Open day review

[Jimbodini42]

Hi everyone,

 

Always like to spread good vibes when they are due. 

 

A couple of weekends ago a stag do group and I attended an open day as part of the stag do activities and really enjoyed ourselves at Shock & Awe along with other people not related to us who attended. 

 

The site itself is really good if you like woodland, which the group and myself do. It has a range of features, from named sites such as ‘sniper tower’, ‘village’ and other such areas that are sort of themed in relation to their organisation and type of cover look it provided. It’s quite a large site, split into 2 main areas with one being a bit more open and one being more heavily forested and filled with natural geography. 

 

Games and style of play are more smaller style games where you then swap objectives/directions. 

I think through experience and dedication to tailoring the site they provide a nice balance between fun, action filled games to then also having to use tactics and being a bit realistic- certainly compared to some sites I’ve been at which are more like just paintball silly sites where you just stand and shoot. They had one game I didn’t like where it was every man for himself but this was more I think for the Stag and that there were quite a few first timers who perhaps do not take it quite as seriously as regular players - kudos to the team though who were providing for the needs of the group then! 

 

Thought the staff were no-nonsense and to the point. Took safety seriously but didn’t take an age over it like many sites do - they made their point clear and that was that. 

Marshalling was fine and don’t think there were any cheating going on. Any misdemeanours that occurred were dealt with quickly and more importantly, loudly so everyone could tell it’d been dealt with and wouldn’t make same mistake (issue with a flash bang thrown into wrong area).

Thought they fit a lot games into the day and turned games around quite quickly. Better than many sites I’ve been to.  

 

Amenities are adequate though not sure how they’d cope with double the numbers we had (approx 25 on game day) - could be they bring more tables and chairs? But there are covered areas for rain and everything I kept locked when out of safe zone. 

 

Would certainly go again though it is 200+ miles away from me! 

 

Pros:

Fairly large site

Good terrain 

Good mix of barricades and man made stuff to suit the geography 

Play turnarounds spot on 

 

 

Cons:

Amenities and safezone could be bigger

And more covered - mainly needed for bigger groups 

some players might want to be less ‘gamesy’ Some more ‘real’- personally thought the mix was a strength!