continue to be a relatively expensive past time. That’s just the reality of the situation.

Value and the PSP

Recent changes in some rules in the PSP have got the paintball world in an uproar it seems, at least for those who care about the PSP and a few who probably care very little about the PSP and just want to see the league suffer. Some hate the changes; others love them and then are those that go with the flow. Lane Wright (CEO of the PSP) sent an email to members explaining why these changes were made, basically explaining that the PSP is in dire straits (expenses exceeding income) and the changes were made for the most part to try to attract more players.

A quick disclaimer: I don’t play tournament paintball (barely touched the game). I do not nor have ever played a PSP event. I haven’t even seen a PSP event. So what am I doing writing about the PSP? Well it is paintball and this is a paintball blog. It’s also my paintball blog so I can pretty much write about anything I please.

Being a business owner in paintball, I tend to look at things from a business point of view. That’s not to say that I look at every business to see how it can maximize profits. Heck, I don’t even think I look at my own business like that. But I do like to see businesses succeed. I understand what it means to take a risk and understand that it takes a lot of hard work to make a business successful and therefore I don’t like to see people fail. Any business, it doesn’t matter what it is, facilitates an exchange between two or more parties. Both parties seek at least an equal value to compensate what they are giving up. The PSP is no different. Those with whom the PSP deals with, are also no different. Vendors setting up booths want to sell wares and feel they received sufficient exposure to compensate what they paid for that opportunity. Members of PB Industry that donate money or wares (if there are any left) also want to feel they received an equal value of advertising and exposure.

Then we get to the players that play the events. These are the players that must in these times pay for the lion’s share of the PSP’s expenses. But like everyone else, they want an equal amount of value. But this is where it gets a little muddled. In most acts of commerce, it’s fairly easy to see both sides of the trade. If you buy a watch for instance and pay a certain dollar amount for it, say $40, before you buy it, you justify to yourself that the watch is worth what you are giving up ($40). Very simple. You hand over $40, the shopkeeper hands over a watch worth (to you) $40.

So what does a player get that plays a PSP event? Well they get to play a game. That’s entertainment and has value. They might win a prize, which has value (obviously not a certainty, but it is a possibility and I’m sure the chance to win has some value). They get a weekend of hanging out with their buds. Again, value. What I’m trying to say is that there are various ways players feel they get value by attending a PSP event.

On the other side of the equation is what a player has to give up. Event fees, paint fees, hotel fees, car rental fees, transportations costs, restaurant (food) costs are among some of the most obvious. Obviously this can add up to quite a bit. So if a guy like me has the money to pay for the aforementioned, and feels he will get an equal amount of value form playing a PSP event, can I go (assuming I can find a team to play on) and take part? Sure I can. But chances are no one is going to want me on their team cause basically I suck and have no experience. So how do I change that? Well, I could practice and get better. It would take a while, no doubt, and would cost a fair bit in time commitment and money for practice time and practice paint, as well as appropriate gear. Then there is the possibility of lost wages in lost work opportunities. How about vehicle and gas expenses to and from the field? Gifts for the wife to stop her fuming cause I’m never home and spending all our money. These are all indirect costs to playing a PSP event. And they add up. Big time. Now there may be some value gained along the way. For instance I might really enjoy the practices and enjoy hanging out with the rest of the team. Maybe the wife will enjoy the gifts so much I might get a little extra (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more!). But overall, the reason I’m doing this at all is because I want to play paintball in the national circuit. I’d like to add that every player will account differently the value they get, so it gets really quite difficult to stand back and say, “Yeah, that looks about right. Each party is getting an equal amount of value.”

In all commerce transactions, both parties are looking for value equal to what they are giving up. Is the PSP providing this? Is it even possible for the PSP to provide enough value for what the average player has to give up? I really have my doubts, at least for the majority of players in the world.

It’s going to be a very difficult battle for Mr. Wright and all those involved with the PSP. I would really like to see them succeed, but in all honesty, I’ll be surprised if they can.