About Paintball

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Key Points

The Game ...

Paintballing has been rapidly gaining popularity for decades, and people from all walks of life can play. The game’s focus on teamwork and strategy combined with pure, adrenaline-pumping fun makes for an unforgettable experience. Paintball groups are split into teams, who complete a variety of tasks whilst trying to hamper the progress of the opposition. You remove opponents from the game by marking them with paintballs by shooting your paintball gun. Full of laughter and excitement, paintball makes a truly brilliant day out with friends.

The Benefits ...

Paintballing is an extremely popular team building activity because of the combination of teamwork and careful planning. You don’t need to be physically fit; it’s all about working together with your colleagues and accomplishing challenging goals as a team.

  • Strengthens team bonds and promotes positive, functional relationships between colleagues by placing them in a new and entertaining environment.
  • Boosts problem-solving abilities and allows the groups to independently devise and implement strategies with a specific goal in mind.
  • Improves communication between colleagues through carefully timed manoeuvres and constantly changing circumstances.
  • Brings previously undiscovered talents into the spotlight and promotes the appreciation of each individual’s skills.
  • Helps people identify and correct mistakes.

The Play ...

Paintball is a social game. It's a chance to get away from every day life and spend some time with people you know and get to know new friends. It's a game of people, from planning, to playing, to bragging after an epic battle.

Get off the couch, put down the controller, and bring those video games to life!  Our games are EXCITING, they are FUN, and they get your heart pounding like nothing else!

90% of frequent paintball players are aged 12-24.

Over 12 million people participate in paintball each year

 

History Of Paintball...

Paintballs came from oil-based paint pellets and a innovative gun invented in the 1960s by Nelson to help foresters, loggers, and woodsmen mark hard-to-reach trees and other objects. ...

The Nelson Paintball Company made a gas operated marker and paint-filled pellets to mark trees for the forestry and ranching industries so that from a distance they could mark trees and cows leaving a temporary mark on the desired object. Paintball play started in the late 1970’s. Two friends came up with the idea that it would be fun to shoot the marking guns at one another, In 1981 Charles Gaines and Bob Gurnsey got a group of 12 friends and played the first game of paintball on a field that was over one-hundred acres, (with no mask or safety equipment) but before they played the game, they came up with rules for the game making it more of a survival game. As the legend goes, one gentleman won the game without ever firing a shot. Shortly after playing the first game, they called it the “National Survival Game” and this game was mostly every man for himself. Sometimes they organized into teams and over the years it grew in popularity as more and more people wanted to play. Eventually using teams became the standard with the most popular games being “Capture the Flag” and other offensive/defensive game scenarios. As paintball developed into a growing commercial industry, the first outdoor commercial paintball field opened up in 1982 and the first indoor field followed in 1984. This kind of paintball field allowed large groups of people to meet in one place to play paintball. These paintball field owners also kept coming up with new ways to keep the games fun and exciting, thus further expanding the sport to what it is now.

For an interesting glimpse into the early days of paintball, check out the video below featuring Bob Gurnsey and a few friends playing a game of woodsball.
 

It doesn’t matter whether you are young or old, all players share a common love for the sport of paintball. The game of paintball is generally played in the form of “capture the flag”, "attack and defend", or elimination. The format is usually 2 teams of one to two, five or seven or ten, or even over 1,000 players on a side depending on the size of the field (usually more in scenario games). Paintball is a sport that is played by people of all different professions and lifestyles. It is a sport where people of all ages and sexes can compete equally. Paintball is a game of strategy, very much like Chess. Being able to think quickly and decisively will help with your ability to play the game. Some key success in the sport of paintball are intelligence and determination, not merely strength, speed or agility. It is a character-building sport and will help people to learn about teamwork, gain self esteem and also develop leadership abilities while being able to have a great time with friends and family and relieve stress.

Paintball is very safe as long as you follow the rules and use common sense. As a whole, paintball is very safe, and when played properly does not lead to major injuries. In fact, based on severe sport-related injuries that lead to emergency room visits,paintball is safer than bowling.