GO Paintball London — Attraction in Tandridge

I feel very conflicted writing this review. It is based upon the adult Paintball events.

The permanent staff were approachable and friendly throughout the day, they were checking in on everyone, asking if everyone was having fun and you never felt like anything was too much to ask.

However they had a lot of "trial staff" helping out each "match" - and I got the feeling that this seemed to be the business model to boost the numbers of staffing at low / no cost (I can't verify that and it may not be the case). Whichever way - the same experience did not come from any of these trial staff, and it would be far better to have permanent staff who were more experienced and passionate about their roles.

Unfortunately, the safety of the events was sub par to what I've experienced at other Paintball events in the past.

Participants were not listening to the events team consistently throughout the day. The events team were not assertive enough to grab their attention, and the consequences were not substantial enough to motivate the participants to listen.

At the pre-event safety briefing, half the people were talking and not listening.

We were told not to shoot the guns before or after the event. All I could hear between events were people firing their guns in "non combat" zones whilst we were walking to the combat zones, and also before and after the events. It wasn't one or two - it was constant.

One person in a match STOLE their teammates ammo which had been left on the floor. The ammo costs around £6 for just 100 paintballs. Now this isn't the events team fault as they can't be expected to see everything, and I will caveat that they did replace 100 paintballs as a goodwill gesture after the event.

After the first set of 2 matches, the event leader "threatened" anyone deliberately shooting before or after games or caught stealing ammo will get a 5 point deduction. This is a safety concern and also stealing is illegal and should result in immediate ejection and even potential police involvement, so how a 5 point deduction seemed sufficient is a wonder!

Even after this, people continuously fired their guns and it felt unsafe especially as people were holding their guns at angles that was pointing towards you and no deduction were forthcoming.

The guns were handed to each participant with the safety turned off. At other events I've attended, the safety is always on and people are not allowed to switch it off until the battle starts.

I raised the issue to someone after the 1st set of matches, and they went out to watch things in the 2nd event which they were happier with. But in the 3rd set I had to speak to the on site marshall again, and raised the point that a 5 point deduction isn't being imposed, and wouldn't work anyway. At this point, the marshall was far firmer, sent someone home and was clear to everyone that anyone caught firing their guns would be ejected from the site. Things improved A LOT after this.

I'm giving 3 stars because although I had concerns, I did feel that the staff were very receptive to feedback and to act upon it, and then to check back that I was happy with the changes. But I also felt that some of these things should have been in place anyway. It may just have been that some of the groups in our matches were worse than usual and looking at other feedback it doesn't appear to be a common issue, but I can only give my feedback based upon what I have experienced.

I would return, but if I experienced similar again then that would be it...

We came here for a fun day out together with a group of 8 adults.

The booking system and website is great, very easy to get around and allows for players to pay for their own paint bullets on their own during the day, making it easier for the organiser.

The venue is fantastic, easily accessible from London via train or car but still immersed in a very nice setting in the middle of a forest.

The staff was very welcoming and the whole experience is well organised to the small details in order to manage quite a large crowd (on the day we were there, I think there were around 100 participants). You also get half pizza and a bottle of water included.

Maps and objectives, protection and weapons are all of great quality and well looked after.

There are also some basic facilities like a cafe and toilets, even though it's in the middle of nowhere which is great.

Price is fair and in line with what you are getting for a 6 hours event like this.

My main complaint is about the way the games were organised and especially the enforcing of rules (aside from making sure people were not removing their mask, that was the only rule taken seriously from the referees).

First of all, we had something short of 40/50 people on our group, which meant that the map was very crowded and there were bullets flying in all directions, which was sacrificing any kind of tactic you could think of, it was just too crowded.

That meant that often you were getting hit from close from your teammates from behind you as there were too many people around, and that can be painful.

Secondly, it felt to all of my group of friends that no rules were enforced (also because of the high number of participants which made it unmanageable).

Some players were getting clearly hit but they were never surrendering and referees were never telling off people for that, which was very disappointing and making the games almost pointless. We tried telling this to the staff but little was done to improve this.

A simple system with Yellow/Red cards, and maybe numbers on the back of players would make things more fair and the games more enjoyable, the staff should not be scared to tell off people that are not following the rules. It certainly cannot come from the other players playing!

I think that with some serious improvements to the referee system and enforcing of rules, as well as reducing the number of players on map to a maximum of 30, this venue could become much better and have more people coming back more often,...

I had checked the reviews on go paintball but after experiencing it first hand on Saturday 11th December group name under (saleem). A group of 23 of us spending over £2500 and not one player walked away from this happy. Every single gun had issues. Every player and every game was disrupted. I am put off paintballing this experience left me with a sour taste, the facility was dirty place, no changing facility, horrible toilet, we had 2 marshals who were put in a difficult position with lack of training and no transparency. The staff were good with talk but there is less substance behind the words. We were encouraged to highlight any issues but nothing was ever done, Me and my team all had upgraded to sniper and assault rifles was insured how these guns are elite and will make the game even more fun (laser technology in guns and other gimmicks all came with problems) as we kept having issues with there guns would keep getting jammed. I personally in 2 stages had to wait for the Marshall to go get me another gun or another air pressure tank each time this had taken place I had let my team down and gave us a very big disadvantage when I questioned the Marshall why is this keep happening even though I’m not using all my bullets he would assure me problem is solved and he will add time on but would only add 15 seconds for every 120 seconds lost. It was a horrible experience each time I had got into a advantage my gun would stop working problem kept occuring again and again we would end up with 1 Marshall while other is sorting the guns out, at 1 point 8 players were down across two teams at the same time had no guns while Marshall was nowhere to be seen. When we explained the situation to event manager he claimed it’s because we had a lot of bullets the air of gun runs out. Paying for equipment is basically pointless and a waste of money. We spend money on a service that simply did not deliver. Why would you encourage customers to buy bullets if there guns can't handle the amount of bullets. Total cowboys. If they have a facility to accept payment for bullets they should have a facility in place to use them. At the end of the day we had around 400-500 bullets left over each. The frustration was so bad some didn’t even bother using them and left them on the table whilst others shot trees and obstacles next to the gas refill station so the gas can be refilled. We spent more bullets on the practise stage shooting obstacles then we did playing each other. WORSE...