What size should my paintball field be?
One of the most popular questions I get from people who want to start a paintball field, both indoor or outdoor is: What size should my paintball fields be? Great question! I will do my best to give you the simple answer but you have to read the entire blog to answer your question. If you need more help give us a call or e-mail me at evan@evanmoney.com
What size should my OUTDOOR paintball field be? The first thing to look at is how much land do you have to work with? Paintball can work on ANY and I mean any size of land. The smaller the space, the less options you have but you can still make it work.
If you are still looking at land and not sure what to get then here is what I would recommend. Get land that has the most drive by traffic or has signage available where lots of cars go by. It’s worth it’s weight in gold, trust me. Better to take a 2 acre lot that gets 200,000 cars a day driving by, than a 20 acre lot people can not find.
Next I imagine your wondering about the actual size of your playing fields. If not scroll down to read what my advice is for the correct size of a indoor paintball facility you should get.
For outdoor paintball fields the actual size of your field #1 depends on the type of customer you are looking to attract. If you want to attract 2% of the paintball market and cater to hard core tournament players then you will need official sized fields. The sizes are for the NPPL- 100′ x 180′ for the PSP 120′ x 170′ These are the sizes of the playing field sideline to side line, not net to net. You need to leave some room in there to move around.
If you want to attract 98% of the paintball market, then the good news is, the size of your fields does not matter. 80% to 90% of successful paintball fields profits come from players who rent equipment. The players do not care what size the fields are, they just want to have fun and play.
The formula for success and we go into great detail about this in our consulting packages is: You want as many various sized fields as you can get. You must have at least one preferable two speedball type fields near your entrance so Mom and Dad can watch and actually see their kids play. You would want these fields to have Money Turf as well so parents will know your a first rate operation and that paintball is a serious sport worth Mom and Dads attention and dollars!
Next you would like to have some bigger sized open scenario fields as well as some wooded fields if your land permits. Again the key is not the size but the variety!
INDOOR – “I found an abandoned Wal-Mart in my town….”- I get this one a lot, let me help you with the math. A typical ” box” store or Grocery store is approx 40,000 square feet or more. If the rent is $1.00 a sqf that’s $40,000 a month in rent. Plus you have to pay A/C, Heat lights, etc. After 15 years of working with Indoor field owners here is the magic number. Do not pay more than $10,000 a month rent.
The challenge with paintball is that you need ” room” to play, the more room the better! However you have to pay for that room. Try this example. If you have a 20 people playing on a 20,000 sqf field that costs you $10,000 a month or if you had the same 20 people on a 10,000 sqf that costs you $5,000 a month which would you prefer?
The size of the field is irrelevant! It’s the rent! This works the other way, there was a guy I was working with who was working on a 50,000 sqf building for $5,000 a month! This guy didn’t have the funds to use all 50,000 sqf. Who cares! He can always grow into the space or use it for parking, the price is the key!
So again Do not ask what size field should I get? Ask: How much is the rent!
The other key for indoor is LOCATION! I really want to stress this! 50,000 sqf. is great at $5,000 a month but if people can’t find you it’s useless! The big challenge with indoor space is that if you want a low rent you are typically where people can not see you from the road. This why most indoors go out of business! They get a building with too high of a rent and a bad location! You can overcome a bad location if your rent is super , super low but it’s much better to pay $8,000 a month for a building that 50,000 cars drive by everyday than $5,000 a month for a building no one can see.
I hope this helps, we look forward to helping you start a paintball field that is successful from day one. Check out www.moneypaintball.org for more info