Paintcheck.com Field Owner Tips
Due to misinterpretation of my field owner tips by certain paintball players, it has become necessary for me to preface this article with an explanation of its purpose. The tips I posted are meant for the NEW field owner on how to make more money at their field. I am making a few assumptions with the content of this article.
1. The article is written for field owners.
2. Safety and fun are the first priorities of all paintball fields.
3. Many new field owners struggle with the question of "BYOP" VS. "Field-Only" paint sales.
4. All customers should leave your field happy, so that they return.
I am also assuming that you, the field owner realize that to have repeat customers, your customers must have a good time when they come to your field. "Having a good time" means many different things to different people. For a walk-on player, a "good time" means playing with your friends for the least amount of money.
A newbie player/group expects much more than this:
All of these things cost money to purchase, upkeep, and manage. But given that a good field has all of these things, how can you make sure that you make more money? Now that this is clarified, on with the tips.
The largest profit potential a field has is in selling paintballs. Sure you can sell food, supplies, clothing, etc., but the most profit potential you will find with newer groups is in the sale of paintballs.
This can be proven by the fact that the owner of a big paintball distributorship has an exotic sportscar collection. I GUARANTEE you that his money was not amassed by selling Pro Lites. His mountain of cash was made by buying paint for $35 a case and selling it for $80/case at his store.
Repeat out loud once again: "T h e m o n e y i s i n t h e p a i n t".Now we will apply this simple but useful knowledge into the way that you run your field. Your number one goal is for your players to have a safe, fun time. Your secret goal (let's call it goal number 1A), is to raise the average ticket price of all of the players that play at your field. By "average ticke price", I mean the average that an individual player spends in a day of paintball. There are many ways to do this.
- Having players spend their paintball money within three hours allows you to run two sessions in the same day.
- Running two sessions allows you to double the amount of people playing while paying your reffs the same amount.
- Getting customers finished early allows you to get home to your family sooner.
- Getting home sooner allows you to enter your waivers into your database like you should be doing anyways.
Now don't feel guilty for wanting your customers to be done early. When you are playing paintball everything happens in slow motion. If you are efficient in the way that you run your field, you can speed things up. You should always be looking for ways to limit delays between games. I had one of my fields so far from the staging area that we setup a remote fill station and chrono out at the field, along with clean-up supplies. This allowed groups to turn their games around more quickly.
Generally speaking, if players shoot every paintball that you give them, they are happy. Most of us field owners forget that the most fun part of the game for a newbie is SHOOTING THE GUN AT OTHER PEOPLE. That gun gives them a sense of power. Newbies like to hide, sniper each other, and shoot the gun. If they shoot all of their paint and run out of money, they will leave with a smile. DO NOT feel guilty for wanting them to shoot all of their paint. If players are shooting the guns, they are having fun. If players are shooting the guns, you are making money.
Goal 1A was a two-part goal. "to spend all of their money as quickly as possible", remember? Well lets talk about the spending money part. If you are getting paint for between 2.5 to 3 cents/ball, and you can double or triple that, then this is where your biggest revenue generation is. "T h e m o n e y i s i n t h e p a i n t".
Your goal is clear: You need to get players to shoot as much paint as possible. How can you do this? Lots of ways. Before I tell you some of these techniques, you need to learn another concept.
I repeat..... ELIMINATED PLAYERS DO NOT SHOOT PAINT.
I don't mean to insult your intelligence, but if a player is sitting on the sidelines, then he is not shooting paint. Is he spending money? No, he isn't. Is he shooting the gun and having a good time, no he isn't.
You want players alive so that they can shoot paintballs. If you allow the local walk-on guy that has played the field a hundred times and uses a mag, cocker, Angel, or whatever to "mix-in" with your newbies, then he WILL shoot many of your newbies. Then the eliminated newby sits in your staging area with a loader full of paintballs. This causes the day to drag on and on. The newbies die too quickly to shoot paint. They then get unhappy and soon start to complain. Sound familiar? The answer to this problem is simple. Either you separate walk-on players from newbies, or your turn walk-on players away. This example should show you that they COST YOU more money than they bring you. Consider turning away walk on players if you want to be profitable.
