How To Start A Paintball Field Business
How To Start A Paintball Field Business
By: Dan
Posted: Jun 18, 2010
Author: Dan Levesque
Starting your own paintball field is a great way to make money and get to play paintball as often as you want! However, this is just not as easy as setting up a fence, a few bunkers and collecting money at the door. First, determine why you want a field of your own in the first place; there’s basically two reasons…. 1. Because you already own a piece of land and it would be fun, or 2. Your looking to start a new business and want to try your hand at a paintball park.
Since it’s going to cost ongoing money for regular supplies (paintballs, new guns, parts, paintball equipment, etc.), it doesn’t make sense to NOT make a business of it and try to make money. Depending on how large of an operation you want to start out with, there may be a significant initial investment involved in buying all the equipment you’re going to need. This is another reason to run your paintball field as a business.
Most of the people interested in starting a paintball field already have land they will use. You can also purchase a piece of property to open the business, however know what you’re getting into before you go! Unless you can find a super cheap deal on property, it’s very rare for a start-up paintball field to generate enough money to pay a mortgage. Your best bet is to already own the property or perhaps go into business with someone who owns land; you can possibly rent the land or consider offering a percentage of the business to the landowner.
If you’re starting your own paintball field, there are certain pieces of equipment that will be essential. The best advice is to start small and add more equipment as you need. When starting a business, you will want to have a clear goal in mind about how big you plan to get; but don’t let your delusions of grandeur ruin your math skills. Keep a close tally of all costs from the very beginning, starting with the first quote on paintball gear.
Before you even start gathering equipment quotes, there are obvious steps you will have to take that are the same for starting any business. Setting up your business entity and getting a local business license will be necessary beginning steps to becoming a retail dealer. Every penny counts when starting a business, so getting dealer prices for your equipment quotes is a must. This is a mandatory first step – become a dealer with the paintball wholesale companies/manufacturers you want to deal with before requesting an initial equipment quote.
The equipment you will need to start a paintball field can become exhaustive quickly, but you’re better off to start with the bare minimum. Don’t start by building the paintball field of your dreams right off the bat; start your business with the bare minimum and build into a larger operation with more equipment as your clientele list grows. You will need bunkers, paintball guns with hoppers, air tanks, and plenty of paintballs. At first, you can save money on buying only a few paintball markers for people who don’t have one, but allow players to bring their own. The problem with this is you will get complaints about players who have unfair advantages with totally decked out paintball guns.
You can level the playing field somewhat with a chronograph. This device will ensure everyone’s gun has the same velocity. The other disadvantage of allowing players to bring their own guns is you will be missing out on renting/making money on an essential piece of gear – without a paintball gun, you can’t play. To save money on your initial equipment investment, however, “bring you own” policies will let you get by with a smaller number of guns for your first purchase.
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Perhaps one of your largest equipment costs is your air tank refill station. This will require a commercial sized air compressor; depending on the size you want, these can cost between 00-000. You will also need one (if not several) industrial bulk sized air tanks to store the air you produce from the compressor. Finally, you will need a fill station scale and air tank refill kit to transfer the air from the bulk sized tank to the smaller paintball gun air tanks.
While your air tank refill station may be one of your more expensive equipment commitments, it’s also a definite regular income source of every paintball field. Eventually this investment will pay off – everyone at your field will need air tank refills and will have to pay what you ask if they want to keep playing. If there are a lot of paintballers in your area, you can also sell tank refills to anyone with an empty tank even if they’re not field customers.
The best way to save money on your air tank refill station is to consider purchasing a package deal. You can get much better prices when purchasing an air compressor and bulk air tanks together. There are different size packages available – containing smaller air compressors and few bulk tanks and larger air compressors with several tanks. All the necessary gauges, valves, lines and hoses you will need are also included.
Other essential equipment when starting a paintball field are bunkers. When deciding on what bunkers to use, first decide if your field will cater more towards speedball or scenario paintball. This decision may also be impacted by how much room you have to work with or the actual lay of the land. Fortunately, bunkers can be made of just about anything and still be effective. Old cars, stacks of tires, barrels, and even rock piles work great. In some cases the land itself may provide natural bunkers with hills, old barns or buildings, trees or different elevations.
You can also purchase inflatable bunkers of all shapes and sizes for your paintball field. Shapes available include large triangles, rectangles, and cylinders that provide great cover while playing. These types of bunkers are often used in speedball matches. Inflatable bunkers are also available for scenario play as well and come in shapes of walls, buildings/forts and armored vehicles such as tanks and personal carriers. These bunkers are great; easy to set up and will give your field an awesome look. The disadvantage is they are expensive and are probably cost prohibitive for the start up paintball field.
Another method of making money with your field is by renting out equipment for people to use when playing. This equipment will consist of a paintball gun, mask, hopper and air tank. You can also offer various protective equipment like chest or groin protectors, helmets or even tactical vests. After your field has a positive cash flow, you can upgrade your equipment rentals with better masks or guns (offered at higher fees) or attachments to the markers, like better barrels or sniping scopes – also offered at higher rentals fees.
Choose the type of paintball guns you’re going to offer as a rental at your field based on which type of play will be available. If your paintball field is going to be for scenario woodsball type play, consider the Tippmann 98. These guns are super sturdy, easy to maintain and there are tons of accessories and modifications for them. Tippmann also offers warranties on all their equipment and they have great customer service.
If your field is going to cater more for speedball, consider using Spyder paintball guns. Spyder competition style markers are easy to maintain and super sturdy. They’re also light and fast enough to compete with the higher dollar guns; but so easy to use, they’re great for beginners. The best thing about Spyder paintball guns like the Sonix, Xtra or Victor is they’re all very high quality guns but cost less than 0 each. These guns are a great place to start because they’re so durable and cost the least.
Another mandatory piece of equipment is protective gear. To provide the most fun at your field, you must ensure proper safety at all times – industry approved paintball goggles must be worn by every player.
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