Setting up a CQB Site, What Should I Be Thinking About?

[Graham Ranson]

Long story short when I was in secondary school I, like most people, had a 5 minute meeting with a careers advisor to decide my entire future. The two things I said I wanted to do was "make video games" and "run an airsoft site", and as expected the advisor knew nothing of both topics and said I should maybe do a business or IT course in college.

Fast forward a couple of decades and I've now been running a "successful" video game company for the past 10 years and thought, maybe it's time I take a stab at the other thing?
 

So I've found a potential location for a city centre CQB site that has good transport links and thought I'd see if I could crowd source any potential issues/questions I hadn't thought of yet. So, if you've ever ran a site ( successfully or not ) or maybe gone through this same thought process before, what sort of things should I be thinking about?

I've got a list of ideas that could be done to supplement the income of the occasional skirmish day and I'm not expecting to get rich off this. My games company used to have an office but for the past 5 years or so we've just worked from our homes, so I was thinking I could potentially set up a small office in the CQB site so I could work there rather than home and then get my spare room back finally.

As for a list of costs, this is what I have so far - 

Startup Costs

• Rental Gear
  
• First and Last Rent
  
• Setting Up The Site
  
• First Aid Training
  

Monthly Expenses

• Rent
  
• Business Rates
  
• Staff Salaries / Marshall Pay
  
• Insurance
  
• Utilities
  
• Rental Maintenance
  
• Ammo / Gas / Batteries etc for Rental Gear
  
• General Upkeep / Changing Layouts etc
  
• Marketing
  
• Business Expenses ( Accountants / Legal )
   
  

 

[MiK]

Competition & demand in the area - too many cooks spoil the broth.

Parking availability - you may have a great site but if there’s no parking or it’s Uber expensive then people may think twice.

Storefront - Will you be selling goods on site ?

Food - will you be providing food ? Cooking on site or go down the vendor machine route ?

 

[#blackadder]

Im hoping its near Swindon perhaps?  

 

[Graham Ranson]

Competition & demand in the area - too many cooks spoil the broth.

Parking availability - you may have a great site but if there’s no parking or it’s Uber expensive then people may think twice.

Storefront - Will you be selling goods on site ?

Food - will you be providing food ? Cooking on site or go down the vendor machine route ?

Thanks!

Competition - there's no other sites in the city itself, the closest other CQB sites is Strikeforce in Gloucester and then the courthouse in Bristol. I'm hoping that I can bring something different to them so all can still survive.

Parking - The venue has a small private parking area plus a larger shared one on the industrial estate itself.

Storefront - I'm thinking consumables like ammo, gas, pyros, batteries, that sort of thing rather than a full on shop.

Food - I was thinking simple tuck shop + vending machine rather than cooking on site, and maybe trying to find a friendly food truck that wants to pop over at lunch.

Im hoping its near Swindon perhaps?  

Relatively close, Cheltenham. About an hour by train, 45 minute drive.

Still early early days at present though.

 

[Rogerborg]

You might want to see if you can set it up as a chaaaridy, perhaps through a shell organisation.

This sounds dodgy, but it's how the Depot CQB site was run, as a local "sports and physical activity" charity.  Given that the building rates would have been £180K a year (!) it's the only way they stayed open as long as they did.

 

[Graham Ranson]

That's a good idea yea, hadn't thought of that.

One thing I was thinking, to try to keep it interesting to regular players, is take a hint from theatre staging and game development by having small "rooms", essentially tiles, on moveable castors so that the layout can be rearranged between game days.

These layouts could then also be saved so if a particular layout was especially popular it could then be selected much like a game level.

 

[Chev Chelios]

My advice before moving on anything go to as many sites as you can and have a chat with the people and the operators. Try and at least have a chat so when it comes time to open you are at least on a "hello" basis and you may be able to arrange to have games days that don't conflict and push business each others way.  Always nice to have someone to call closeish by in case your pallet of BBs is found to have an endangered species nest of voles in and cant be moved so can pop over and grab some at short notice ETC

Props and toys are something to invest in, for instance having a manikin (or even a very large marshal) on a stretcher can make a game feel epic and is just essentially a bog standard capture the flag game mode.

Rentals make the money, try and have a marshal to look after just the rentals and give them the best day possible. Future players and future private parties will come of it.

Good luck in the venture, always nice to hear of another possible site opening up.

 

[Graham Ranson]

That vole story is just way too specific to be made up and I'd love to hear it in full.

What are people's thoughts on things like corporate "team building" and stag/hen/sten dos? Do they get done much in Airsoft?

Training days with ex-special forces types brought in etc?

 

[EvilMonkee]

I would also suggest making sure that you have the building for a long term lease, don't want developers ripping it out from under you

 

[Graham Ranson]

Yea that's a good idea, don't want a Mall situation. 