One last-minute tip: when a player buys paint with a credit card, ask him if he wants to "run a tab". Most will say yes, and they will usually spend more. It is easier because they don't have to keep whipping-out their wallet.
- MAKE YOUR BUNKERS BIGGER - big bunkers make it harder to eliminate players.
- MAKE YOUR BUNKERS SOLID - If the balls can't get through, players can't be eliminated.
- MAKE MOST OF YOUR FIELDS SMALLER - big impenetrable bunkers slow up game play big time and this allows you to make your fields smaller.
- DO THE MATH - Smaller fields = more space for fields = more fields = more groups playing at the same time = more money.
- BUILD A TARGET RANGE - shame on you if you do not have one because they make lots of money and can promote safety by having a "safe area".
- TAKE ALL GROUPS TO THE TARGET RANGE BEFORE THEIR FIRST GAME - some will shoot a lot of paint in one minute. Have the head reff tell them that they are going to the range to "get used to the gun". The side benefit here is that there is a reff present to make sure everyone has goggles on at the range. Teh reff can also help the players to use the gun before they head onto the field. The sound of all of those guns going off at the same time should be music to your ears.
- HANG STUFFED ANIMALS AT THE TARGET RANGE - balls bounce off of them and it drives people crazy. I hung a purple "Barney" dinosaur at my field one day, and I swear that the group shot two cases of paint at it combined. The doll ended up in a creek the next week but who cares? It paid for itself many times over in literally minutes. Make sure they are 10-20 yards away. :)
- KEEP STRICT TIME LIMITS ON ALL GAMES - games should not last more than 15 or 20 minutes. If they do, then either there are very few players left alive, or the entire group is too passive. Have all of your reffs carry stopwatches and whistles. If the group is passive, have the reffs pump them up by yelling inspiration to them on the field.
- HAVE ALL REFFS WEAR HARNESES FILLED WITH TUBES OF PAINT - this is especially good if the reffs are taking the group to a field that is far from the staging area. A bottle of JT goggle spray fits nicely into an empty 100 round loader tube in their harnesses as well.
- EACH FIELD SHOULD BE PLAYED TWICE BEFORE RETURNING TO STAGING - Have the groups switch sides quickly after the first game on a new field, THEN return to staging. Do not have the whole group wait for one player to reload and return. Keep things moving.
If paintball guns were extremely accurate, then you would never sell paint because everyone would be dead. Never apologize for a gun that doesn't shoot paintballs as straight as a rifle. Explain to your groups that paintballs are like "little water baloons". They are not bullets.
This should give you lots to work on. Have your referees show up early next Sunday and make them build-up all of your bunkers.
Hungry for more? Check out our Field Owner Forums and share your insight and get some good tips in return.
FEEDBACK ON THIS ARTICLE:
Sees both sides of players and owners.
In reference to your new field owner article. I saw your post on RSP. You certainly noticed it caused quite a stir as well as much rambling from people who have never been in business.
This is something you may wish to add to the article. You are right when you say that people on the sidelines don't make you money. If a field wishes newbie/group play then only the last game of a session should be single elimination. All other sessions should be either 1 minute penalty or touch the base and return to play. This also is a good policy for walk-on rec play.
I agree with you whole heartedly that a field run for profit should be FPO. It does however disappoint me that so few field owners wiah to exploit the walk-on repeat business that is available. As a player I am more than willing to purchase FPO paint at 5-15% greater than over the shelf in return for smoothly run well reffed games. Which brings me to another point, reffing, a good ref can make or break a field for newbies or walk-on.
- Brad Wickizer
Runs a field
I read your "Tips for F/O's" and found them to be accurate. I currently manage a field for a woman who has been in the biz for 7 years. Her policies are almost identical to yours. I am buying her in and do not plan on changing the way the field is operated.
