SplatterPark — Attraction in Franklin Township

Have not been to this field for open play so I do realize that the field might be run differently than the points I will be bringing up here.

I'll start with the positives. The facilities here are very nice, the rental room was managed very well as well. There was a multitude of staff in all areas and "most" staff members were happy to help players. The fields were well made as well. The paint was pretty fairly priced, I personally don't mind seeing higher priced paint than this because I want local fields to be successful but I definitely did not mind how low it is here. I also love that they used GI paint but that's a bit more of a preference.

On to the negatives, if it wasn't already clear I was in attendance for the Big Game. First off, I was a little irritated that the staff did not go over general rules besides "spawn here" and "wear your mask". When you have hundreds of people on your field that do not normally play there it would be good to at least make sure they're all on the same page to rules that are specific to your field. To compound this, I asked five referees the same question and 2 of them gave me one answer and 3 of them gave me another and both parties told me the other one was wrong. The referees also (in most cases) did absolutely nothing but stand around on the field the entire day. There would be instances of players clearly getting shot right in front of them and they would do nothing. I have heard that Splatterpark hires out extra referees for this event specifically so that may be the source of those issues, but I also bet that that issue is well known with the staff so I hardly understand why it isn't handled better. I also heard one staff member specifically calling small children obscenities and acting (for lack of a better term) like a chump whenever any player interacted with them, not a great look. There were also instances where referes would insert 50 or so people in a wide open area right next to the enemy team and the team that would get inserted would mostly just die instantly.

I also have deep misgivings about how the game was run. I get that the game has objectives and points to keep track of and that like 1 person actually cares about that when they're playing but for the rest of us we were either getting slaughtered or doing the opposite. I caught wind early on from some friends that all the lvl up guys banded together to be on the orange team. This made it so that the orange team has around 60 people that are all currently playing paintball competitively and are ranked between D5 and D3. I play with those guys fairly regularly and perfectly comfortable playing against them but the disparity of skill level at large between teams was innately obvious. Every game the blue team was coming off the field talking about how they're getting tired of being slaughtered and the orange team was coming off talking about how they weren't having fun because they were just destroying the other team and everybody was asking why anybody would want to come back to this in the future. If the staff was not aware of this they surely were not playing attention. The fact that there was no attempt to rebalance teams was heinous.

Now I'm sure that if I am to come to open play that my experience will be wildly different. I hope that my expierence will change how this event is run but I highly doubt it. For that reason I will not be coming back for this event and my entire group felt the same way and so did the multitude of people that I spoke to throughout the day on different teams, from different home fields, and even new players. Living in Ohio I want events like this to be good because it's a great opportunity to introduce new players to Paintball so I do hope that is is better...

This past weekend was my first time playing at this facility, and it was overall a good time. Though with that being said, there is room for improvement.

Some quick advice about the place. If you have your own equipment and you are with someone renting, ask a worker and find your appropriate group leader as soon as possible (REMEMBER HIS NAME!) and stick with him the rest of the day. This will make your day must easier, and will allow you to play the most amount of games. 2.Wear camo if possible, the fields are mostly woodsball setups, so camo definitely helps. Wear gloves (I use half finger). Sliding and diving on the forest floor can cut your hands up. Bring food and drinks. Their free lunch is merely a snack. They serve food there too if you want to bring money for that.

Pros: Good balance between experienced players vs. newbies/those renting equipment. People are put into groups depending on the guns they have and they play people with similar guns. (I was in the mixed group, which I will talk more about in the cons) Over 10 different courses to play on. Cool scenery on some of them, (crashed airplane, old school bus, old cargo crates). Most of the courses are woodsball themed. Though there are a couple industrial themed courses and 1 speedball course. The fields are nicely setup and balanced. Memberships are offered to help make regular trips to the field more affordable. Now I can play all day for $40 (all day air, 1500 paintballs, and admission), where as other places I have gone require me to spend $70+ each visit for those same things (and they have less fields to play on). Workers are friendly and cool to talk with, yet stay aware of safety and enforcing it. Free snack. It's called a "lunch", but a hotdog, chips, and a water is merely a snack for most. Though it gives you a little energy to continue playing.

Cons: Can get busy. There were over 700 when I was there, and it was only an open play day. They said average is around 400-500. Confusing setup the first time going there. My brother and I were in the mixed group due to me having my own equipment and him renting, which seemed to cause much problems finding a game. There were constantly groups of renters going out, but only a group of mixed going out every 30 min or so. This caused my brother and I to only play 4 games the whole we were there (roughly 5 hours). Long walk (3 min each way) from fields to air refill station, bathrooms, and your equipment shelter A lot of new players that dont understand/follow the rules. My brother and I shot many of the renters (we could visually see the paint on them and hear them yell ouch!), yet they continued playing and shooting back the rest of the round. No chronograph check. There is no verification that each persons gun is shooting at the appropriate speed like every other course I've played at does. -Some of the woodsball courses are kinda dark and hard to see very well in, wish there were some with less tree cover.

Overall great place, and reasonably priced. Will...

Have been going out and playing with my brothers every weekend since mid. last year. The staff is friendly and jokes with the regular players and just make you feel welcome.

I purchased the Elite membership which allows you to bring a friend for free which works out perfect for me and allows me to bring my little brother with me without purchasing an additional membership and also bring the price for paint down to 40$ per case from 50$ per case (2000) rounds which is a great value for what your paying for.

They have the most varied fields and cover ranging from homemade bunkers to commercial cargo containers (theres even a schoolbus and a bush plane to play blackhawk down on) they are all very well laid out and offer varied and competitive strategic play from field to field. Some of the courses do get quite muddy after the rain "sandbox" but if you go out there without expecting to get down and dirty you might want to bring a spare set of clothes for the ride home or a towel to sit on i get very aggressive when playing and often find myself on my knees in the mud too peek around a bunker or a tree its a blast!

I will also mention that i have seen nothing but pristine customer service from them on every occasion that i was there, a couple of examples are that once when we were out playing, a customer that was in our mixed group with rental equipment accidentally dumped paint out of their gun onto the ground and basically dumped their whole hopper. The owner had park staff bring out fresh paint to replace it free of charge. Another example is that a customer that was also using rental equipment was getting very physical while he was playing and running and ended up breaking alot of paint from it bouncing back in forth in his gun and jammed up his tipman, the park staff made sure that he had a replacement out and paint to use before the start of the next game, they really do care about their customers and do everything they can to make sure that they have a great time when they come out.

The owner is there everyday and walks through the waiting area and talks to the players and makes sure that everyone has everything that they need and really does a great job to maintain the establishment that hes running there.

All in all i cant think of anything negative to say other than every game is basically elimination and they throw in a flag here and there that's basically optional but rarely sees action because no one wants to risk pushing up to get shot but the different field layouts and terrain always ensure that its a great time regardless.

We will continue to visit splatterpark whenever we want to get out and play some...