Competition for a Paintball Facility in Corvallis

College students are the targeted customer group for a paintball facility in Corvallis. Therefore, the competition in the area consists of all forms of entertainment appealing to the students of Oregon State University. This includes the three bowling lanes in Corvallis, the one miniature golf facility, the three movie theaters, the many bars, and the two paintball arenas in Albany. The paintball arenas rent and sell equipment, and provide a place to play paintball. Lazer-tag and Lazer Challenge retailers, such as Fred Meyer of Corvallis, also provide competition for a paintball facility because of the similarity of Lazer-tag to paintball.

The greatest competition to an outdoor paintball facility in Corvallis is the Albany Outdoor Paintball company. Their location is in Albany, just over 12 miles from Corvallis. They have very reasonable prices for the size of their facility, 20 acres. Their strongest suit is being known for having a great outdoor facility, and are open 365 days a year with outdoor lighting for night paintballing. They sponsor a successful paintball team, who participates in Portland tournaments. Their website, http://www.proaxis.com/~aag/ provided the above information, but lacks good design. With proper advertizing our proposed paintball area has a definite chance of being better known than the Albany Outdoor Paintball company.

The greatest competition to an indoor paintball facility in Corvallis is the company Warpaint in Albany, which is just over ten miles away from Corvallis. Their location in Albany consists of an indoor facility in an industrial area, which is not easy to find. The reason Splat! Was originally created in Albany was because the owner lived in Albany, and there was a good size warehouse available to create into a paintball park. Warpaint was then created in Albany because then they could make use of the old facility, even though it was still over twelve miles from where most of their customers lived. They are also restricted to having a smaller facility than the proposed one for Corvallis, because Warpaint is an indoor only facility.

A year ago Warpaint was a Splat! paintball facility, but business was not good enough to sustain the costs of operation. Splat! is a paintball park chain, and there are extra costs more to operate a Splat! paintball park than an independent one. That is one of the reasons why the person who took over Splat! in Albany made it independent. Business for Warpaint has not been exceptionally good recently, but they still are taking in a profit. (Nelson)

In discussions with participants of Warpaint in Albany and from my inspections, there are safety and cleanliness issues that are not being taken care of. This is a place where the proposed paintball facility can excel, since safety is a very big issue when choosing a paintball facility to attend. Not all of the masks at Warpaint are safe because many of them have been cracked and broken from player usage, and have not been replaced. This is an important issue, because a paintball could go through the mask and hit a player in the face. In our planned paintball arena we would replace all parts when they are no longer safe. The walls of the indoor facility very rarely get the paint from the paintballs cleaned off of them, and the industrial building itself is dirty. There is no reason why an indoor paintball arena should operate that way, and we intend to keep the planned paintball arena cleaned. From discussions with several people who have attended Warpaint of Albany, they would definitely appreciate and attend a facility that took care of its safety issues over one that does not.

Matt Nelson, an employee who has worked at Warpaint of Albany and is currently working at Albany Outdoor Paintball, said that over 75 percent of Warpaint's business, and Albany Outdoor Painball's business comes from students at Oregon State University. Since the paintball facility proposed for Corvallis would be much closer than any facility in Albany, most students would go there instead of traveling the extra miles to go to the paintball facility in Albany. Therefore, if an outdoor paintball facility in Corvallis is created, Warpaint of Albany will most definitely go out of business, but the Albany Outdoor Paintball facility might survive.

The movies, golf, and bars do not provide much competition for paintballing in Corvallis, because of the uniqueness of paintballing. The sport attracts many different kinds of people, partially because of it's newness. The second greatest threat to a paintball facility in Corvallis is the people with their own paintball equipment that do not want to pay for a paintball facility's services. Lazer tag is similar to paintball, which is why it is the third greatest competitor, but there are lazer tag facilities within 40 miles. With the influx of new students every year, there will be plenty of people wanting to rent or buy equipment and play in a paintball park.

Based on meeting with people who attend and work at the paintball facilities in Albany it can be determined that the competition will not be a problem for the proposed Corvallis paintball park. The proposed paintball facility will most assuredly corner the market, and put the Albany based Warpaint out of business.

Albany Outdoor Paintball Fees's. 16 Feb. 1999. Albany Outdoor Paintball. 25 Nov. 1999 <http://www.proaxis.com/~aag/fees99.htm>.

Nelson, Matt. Personal Interview. 12 Nov. 1999.