I’ve been in Paintball since 2006, organising events since 2008 and around airsoft since around 2013/14
We’ve been using desirable props & equipment in events since at least 2011
In that time I’ve mostly not been too concerned about theft on site, woodland safe zones tend to have staff around and people coming and going as they respawn. Generally my items not in use are in a gear bag or case underneath the bench, and some items left on the table. A case of paintballs is typically on top of the bench.
There was once a scare with regard to a missing gun, but this turned out to be teammates attempting to teach a spoilt brat a lesson for leaving his valuables unattended. They found a £1000 spare gun left out and put it safely in their van. He failed to learn the lesson, just that his dad will buy him another
One year we hired in extra mines for an event which we buried, and marked with both gps co-ordinates and photos in situ. Updating as we retrieved and repositioned them.
At the end of the event quite a lot were missing.
One problem with the hired ones was that we didn’t have our numbered markings so we didn’t necessarily know which ones had been retrieved. There was some suspicion that some had gone with sticky fingers.
But with some hunting in the next week and the following Saturday afternoon with a metal detector the majority were retrieved - and took some digging out in a couple of cases
Over the coming months more would be found by staff
I don’t think we’ve had anything disappear since, we have had things lost in the woods a few times such as an addidas bag of cocaine which went missing at a February event and wasn’t seen again until the beaters at the farmers pheasant shoot found it in the undergrowth - which would make it October onwards. (They were spotted by the farmer discussing whether to hand it in or sample the goods - I’ve no idea what the effects of snorting flour after 8 or more months in the woods would be).
In our Battle Royale format we send people our unarmed to use our planted weapons which makes finding them difficult between games sometimes even though we only do that in limited areas. Only one item has disappeared at the end which was a slingshot and we believe it was dropped after packing up and carrying everything out of the zone. A radio or two have been lost, but have been suspected to be mixed up between ours and site ones where we have had the same models
We did have a sleeping bag go missing for 24 hours at an event in sennybridge. Everyone had been warned about the welsh weather and that players would be camping in breeze block buildings in extreme low temperatures and to be prepared. Not everyone heeded the warnings and some people suffered
Due to the distance between parking and the game areas a van transported gear whilst players walked. This meant your equipment and camping gear was stacked in the main square to be collected, the sleeping gear was left until the end of the day
One of our arctic sleeping bags disappered, and we had to accommodate our teammate with the extra blankets we brought. An announcement was put out the next morning and it reappeared.
A while later one of our guys was mistakenly included in a conversation where a team confessed to the ‘amusing tale’ that they had been unprepared and pilfered someone’s sleeping bag. He kept quiet and we ensured revenge at every opportunity
There is a level of honesty in people, if most are in the same boat and people are around in public then there is an unwritten convention that theft doesn’t happen.
But there is self responsibility - you don’t leave your wallet open on the table, and if you put things in your bag then they can’t be just picked up in passing
We’ve been using desirable props & equipment in events since at least 2011
In that time I’ve mostly not been too concerned about theft on site, woodland safe zones tend to have staff around and people coming and going as they respawn. Generally my items not in use are in a gear bag or case underneath the bench, and some items left on the table. A case of paintballs is typically on top of the bench.
There was once a scare with regard to a missing gun, but this turned out to be teammates attempting to teach a spoilt brat a lesson for leaving his valuables unattended. They found a £1000 spare gun left out and put it safely in their van. He failed to learn the lesson, just that his dad will buy him another
One year we hired in extra mines for an event which we buried, and marked with both gps co-ordinates and photos in situ. Updating as we retrieved and repositioned them.
At the end of the event quite a lot were missing.
One problem with the hired ones was that we didn’t have our numbered markings so we didn’t necessarily know which ones had been retrieved. There was some suspicion that some had gone with sticky fingers.
But with some hunting in the next week and the following Saturday afternoon with a metal detector the majority were retrieved - and took some digging out in a couple of cases
Over the coming months more would be found by staff
I don’t think we’ve had anything disappear since, we have had things lost in the woods a few times such as an addidas bag of cocaine which went missing at a February event and wasn’t seen again until the beaters at the farmers pheasant shoot found it in the undergrowth - which would make it October onwards. (They were spotted by the farmer discussing whether to hand it in or sample the goods - I’ve no idea what the effects of snorting flour after 8 or more months in the woods would be).
In our Battle Royale format we send people our unarmed to use our planted weapons which makes finding them difficult between games sometimes even though we only do that in limited areas. Only one item has disappeared at the end which was a slingshot and we believe it was dropped after packing up and carrying everything out of the zone. A radio or two have been lost, but have been suspected to be mixed up between ours and site ones where we have had the same models
We did have a sleeping bag go missing for 24 hours at an event in sennybridge. Everyone had been warned about the welsh weather and that players would be camping in breeze block buildings in extreme low temperatures and to be prepared. Not everyone heeded the warnings and some people suffered
Due to the distance between parking and the game areas a van transported gear whilst players walked. This meant your equipment and camping gear was stacked in the main square to be collected, the sleeping gear was left until the end of the day
One of our arctic sleeping bags disappered, and we had to accommodate our teammate with the extra blankets we brought. An announcement was put out the next morning and it reappeared.
A while later one of our guys was mistakenly included in a conversation where a team confessed to the ‘amusing tale’ that they had been unprepared and pilfered someone’s sleeping bag. He kept quiet and we ensured revenge at every opportunity
There is a level of honesty in people, if most are in the same boat and people are around in public then there is an unwritten convention that theft doesn’t happen.
But there is self responsibility - you don’t leave your wallet open on the table, and if you put things in your bag then they can’t be just picked up in passing
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yup you could but at the end of the day if I’m absolutely cream crackered I can just chuck every thing in it and just sling it in the back of the car ! ^_^ 
