PaintballX3 Magazine January 2014 | Page 61

61 August is our only month off this year as in September we’ll be back for The Valken Big Game Staargate which is the UK’s oldest paintball event and currently voted by players as the best in the UK. We’ll also have another UWL to run in September and the year will end with the UK Paintball Awards in November. esting to see what happens with the APL and whether they can reproduce the past glory days of the NPPL. I hope its successful because as I’ve already said, competition is a good thing, it drives innovation and value and the market is undoubtedly big enough to support two series. Scenario is in quite an interesting place. Its Over and above all of our own events, our fortunes depend on where you are looking. retail stand will be attending all the UK In the UK, after five of six years of almost tournament events, some other scenario exponential growth, scenario is currently events as well as events on mainland Euin massive decline. Events are going pop rope. So my team will not be getting many left right and centre. There is no one sinweekends off this year! It’s a really heavy gle reason for this, but lots of factors have come together to almost create a perfect The move from forum usage to gative side to paintball is storm.media has contributed to the fragsocial mentation of the scene making it harder droves of players leavfor promoters who did not predict this very year, it ruins lives happening to market their game to a fragmented community. Where as in the past they could just put a post on the forum and everyone would see it – now you have schedule but this is what we do. to go looking for teams, research and work hard for their business. Not all promoters In your onion, what is the state of scenar- have adapted to this new reality and 2013 io and/or tournament paintball? saw lots of events go bust and I predict Tournament is doing great. Its growing even more will go that way in 2014. massively in the UK at the moment and there is a real buzz and vibe around it. Many teams after a decade of playing sceOutside of the UK there are some really nario are moving to woodland tournament interesting things happening. I’m a really and Sup Air to get their excitement fix and big believer in competition so in Europe of course the same old paintball problem it’s great to see the CPS series starting to of politics and factionism has also helped take off. The Millennium has been the only push the game to decline. However, in game in town for the past decade but I Europe, arguably a less developed and think the CPS will provide some genuine competitive scenario market than the UK, choice for teams who want to take part in a scenario is still going great guns and EuEurope wide series. So that’s really positive. rope is a big growth market for us in terms of our scenario events. In the US the webcasting of the PSP has been a fantastic vehicle to spark interest in the top level of the game. It’ll also be interWWW.PAINTBALLX3.COM