Estimating costs so was thinking 30-40 rental guns and mid-caps, maybe G&G Raider, G&G Firehawk, or a Cyma MP5 ?

 

[Graham Ranson]

Do you mean sell more than just game day consumables i.e. an actual retail store?

 

[ak2m4]

Have you an idea of the actual rental cost for the potential place you've found?  What type of contract?  Will you get locked in, what happens if another lockdown etc

 

[Rogerborg]

what happens if another lockdown

If indoor activities don't get shut down again round about October, I'll eat my hat, including the fan and wiring.

I very much hope to be wrong about that, but I wouldn't like to bet against it.

 

[Graham Ranson]

Rental price yes, not sure about rates yet which as mentioned is the real killer ( and it's what eventually took down a non-airsoft thing my dad did so the charity option as mentioned by Rogerborg above could be a good shout. )

This would be quite a few months out from now if I actually do it so hopefully we'll know by then if "normal" is ever something we can go back to. But yea, it's certainly something I need to think about but it may not be until next year before I can do this anyway.

 

[hunter511]

Further down the line.... desired customer base.

No point in running a site with planned out complex multi-objective games if 3/4 of your customers just want to play capture the flag and vice versa. I remember a few years back showing up to what was supposed to be a milsimesque skirmish at Longmoor (£50 game fee) to find that the company had had a brainfart and literally expected the clientele to be happy with "flag in the middle of the street needs to get to your base and not the opposing teams" type games. Suffice to say that pretty much everyone thought this was a waste of the sites possibilities and a damn shame given the games the operators in question normally ran.

Game flow....... as an example nothing more tedious and game killy than someone sat on a choke point with a chest full of hicaps or a drum mag. 

 

[Graham Ranson]

I think potentially trying to separate gamestyles to different days could work maybe?

One skirmish day would be aimed at quicker/simpler/casualer games and another at the milsims and the a separate day for speedsofters.

This of course requires there to be enough of each type to support that though.

 

[Spartan09]

Not had any experience running a business,  but you may need to check if you are allowed to use pyro, and let any neigbors on the industrial estate and the landlord know EXACTLY what you are planning to do on site, that any issues can be sorted beforehand.

I booked in to a CQB site, (i forget where it was now) on what was to be their first public game day, but they had to shut down for months because they ran a private game the weekend before, and one of the neigboring businesses complained to the landlord because a few grenades got let off. (Bear in mind that this game was run on a weekend, and was within a large warehouse they had built props/walls/barricades inside of)

I agree that an insite shop should sell a bit more than just game day essentials,  but only if you have dedicated space. 

Alternatively, if you dont want the hasstle of stocking lots of gear for only the odd game day, then you could ask your local airsoft retailer if they would be willing to provide a pop up shop, and work out an agreement between the two of you. (I regularly play at RIFT airsoft sites, and Onlyairsoft in stevenage provide an onsite shop selling RIFs, mags, eyepro, batteries, accessories etc, while RIFT supply gameday essentials such as gas, bbs and pyro)

Training days with ex-special forces types brought in etc?

That would definately be a good thing to organise,  and i for one would be up for such a training day

 

[Graham Ranson]

you may need to check if you are allowed to use pyro, and let any neigbors on the industrial estate and the landlord know EXACTLY what you are planning to do on site, that any issues can be sorted beforehand.

That's a very good point yea, will make sure it's all fully explained and agreed upon, in writing, what can and can't be done.

Re: training days, still deciding on how that might work best and think two versions could work well, days targeted at Joe Public that want an adrenaline experience like a red letter day where all equipment would be provided and another that is aimed at airsofters who have their own equipment.

 

[BigStew]

Estimating costs so was thinking 30-40 rental guns and mid-caps, maybe G&G Raider, G&G Firehawk, or a Cyma MP5 ?

Is this just to make sure you have spares for gun failures, as site that can support 30 to 40 rentals will have to be massive. So that's a thing is the site large enough to support enough players to actually make it profitable? I don't think the mall ever had more than 80 players and most CQB sites I have played any more than 40 it's too crowded to play.

 

[Graham Ranson]

Yea it was more just for spares and just ballparking prices, figured it's best to err on the side of caution just when I'm in early stages now thinking about things, and then if after a little more time of thinking about it it looks like something I can actually do I'll get more specific with estimations.

But also, I'm thinking for private events etc when everyone on the site at the same time will require a rental and there won't be any normal skirmishers. 

- Edit -

Maybe 25 rental aegs, with 30 mags/batteries/masks so there's spares to go around. More than enough for rentals on a regular skirmish day but also enough to host 20 person private events with a few spare.