I know you have been getting a lot of flak on RSP, but it is from players. Anyone that has operated a field knows exactly where you are coming from. I would like you permission to print out the tips so I can show them to the current owner. She is not online and has no desire to be.
- John Parrish
Thinks we are promoting ripping people off
I would like to know the name of the money-grubbing idiot that wrote the "Field Owner Tips". I have never in my life read such a load of DUNG before in my life. Sure, Owners make thier money on paint, but to turn away rec, walk-on, and veteran players to get poor kids that want to be introduced to the sport to spend until thier pockets are empty is ludicrous! I have been a veteran player for 5 years and on a (scenario) team for 3 years. I recruit players all the time. They range from 13 to 35 years old and I try to make sure they get the most paintball for thier dollar. This crap about bringing them to target range to get them to use up thier paint before they even hit the field has to be some of the scummiest marketing I have ever seen. YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF! I play religiously at 3 different fields and none of them use "scumbag" tactics like that. They are all VERY successful fields and are advertized in the best light. My advice to any potential field !
owner would be quite different.....3 Biggies....1)Safety 2)Good reffing staff 3)Make sure everyone has fun. If they are having fun.....they will be back to buy your paint, and maybe a gun, and perhaps a pack, and so on....and so on. I would rather have to try and fall asleep at night knowing that everyone at my field had fun and want to come back, than think about how many little kids and thier parents I screwed out of thier hard earned money.
If you do sleep well at night.....again....SHAME ON YOU
Name: Kevin "Joker" Wilkes
Email: JointFuryJoker@aol.comThanks for your input, but it does not sound like you are a field owner yourself. I understand why my field owner tips on profitability would upset some players. Most walk-on players would naturally take offense to the advice to NEW field owners in my article, which was to avoid walk-on players. Many new field owners make the mistake of catering to walk-on players when they start their field because they used to be walk-on players themselves. The problem with doing that is that walk-on players will never pay retail prices for paintballs, and they shoot out retail-paying newbies which cuts into profits. That is just harsh reality.
There ARE, however, paintball fields out there that have a thriving walk-on business and have found ways to make it profitable, but they are by far the minority. For example, one of the most successful paintball fields in the country is Skirmish (http://www.skirmish.com). They run close to 1,000 players through their fields on a fall weekend, and almost all are private, booked games. The point again, of my artice was to help the NEW field owner who needs to get it through his head that his field is first a business, and second a place that his friends can play at. To that extent, a new field owner needs to concentrate on paint sales and profitibility, but NOT at the expense of making sure his fields are safe and that his players have a good time.
And please do not misunderstand me. I am all for making sure that customers have a good time. I feel that the customers that frequented my fields always had a good time. In fact, one of my core principles for running my field was to treat it as an amusement park. I took care to make sure that all of my reffs were trained and attentive to my customers, and we routinely invented new variations of the game so that our customers had a good time.
One of the main reasons for the paint sales slant of my article was to emphasise the difference between field owners that are walk-on oriented and field owners that are business-oriented. There are many examples of BYOP fields and walk-on centric fields that have gone out of business over the years. By concentrating on paint sales, a field owner can make enough money to make his fields better. How a field owner spends his profits is up to him, but I never condoned "ripping people off". To have a nice, successful field that is a fun place to play at, it takes money. And if you are a serious field owner you will find that all of your profit potential is in paint sales.
Not everyone that goes to a target range shoots all of their paint. Perhaps I exaggerated that point a bit, but the reason I highlighted that is for one reason: PLAYERS COME TO YOUR FIELD TO SHOOT THE GUN AND HAVE A GOOD TIME! That is the number one reason that newbies play paintball - to shoot the gun. If they are a crappy player, they do not get to shoot it very much. So the target range lets them get used to the gun, and become more comfortable with it. Even without stuffed animals at your target range, a good target range will make your players more aggressive and shoot more. If that is not what you want them to do, then you are in the wrong business. Shooting paintball guns IS fun, and with a good staff and establishment, your field will be successful and make a lot of money.John McKown, Owner
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