[TeacherCreature]

too bad your 3 hours away I would be paying you a visit, serious thank you I will call you when I get a moment, my name is Ed who should I ask for?

[robtown31]

You should consider air soft. ...you still need the field set up but you wont need the air.
They have a loyal following. Run a monthly event . You will need to find as many revenue streams as possible to make it in this buisness.
I dont believe you have the necessary capitol to make it . You may want to delay the opening till the spring and save more cash.
I wood start with the field design.
It should flow ...i would consider designing it as a big game field than breaking that into separate fields.
Good luck

[TeacherCreature]

what necessary capitol do you feel I am missing
Airsoft is interesting but why what market do you think I would reach with that - that I would not reach with paintball

[bigfootguy2002]

$50,000 to do it and do it right. By the time you sign a lease, rental equipment, compressor, referee equipment, netting, building your fields, etc.
-Will

[TeacherCreature]

Originally Posted by TeacherCreature

We are opening a new field. Purchased almost 20 acres mostly woods with 2 or 3 fields. 1 for parking 1 for staging /speed ball 3rd for speedball?
We still need netting, and CO2 station tanks etc.
We already have rentals, and Compresed air system.
Going to incorporate and insure this week..

Did you even read my original post?
I have land and air and rentals etc,
The only real obstacle left is field development

[bigfootguy2002]

I did read your thread, and I re-read it after your last post.

My opinion of opening a field correctly and yours are vastly different. I am opening a field 1/1/2013, and my budget is around $50,000.

I wouldn't say that 15 guns, 10 tanks, 20 masks, and 4 scuba tanks is what you need.

Here are some numbers that I'm working with at my field.

$7000 for 50 rental setups
$8,000 for an air system.
$9,000 for two airball fields
$9,000 in netting
$5,000 in telephone poles, cables, and hardware.
$1,000 in referee equipment (radios, jerseys, chronographs, etc)
$1,000 for display equipment in my shop/store
$5,000 in lumber for my deck and miscellaneous building materials for my fields
$750 for a nice alarm system
$500 for a PA system
$3750 for start up stock (paint, batteries, food, drinks, etc)

This is a rough drawing of what I will spend.

I'm in a unique situation in that my land, building, water, sewer, and power are already up and running and will not cost me anything except monthly utilities. I'm budgeting another $15,000 in startup money including costs associated with bills and labor for the first 6 months, unexpected costs, etc. I have an addition $10,000 in an emergency fund.

What kind of budget are you working with?

There is NO WAY POSSIBLE to be PROFITABLE with your targeted 10-14 players.
14 players at $20 entry and 1000 rounds at $50 a case, thats $20 in entry and $25 paint money. We will say that you have 100% margins on your paint, so you have $32.50 in your pocket. Multiply $32.50x14 is $455. Your expenses for the day look something like this:
2 staff members 10 hours @$10 an hour is $200
4 scuba fills @$15 each is $60
We figure $1 per player each day for disposables; paper towels, paper cups for water, ice, maybe a freeze pop on a hot day, or some hot chocolate on a cold day. $16 (14 players plus your staff)
Gasoline, weed eater cord, oil, nails, lawn mower, etc--anything you need for maintenance . We target this to be (less than) $2 per player per day of play. $32
Insurance (using GatSplats formula $50 a month and $.25 per player is $64 a month/4 weekends) $14
Power, water, and any other bills.
This amounts to about $386. Take $386 from $455 and you are left with $69. If you want to spend your time, energy, blood, sweat, tears, advertising expense, etc to make $69 a day, or $138 a weekend assuming you were "sold out" at 14 players Saturday and Sunday then be my guest. Do I think its a good business plan? No.

I am not trying to post this in the negative, but just in that I would invest my energy in a more profitable venture, or at least wait until you have the startup money to make this successful.

Good luck!
-Will

[robtown31]

AIR: air is critical you cannot run a field without a compressor! We had 12 .5500psi bulk tanks in banks of 2 with one way check valves and it would not make the weekend if the compressor went down.
If customers cant trust that you will provide reliable air it will destroy your reputation.
Co2 is a waste just get rental hpa tanks.
A decent air system will run $10,000.

Netting is also important it goes hand in hand with safety. If people feel it unsafe to play there the quality of player goes down and will destroy your reputation.
lets face it if you dont care about the safety of your field and players why shoud anyone care if i follow safety rules.
I dont know your field layout so i can give you an idea on your netting costs....but $5000 is a good start.

Fields ...i subscribe to the do it right the first time and be done with it. Use real building materials.... not garbage.
Build them one at a time and have at least 3 good woods ball field and one good speedball field. Fields should be 300 x 300 except for speedball 220 x 220 is adequate.
Woodsball fields should have a budget of at least $5000. Each.

