If McKnight had spoken to me like that, I would have told him to fcuk off, unquestionably. I realise that a lot more happened than what we see, whether deliberately edited out or just at other times during the event, but I don't care: you do not approach customers and simply repeat, "Everyone else is over there.", until they do what you want, nor does the referee tell sportsmen/women, "You will do it my way or you're going home."
Commanding a regiment vs marshalling an airsoft event - 2 very different scenarios with skillsets which are only similar on the surface. Scratch the surface however and the stark differences are clear: making a large group of people do as they are told, regardless of what they would rather do, and with minimal flexibility for differences between individuals vs facilitating an environment in which every competitor's individual preferences are more important than 'the plan' and, minute by minute, re-evaluating the situation to try to guide the best compromise between all those preferences that you can think of, within the boundaries of H&S/insurance. What happened on that video shows quite clearly what a confusion of those roles leads to.
I also get it that GMR often prefer to do things their own way and that sometimes that isn't particularly safe, although there was nothing unsafe about their actions this time. It seems to me that the time to address that was during registration for the event - like, if OPLC really were seriously concerned about the safety implications, they ought to have sought assurances from GMR before taking their money (and for all we know that is what happened, because, in an ambush scenario, being able to see where the opposition were waiting for you would be an advantage, but GMR do not give anyone a leg-up onto the roof, which seems to me like a GMR-like thing to do).
It's also possible that OPLC consider GMR's approach to gameplay a risk to the enjoyment of other players. In that case the most sensible approach would have been to explain that to GMR members and refuse their custom, because no assurances could be given, that anyone could trust, about how people will play once their adrenaline is pumping and besides, what could they actually say - "We will pretend that we don't have the imagination to seek an unexpected approach to every scenario where doing so would give us a tactical advantage and, if such an approach accidentally occurs to any of us, we will not use it."?
That said, having watched the vid, they are all penises.
