This is going to be quite rambling as I’ve written it a bit at a time since this afternoon
I’ve missed out a lot of pointers, but it’s a start
As an event organiser there are other considerations:
The basics of knowing how to design & run a game / site as opposed to playing it.
We can all look at the design of a zone and improve the ability to defend it. Why does every fort have great big open doorways at the back and front, towers where defenders can be shot in the back, bushes and growth up close to the fort????? They all make it attackable as opposed to defendable.
The answer is because that’s the point - give everyone a chance, the argument gets made that attack / defend get rotated, but making an objective fully defendable demoralises the attackers - or humiliates the losing defenders.
Make the game fun for all
You then add on all the overheads of running a site, with paying for it,, paying rates etc (sometimes a developer sitting on a premises will still cover the rates and get some rental income), multiple insurances, making it safe, staff costs .....
For something unusual you then need to add on the added risk, need a different calibre and quantity of Marshall’s etc
Have and enforce new rules.
I played the only paintball event at the mall. It was a disaster.
One organiser was due to run a limited capacity event using powder balls, but a local team who had done some private mini games among themselves decided they could run a game.
This would also be limited, but with clear paint
Then they discovered the real costs of hire against the limited income on low paint capacity. They changed to unlimited paint, and come the date the quality was poor
(As it was clear this was produced specifically for the event, we ended up with a lot spare afterwards. A little while later the paint had ‘cured’ and was in good condition)
The whole event began with delays and disorganisation - all the extra safety briefs etc of being in the mall, and their inexperience.
Almost instantly in the first game the floor was an ice rink, even ‘carpeted’ areas were soaked through. The next delay was stopping everything until someone had gone out to get sawdust, then distribute the sawdust.
Now instead of sliding on a wet sloppy floor we were sliding on clogged up sawdust.
Across an entire weekend we got about 2 or 3 hours of gameplay
Part of the ticket included helping clear up, but most people just gave up and left, at first there were “no paint refunds” but someone was given a refund & things kicked off with the rest, particularly with those who had bought stupid amounts.
We were sweeping up, and finding that the walls were bleeding clear paint from above, top off to that when we noticed that most of the organising team had left, we gave up and went
The organising team disintegrated, they couldn’t afford to pay the hire and I understand that money also disappeared.
Paintball was to never return to the mall
This was a cautionary tale about seeing easy £s and also ignoring assistance offered when it was only a minor disaster
There is one marshalling team that I would trust to run special events like this (they would have run the originally planned game) and very few organisers.
I would only recommend unusual venues it you can get together a good experienced marshalling team, make a venue safe, know & handle the potential risks and start with very limited and controlled events such as ‘experiences’ (zombie survival etc).
Paintball’s can become a death trap on anything solid. We have run unusual events for both paintball and airsoft.
BBs can be swept out of the way, gel leaves a slippery surface
We make sure there are quite a few ‘controls’ and limits
As we like our pyro this also necessitated ensuring that what we put on the floor is also fire safe!!!!!!
I will only run certain formats in certain places and with certain people
Each venue has its own problems to deal with