Speedball can be expensive....sod ..seed ...or turf. The maintenance for each has an expense.
zero turn mower $6000.
Aerator $3000.
Slitseeder $3000
Fertilizer
water ...well ...sprinkler??
Bunker .... you would want a current field PSP...nppl...
I can go on......
There are alot of hidden costs....it is harder to get people to come back to a field after they have gotten a bad rap....no air ...not enough rentals ....little to no safety ..... no refs......lame fields made out of garbage.
If the fields you have are nice the staff is friendly and the paint and air is good....people will have a good experience and return.
Let them know you are expanding ...show them a final plan of what the field will offer and they might rally behind you ......just dont drag your feet making the upgrades they will get impatient.
again good luck
I was not trying poo poo your plan.
But having been there i can tell you the expenses are than you think.
Oh yeah ...as for air soft here in NJ it has a unique following they have no interest in playing paintball. They pay $20 to $25 dollar entrance fee just to play on a well made field. Odd but the have at least 40 in there club .....

[TeacherCreature]

That is weird on airsoft and I do appreciate the advice on the paintball..
As far as the compressor the local firehouse agreed to fill our tnaks free of charge, it also looks like they are gonna donate their old compressor to us - they got a new one in Jan. they asked us to take the old one to junkyard but rather than be sneaky we propositioned them to keep it either way it looks good...
We are gonna start woodsball first and let speed ball wait for now.. The netting is one expense we are working toward, as is constant lumber costs lol
Our rental fleet is now up to 25- we have chronos walkie talkies etc etc.
refreshments like icepop are profit centers imo not costs. (but there is an inventory cost)
We dont have a store yet, we have alarm system and storage already.
We do need start up stock and we are at about 2000 budgeted.
Netting is on our agenda and we do want to earn money but my partner and I both have jobs I am a SAT tutor and former business owner and he is a networking engineer.

We are hoping to make 10,000 the first year we may even reinvest it 100% and we are approaching the "blood sweat tears" as something we are looking forward to not trying to avoid.

so I dont want to sound argumentitive lord knows im not - i actually appreciate it but here is what im thinking:

$7000 for 50 rental setups we are at 25 for now
$8,000 for an air system.covered
$9,000 for two airball fieldsstarting just woodsball
$9,000 in netting we have a 300 foot woods trail from staging area to field
$5,000 in telephone poles, cables, and hardware. (for netting?we already have wifi)
$1,000 in referee equipment (radios, jerseys, chronographs, etc) have it
$1,000 for display equipment in my shop/store down the road
$5,000 in lumber for my deck and miscellaneous building materials for my fieldsi think we sold the local lumber yard on some donations for advertising of 2000 already and working on more this expense is never ending
$750 for a nice alarm system have it
$500 for a PA system hmm didnt think of this why do we need?
$3750 for start up stock (paint, batteries, food, drinks, etc)we budgeted 2000

so i understand why having more would be nice but we dont. I still firmly beleive it can be done right and slowly by starting small and growing. We have a great niche market with no competition t0o close.
Airball and speedball plus netting etc might be a $10000 investment for year 2 or if year one does really well. We are working on it so other than DONT DO IT or WAIT and SAVE can anyone make a suggestion for someone with a less than 50K budget... We already have a ton of rentals and air sorted out which is like 15K out of the way if we skip speedball airball it seems it will save another 25K so unless lack of speedball kills us that is 40K we got about 3 or 4 set aside and have our alram storage and refs covered so we arent too far from your list are we

[TheKillZone187]

You guys are doing great for yourselves!!! Something is better than nothing! I agree with not running out of air and paint. Having great, friendly customer service goes a long way. Keep your customers happy, even if you have to give free field fees to 1 or 2 customers to compensate for something that you ran out of. Remember to keep it simple, safe, clean and honest and you guys will do just fine. Determination = Success!

[TeacherCreature]

Thanks since last post we upped our inventory again
We are adding 2 more hpa supply tanks and have a cascade now, also picking up another bulk CO2

We have 2 groups of ten for this weekend and the local county paintball club wants to make us home field, we are the only facility in the entire county.

So seems to be going well. Need to get a website just havent had time and we are surveying our second woodsball field and plan speed ball by March. (need bunkers and netting waiting for tax refund)
lastly we ordered security system and we are gonna build a large commercial shed or drop a trailer not sure which. That should get us ready for our first summer

[tvise]

Definatley run HPA not Co2...

Co2 gets very cold and is hard on the gun and the o rings.

It also gets wet.(really bad for electronic guns)

I know in the state of California at least you have to have a licensed person fill the tanks so it would be very slow and costly.

Beyond having to pay someone to fill the tanks it is also more expensive then HPA.

I also believe that Co2 is a cancerous gas...

[lefty007]

I also believe that Co2 is a cancerous gas...

CO2 is what us humans and animals expel when we breathe out. Plants love the stuff.

From Wiki
Carbon dioxide (chemical formula CO2) is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom. It is a gas at standard temperature and pressure and exists in Earth's atmosphere in this state, as a trace gas at a concentration of 0.039 per cent by volume.

[TeacherCreature]

Yea I have heard that CO2 crap as well lol but we offer both at our field just seems smarter.
In the winter though we definitely stick HPA and it seems HPA is cheaper other than original tank costs