How many fields have you "outlived"?

[Hp_lovecraft]

Another field I really loved as the "Cousins Paintball" field in Coram.
They would have the best big games I've ever played in the 90s. Helicopters, tanks, and large forts on hills, etc. Organized, and well run. By 1995, I hated "modern" paintball, and the Long Island field perfectly reminded me of the great 80s paintball I experienced. It was even better then the Skirmish or EMR games. It was really great.

That field ended up being shutdown due to a corrupt local politician, who wanted that land so that it could be built into condos. Cousins refused to sell, so the politicians had it illegally declared a "protected natural habitat", forcing them to close, and the politician was able to buy up the property for pennies.... and now... its condos.. big surprise.

Cousins relocated and rebuilt, but never the same. Those giant old-school fields just don't make the money they used to.

[Law]

Ugg, a minute after reading their I see that Fox4 in Upton has announced they are closing in a few weeks for good. And here I was thinking I was lucky as the larger fields in the area have Survived buy-outs and relocations for decades now, but I guess change is the constant after all.

[Jonnydread]

I agree with the sentiment, but I'm not surprised. They have had a dwindling woodsball crowd for years and it didn't appear that the speedball crowd was particularly robust. Didn't the owner mention last year that they had plans to sell off most of the land?

[autococker04]

I can think of two off the top of my head that have closed since I've been around, and one of those kind of rebranded and moved.

There's one field around me that's older than I am, Three Rivers Paintball. I played there the first time I went out when I was in middle school and was just there again this past weekend. Its kind of expensive, but I guess that's how they stay around. Not really a lot of change to that field, just a lack of speedball.

[CrowsFeast]

2 that I know of. Of course 2 of the best but also smallest. The indoor one was called The Paintball Arena. About a year before it closed some friends of a friend took over running it and they had a great group of regulars. We had a whole bunch of game types and layouts to choose from and a field map on the whiteboard that you could mark up to explain to everyone what was in/out of play. They also had a number of paints that you could choose from (Spectrum was the base adn they had Marbs, Evil, something with "Russian" in the name, couple more I don't recall). Got shut down because the building owner didn't keep up with repairs and the building eventually got condemned.

The outdoor was called CQB and was right inside Toronto in an industrial area. Featured in a lot of videos by the team Vice (mostly a scenario and magfed team but who wear Hawaiian and don't take themselves too seriously). I played there once in the fall. That winter there was an ice storm that took down a bunch of the netting. Since the owner wasn't sure he wanted to renew the lease anyway (I expect rent was pretty high) they just shut it down.

[Jonnydread]

There were a few RI fields that have come and gone, but none of them were my favorites. My first 'real' field was PG Xtreme indoor in Concord, NH and it has been gone since like 2005, which is probably for the best cause it was a shithole. OSG was my home field growing up and thankfully they're still doing fairly well. Just a few off of the top of my head: Vindico Paintball (NH), Planet Paintball (MA), Canobie Paintball (NH), Rochester Paintball (NH), Riptide Paintball (RI)... and plenty more

[Grendel]

I have played a lot of places all over the country in my 33 years of playing and some of those fields are still there in some form or another and some are gone but surprising enough there really is only 1 field I played at regularly (home field) that is not in existence today and that is Vanguard Paintball (Combat USA) in Columbia, SC.

[lew]

Lemme see...

Atomix Paintball in Wixom, MI
Killer Paintball's original Salem, MI location
Futureball's indoor location
There was an indoor field down in Taylor, MI that I'm pretty sure folded.

Damnit! The only thing that makes me homesick about Michigan were the good-to-awesome paintball fields all over the place.

[Skipdogg]

at least 18. thats how many i could count in my head

[Rusty Brass]

Most. Splat Action is the only local field that's still open from when I was a kid. All the others are gone.

[Cyberpyr8]

There were several when I lived in Florida. My favorite of those was Gladiator in St Pete. It was a single speedball field indoors and air conditioned. I loved the ownership and people that came out to play. It was well run and always had a good crowd. The building owner sold it out from under them and they closed. There was Break 50 that had a single outdoor speedball field. Rocky Cagnoni ended up buying into the field and they shut it down to move it. The later part of the plan never happened. There were several others in the mid 2000's that closed down in the Tampa Bay area because the land became more valuable for housing than anything else you could put on it.

Since I have been in GA we had our local field (Jumpshot) closed down. It was poorly run and the owners had no clue how to run a paintball field. I stepped in at one point to help them get it turned around and the first weekend I was there we sold out of paint by Sunday night. The "expert consultant" they had hired scolded me for selling out all the paintballs. I told her that's how fields really make money and I hoped to sell out every weekend. We did a good job of it for a while but I left and they went back to their old ways. They ended up closing down the field and their trampoline park they had in the same building. It wasn't for any other reason than they were clueless. They spent all their money on high paid consultants and junk we didn't need rather than fixing the field and continuing to be profitable. We couldn't get $4 light bulbs to light up the field but they spent $2000 on a Billy Goat field cleaner. I even offered to buy the field but they didn't want to sell. They own the building and they really just want to be in the real estate business and not running family entertainment businesses.

Forgot about Xtreme Paintball Xperience in Florida too. I took my boys there to play and they closed down not long after that. So many Florida fields are gone.

[eddie]

Just one. Cousins Paintball in Coram. They moved out east and are still in business. Im going to leave it at that, before I start going down the rabbit hole...

[Pyrate Jim]

Oh, gawd. You're gonna make me think about this and have to remember the last 30+ years.
Several were sold and re-opened under different owners, and I don't remember all their names, but I'll make an attempt...

First one was Wolf's Lair, which became EMR.
Survival New York (Jerry Brauns') Closed, sold to Cousins and later repurchased by Jerry and currently re-opened.
Survival Southeast (nothing to do with Jerry Braun)
Stingers indoor (CT)
East Hartford indoor (CT)
Mystic Paintball (CT)
Strategy Plus (CT) Opened in '82, Closed when Big Jim Ioulo passed away in 2012
Cousins in Coram (NY)
Pizella bro's (CT)
Mazlers (CT)
Air Sports (MA)
There were two different fields around Springfield, MA that are gone, don't remember the names and at least two in RI that closed...
And now Fox 4 in MA.

I'm only counting those places I've actually played at, that I know are gone.
There are several in places like New Hampshire, Ohio, Florida, California, or the Carolinas that I've played and may be closed as well. And I know there are others that I don't remember specifically, they get mixed up over 32 years of playing.

[moving_target]

That I've played at? Two.

Lost Valley Paintball
Field 51

In my area?

A whole lot. Maine's got pretty high turn over when it comes to fields.

[Yellow5]

Of the places I could say I played regularly, about a dozen are gone. I'm actually surprised at how many others are still around.

[martix_agent]

Here in Indiana, Fields are thriving.(or were, I'm unsure the situation due to covid, but i still see them advertising.) There's been a few to come and go, but for the most part, they're rolling right along. Most that shut down were smaller and focused on air ball.

I've played at two that both shut down 10+ years ago. Blast Factory and I can't remember the other one. Both were speedball focused.