Steeltown Event Park — Attraction in Oakdale

This is for the new indoor location in New Kensington, not the outdoor park.

The kids had a good time, which is why I'm giving it 2 stars instead of 1.

I made our reservation 2 weeks in advance. The downpayment is the cost of one player, so that's what I paid on the online form. The reservations and waivers were all online and that part was pretty nice, especially being able to see who had filled out waivers (because in this day and age, RSVPs seem to be optional.)

The paintball arena is in an old industrial park, so I wasn't expecting a shiny building. However, it was definitely a "sketchy" feel from the moment we pulled into the parking lot. THere were absolutely no signs whatsoever to find the location, other than the "29" on the outside of the back building. We walked into what felt like a dilapidated auto shop. There was water and muck on the floor in the entrance, and no signs to point us to where to go. A sad sign marked "conncessions" was written on posterboard and shoved in the corner. We heard people talking, so we followed the voices to the front desk.

The family working the front (I think it was a family, as it was a man, a woman and a child) were very nice and very polite. Several members of our party had paid me the money for their players in advance, so I handed the lady running the register a list with the last names of the people I was paying for. Somehow, several members of our party were asked to pay regardless and no one really double checked the list, so they had to issue a few refunds. The desk also told me they had no record of my downpayment so I had to pay for my children again. (I plan on reviewing my bank statement because I'm 99% sure it went through at the time of the reservation.

Now here is where it gets bad.

We were lead to the "party room." It was a dark, dingy room. Trash cans were overflowing and extremely smelly. There was a defunct "concession stand" setup in one corner. Empty pizza roll boxes, some stained with grease, were on the ledges, the tables, and scattered throughout the room. The floor was concrete and looked like it hadn't been swept in months. Tables were sticky and littered with confetti and debris from a previous party, including those little toothpick decorations kids stick in cupcakes. This was also the "staging area" for the kids between rounds, so they would come in to refill their paintball guns in the room, leading to dozens of paintballs on the floor causing a slipping hazard. There were no paper towels, napkins, or anything. One of the parents ran to the store and bought clorox wipes, paper towels, hand sanitizer, and disposable tableclothes so the kids could eat on a reasonably clean surface. At no point did the staff register that we were doing this, at no point did they say, "oh, that trash needs emptied" or even did they apologize for the condition of the room, despite several staff members being in the room to do the safety demonstration and deposit the children back between rounds.

I contacted the owner through Facebook to let them know about this, and I was offered "free passes" for the outdoor venue, which is quite a bit away from this one. But, I was told, we would have to pay for our own paintballs at $25 / person.

Like I said, the kids had fun, so as long as you aren't expecting a hygenic experience, go for it. I would certainly not plan to have a party there ever...

I went here with a group and there were a lot of problems with the field:

1. Cheap paintball guns - They use some super-cheap gun instead of Tippmann's for rentals. The cheap guns would constantly blank fire and require you to shake the hopper to get another ball in the chamber. Almost everyone on the trip I spoke to had this problem.

2. Awful refs - Even though we were a 20+ group, the refs didn't bother to split us into even teams and didn't even give us armbands. People ended up shooting their own teammates pretty frequently because of the confusion.

3. Bad fields - They have 1 speedball course (which was pretty good), 1 man-made field course (which was pretty bad), and 1 woodsball field (which was really bad). The woodsball field was particularly poorly designed, and was made even worse by the lack of armbands mentioned above.

4. No water - The field did not offer free water. You could purchase a bottle for $1. This is either extortion or irresponsibility. Take your pick.

I'm giving the place 2 stars instead of 1 because they are a new field and all these problems are fixable. Replace the rental guns with Tippmanns. They are probably $20 more expensive than whatever cheapo guns the field has now, but those $20 are totally worth it. Train or fire the refs. Restructure the fields and add more. And put a water cooler in the...

I hate having to write bad reviews, but in the case of this place I have to. We went here for my boyfriends birthday with a group of 9. First of all, the location listed isn’t even the actual place, you have to go up a steep, winding dirt road because the actual place is on top of the hill. The main part of the ‘facility’ where you get your guns and helmets is just a dim tarp covered structure. Very sketchy looking but we already paid so we tried to make the best of it. Most of our time ended up being spent waiting on the staff and having to get our guns fixed or traded out because all of them kept having problems. This made it to where we had partial games because we had to keep returning to the tarp. Very unorganized and unprofessional management. When, who we guess is the boss, came over to help with the guns, he started yelling at the kid who’d been with us. Also I hope you don’t have to pee at any point because your options are a single porta potty. After we finally decided to call it quits because we weren’t about to go get yet another gun fixed and have another partial game, we went to the place where we had paid to ask for at least a partial refund. We were DENIED even that!!! A HUGE waist of money. Absolutely do...