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Help Us Make our Level 1 Matches Better


Sporky

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We are at the end of our USPSA shooting season and we are throwing around ideas to help make our matches better.  

There are always compliments after the matches saying that we have great stages, but for some reason we don't get the number of shooters that we should.

In general, what are the things that make you decide to visit a match over another if you had the choice?

Thanks in advance for any help.

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How do you know the number of shooters that you "should" get? This can be a very complex problem. Geography, competing matches, schedule, cost, duration, etc.

In general, I look at match quality and distance.

Later,

Chuck

 

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What are you doing to advertise your matches and get the word out to the public?  Social media, brochures at gun stores, USPSA website, etc...  Have a Greeter at matches to help make new folks and prospective people welcome?  

Every month I get 2-3 people emailing me about matches.  I presume they find me from various website or fliers we have posted around town.  However I suspect the majority of our new influx comes from our current shooters convincing their friends, family, and co-workers to come join in on the fun.   

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We are doing the normal social media stuff, Facebook INGO ( indiana gun forum ) and here on Enos.

I was wondering if the general condition of the range would make much of an impact.  Or the quality of the Props used for the stages.  We have some trouble with weeds growing in certain bays, and some of our props are not in the best of condition.  So I guess I am asking; if the range was "pretty" and the props looked nice, would that make a difference to shooters?

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I'm in eastern Iowa, so not a shooting sports mecca.  We've got one match a weekend between the 3 clubs all within an hour's drive (2 outdoors, 1 indoor).  The club directors coordinate who has which weekend to make it easy for the local shooters to plan accordingly.

Attracting new shooters: range contact info, iashooters.org forum, BE forum, and FB were the places I looked when I got into the sport 3-4 years ago.  I didn't care about range conditions or stage quality (I didn't know much about that when I started).  I did enjoy having a veteran competitor mentor me the first few matches.  Most importantly, I went with one of my friends who was also a newbie.  Since then, I've noticed the shooters that seem to stick around are the ones that come with a buddy (or quickly make new friends at matches).

Attracting veteran shooters: outdoor clubs can have a little more variety in their 3-sided bays, so when the weather is good those tend to have more participation and bring out some of the more competitive shooters; indoor club sees more shooters when it starts to get chilly outside or when shooters need a slightly shorter match duration.  Both have pros & cons.  

For me, if I somehow have free time overlap with when a match is happening then I'm ready and willing!

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here is what I look for in deciding to shoot a match

Stage quality and variety, are they testing lots of skills or is it just a hoser match, 

Match management, are there actual WSB's with diagrams ect. how is scoring handled (less of a issue now thanks to practiscore) 

How smoothly does the match run? will it take longer than it should to get through the match, 

Are my friends shooting it?

 

For my club our goal is to run a match that feels like a section or area match, just with fewer stages. 

 

 

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I think there are two factors when it comes to increasing attendance:

1.  Recruit new shooters by advertising and making the matches and sport known to them.  Make it easy for new people to join.  Sounds like you guys are already doing some of that and reaching out.  

2. Retention of existing shooters.  This is where I think the quality of your matches is going to keep people or drive them away.  I suppose the more experienced shooters will be the discriminating ones about props or range condition since the newbs may not have anything to compare it to, but then again if your range looks like a meth lab I can see that driving away even the newbs.  If there is an adjacent club, or even clubs that hosts other venues (IDPA, 3-gun) maybe coordinate match schedules so they don't conflict and 'dilute' the number of shooters.  

Personally I like fun stages and steel that doesn't make me wish I update my tetanus shots more often.  Beyond that, I'm less about pretty than I am functional.  

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5 hours ago, MikeBurgess said:

here is what I look for in deciding to shoot a match

Stage quality and variety, are they testing lots of skills or is it just a hoser match, 

Match management, are there actual WSB's with diagrams ect. how is scoring handled (less of a issue now thanks to practiscore) 

How smoothly does the match run? will it take longer than it should to get through the match, 

Are my friends shooting it?

 

For my club our goal is to run a match that feels like a section or area match, just with fewer stages. 

 

 

Run matches like this guy does.   I was in one of his stages in a squad with 8 limited capacity shooters.  No 2 shot it with the same plan.

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Contact base security and the armory at your local military base. Tell them what you have for weekend fun. Then start calling all the local law enforcement, fire departments, VFW's, the local flower arranging society, etc.

 

Whenever I mention that I shoot USPSA or do action shooting, the first question is always, "What's that?" And these are people that go shooting.

 

Long story short, keep getting out the word. Safety first, fun second, serious competition comes way down the list. Make sure everyone has a blast. Remind everyone there to help spread the word. Don't worry about pretty, one of our local matches is in the back of some guy's junkyard - no one cares, it's a fun match.

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The biggest deciders for me are often, when, and what are the other shoots occurring that same weekend. 

As long as I'm not slogging through mud or picking off ticks or standing in the July sun with zero shade available anywhere, the facilities are not a factor. 

Not sure which club you shoot at, if your club is WVRPC (1st Saturday) I'm guessing that you are losing a bit to SCGC (1st Sunday and set up on Saturday). 

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Everything matters, as you don't know what's important on that day to every person.

Also there is the courtesy factor, I've told people their match was "oh i had fun, yep liked it just fine" and never went back. For various reasons. ( the only time I've told a MD exactly why I was unhappy at their local match and that I wouldn't be returning till it was fixed is because I liked them and knew them so I felt they could handle the brutal, negative honesty)

Things I know other people really care about when making a decision on where to shoot:

  • is it on the day they like. (for me saturday matches will always get waaaayyy more attention than a sunday match)
  • is there another match that day? if so, which one is closer often matters more than which one is better if they are about the same.
  • number of stages to amount paid per entry ratio. (i have matches local-ish to me that vary in size from 4-8 stages for their local stuff but cost almost the same)
  • level of competition. when you're new it's nice to have better people to see how things can be. when you're experienced it's nice to have better people to push you. (i'd probably not go to too many matches that had no one higher than B class. which i've seen at some smaller locals)
  • a "feel" that the club cares, put effort into it. you can just feel when something feels like buddies just half assing a match together so they can shoot and 10 strangers happen to join them versus people who care about putting on a legal, good, match. you can tell when people are earnest and trying to do well versus people who are just slapping it together and phoning it in. (that feeling means quite a bit to me)
  • stage design. make it legal. have a wsb. and change the style of stages all the time. (if I can reasonably guess what i'm going to shoot before i arrive then you've gotten in a rut.)
  • acceptance. i've seen new shooters  not come back because the regulars were a too hard core clique. not hard core in their shooting, but in their personality in accepting someone new. dudes, that's most shooters but also women, like being with their friends. and normally like making new friends. if you go to a new activity and don't feel like you could make friends there, the activity might not seem as fun and will get dropped.
  • scores, administration, timeliness

So if you're worried about weeds, spray them. If all your barricades are splintery and falling apart build new ones. And if you can step back and take an objective view of what is great at your matches and what is sub par, so you can effectively work on changing for the better.

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Quality of stages/fun factor.  Timeliness:  no excessive waiting.  This is what brings people to matches.

Take a CRO class.  Get rid of DQ traps, they are pathetic garbage.  Use shooting areas, get rid of shooting boxes completely.  Use walls and barrels, lots of them.  Eliminate garbage like forbidden actions.  Use loaded gun starts, like a man.  Set up activated targets that can be shot without waiting; either timed with other targets to engage while becoming visible, or activating and becoming visible with out delay.  More poppers, less plates. Gid rid of plate racks.  Texas stars should be functional and smooth, and repeatable.  Repair or get rid of any prop or target that causes reshoots.  Reshoots are to be avoided.  Adjust poppers before the match.  If you don't know how to set them by feel, use calibration ammo until you learn to do it by feel.  Use good poppers.

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OK I reread your first post. You say people are content with the stages and from that you're thinking it is something else. Some of what has been written for you isn't about the stages, so reread that stuff. But I think most importantly make sure you don't have a people problem.

Stages could be awesome but if you have someone undoing all that good work with their attitude or incompetence you'll never get the attendance you want.

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Oh, this really did help. 

R.O. classes. When I go to a local match now days pretty much every squad has two or three certified r.o.'s and more folks that are fine with the kindle/nook/whatever. 

Do not know where your club is at, but if you get on a squad and there is nobody there who really knows how to run it, or no backup for those people, that can suck away all of the fun. 

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I think that "growing" new shooters is a good idea.  We are holding 2 open practices a month aimed at getting new shooters, but the attendance is not terrific.

The matches are on the 3rd Sunday of the month and that doesn't interfere with any of the clubs within an hour an a half or so.  Don't really think that is an issue there. I just think that we are missing some of the "regulars" in the area and "growing" new shooters is going at a snails pace.  I go to all the other matches within about 2 1/2 hour distance or so on the weeks we don't have a match.  I am not "in charge" of anything except running the check in so I don't really stick my neck out there too much. But I do make friends here and there and mention the match when the opportunity arises.  

I am thinking that I will donate some new stage props for next season seeing as we have a new shed that is being built at the range.  Maybe if the props look more respectable that will help out some.

These are all great recommendations so keep it coming please!  I really appreciate the input.

I am going to travel a lot more in the next shooting season and I want to make sure I can help out our home club as much as I can now before I get too busy.

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In central Oklahoma we have 3 really fantastic matches each month.  I mean 7-8 quality stages with unique shooting challenges.  One draws 80+, another draws 35-40, and the other draws 10-20.  Each has a different feel but all are great run by really good MDs.  I think geography has a lot to do with it.  Some matches due to where they are just never draw big numbers.

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The best thing you can do is to travel to big matches, or successful local matches outside the driving radius that your other locals visit.

Then make your matches like the ones you enjoy shooting most.

Regarding experienced competitiors? Attracting them means really high quality stages that are challenging and interesting without being nearly impossible. We'll overlook rotting barricades and any number of other unattractive things for those, and no amount of shiny facilities will make someone come back to shoot from box after box because you aren't creative enough to stake down fault lines and make things fun.

For new shooters, I like when we have enough to build most of a squad and set them up with a couple of experienced shooters to guide them. One newbie on a squad of As and GMs can be awfully intimidated, especially if they're cliquish and hard to approach.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I've pondered your question more than a few times. I was active in a club in Phoenix that drew approximately 50 new shooters to its practice match every year, but would only retain 2 or 3 of those as continuing shooters. Kind of frustrating. I'm now in North Idaho and working on growing a club here. In Phoenix, most of the new shooters we got were either friends of existing shooters, or they saw some info about the club at the main range and decided to give it a try. From the people that I've introduced to the sport that have tried and 'died', so to speak, most have just been plain intimidated by the skill level that they perceive, even when they are looking at C or B shooters. In other words, USPSA kind of crushes their egos.

Take a guy that thinks he is hot stuff with his group of friends or at the main range, and turn him loose on a 32 round memory course with activators / swingers / no shoots, etc, and watch the buzz kill. Now this guy can be kicking ass on his first match, but if he is comparing himself to a C class shooter who has been doing this awhile he is going to have problems. That C class shooter won't be thinking about safe gun handling, will probably have his routines down if a gun malf occurs, and will probably have at least a basic stage plan. First time shooter, not so much. As a side note, most new female shooters don't have ego problems, and if they have a good time they will come back regardless of their performance.

My girls play club softball, and I see the same things with new kids that show up for tryouts every year. They have an expectation of how good / cool they are, and suddenly they find out they have a lot of work to do. The majority give up in the first five minutes, you can see it in their attitudes and emotions. But there are always a few that keep a twinkle in their eye and you can tell they want to learn to play with the cool kids. Same thing with new shooters to USPSA matches.

As a partial solution, I would suggest adding a simple practice match along the lines of Rio Salado's Tuesday Night Steel. Scoring is simple, time plus. Targets are simple, steel plate. People can get through the match simply and quickly. It is an easy format for new shooters to compete in. Will you still have perception / ego problems? Sure. But try to minimize them. As far as advertising goes, your best bet will be friends of friends and interest from your main ranges. One would think LGS's would promote the living out of matches, but they don't. Never understood why. Have a web page or facebook where people can find you easily as well. Good luck.

 

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Living in the Houston metro area we are really spread out. Within 2 hours we have probably 8-10 matches each month. Several are on the same days. Location of the range is a major factor for most shooters. Hard to get a new shooter to travel 2 hours to a match no matter how good it is.

The best match in the area IMHO is centrally located on a great private maintained range with grass bays and a very innovative and smart MD. He varies the 6 stages each month so that there is something for everyone's tastes and abilities. Draws 60 to 100 shooters each month. Match stays on time and never a super long wait between stages (very important). They are very welcoming and make everyone feel at home. Never too complicated for newer shooters so the frustration/DQ level is small, but still some challenging stages for us. Excellent mix of steel & paper, along with a classifier.

I have shot all of the others in the area at one time or another and location, range quality, stages, and people keep me coming back. May not be every month, but regular. I can shoot anywhere. Most here locally are very good. Attitude of the MD & RO's is very important.

gerritm

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

To host a successful local match it needs to be run as a business. As a business you need to provide a product your customers find value in and want to buy month after month. The number one issue I see with struggling clubs is that they are in continual "Wing It" mode and or don't really care what the customer base wants. You can't produce a consistent organized product if you don't know the basic requirements needed to host the match. Such as props needed for all stages, or even more simply, which stages go on which berms. Or even better, who is responsible for setting up a stage on a specific berm.

If you are hosting a monthly club match there is no excuse to not have a clear plan of attack for setting up the match, secured and scheduled match staff for running it, customer communication in the form of match notifications, Reviewed legal stages with printed WSB's, timely execution of the match on match day, and lastly prompt processing and posting of the results after the match ends. Yes this is all a lot of organizational and physical work to make happen but its required to make it succeed. 

As an MD when shooters ask me questions about the match I see that as an opportunity to improve my product. For example, I use to get questions about how many rounds will they need to shoot the match or how many stages will there be or what classifier are we going to use. I was able to head off all of these questions by simply attaching all of the stage WSB's to the match notice e-mail I would send out several days before the start of the match. Sending the stages out before the start of the match would also get shooters excited about attending because they could see the stages that would be used.

Consumers want to know what they are buying up front. They also want to see a solid execution of that product once they show up. That can't be done if your club is in a continual "Wing It" mode from one match to the next.

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21 hours ago, CHA-LEE said:

 Sending the stages out before the start of the match would also get shooters excited about attending because they could see the stages that would be used.

Consumers want to know what they are buying up front. They also want to see a solid execution of that product once they show up. That can't be done if your club is in a continual "Wing It" mode from one match to the next.

I'll second this notion as we get a lot of feedback from our shooters about how important it is to them that they see stages in advance, when it comes to deciding whether or not to make the trip or in choosing our match over other matches. 

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One simple way to make matches better is to start on time. Hate to get to a match and see the MD scrambling to finish setting up. I try to get to a match early to walk the stages because not all send out the stages ahead of time. Even if they do there are usually changes for safety.

gerritm

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