I attended this match last night. I am very sorry that I have to strongly urge everyone NOT to attend this match. At first it looked to be a good time, despite the difficulty I had getting there. Unfortunately, I was treated in a very unprofessional and inappropriate manner. The match consisted of 4 stages with a minimum of 36 rounds. For $15, that is almost 42 cents a shot.
When I arrived I was greeted by Melissa. Melissa is one of the sweetest and friendliest people you would ever want to meet. Because of her I had many reservations about sending this, but the experience was bad enough that I felt I had to make this known. I had the fortune / misfortune of them being ready for me to shoot as soon as I entered the range area.
I briefly looked over the stage descriptions for the first two stages when they called me in. On stage 3, you had to retreat to cover and kneel behind cover. There was a flimsy piece of matting where you were to kneel and it slipped out from under me and my knee came smashing down on the concrete. Needless to say, I was in a lot of pain leading into the 4th stage. (This match is a shotgun start so you shoot all 4 stages in a row.) When I got to stage 4, I wanted to take a quick look at it. There was a wall to the right which blocked a target array. I asked to look at it and I was told no, it was a surprise stage. Yet, there was nothing preventing the on deck shooter from seeing the stage. The target array was even clearly visible through windows looking into the range. The SO did tell me there were 3 shoot targets there. So I shot the stage. When I shot the last array, I shot target 1, target 2, and target 3, and.... target 4...??? I had to look 3 times before I realized that the first target had the "no-shoot hands" painted on them. It was hard to tell because the "hands" were painted brown, maybe one or two shades darker brown than the rest of the target. At which point, I argued that the stage did not present the same challenge to each shooter as some people were able to see the array ahead of time. The SO took the penalty off. I further tried to make some suggestions on how they could make it a true surprise stage, just adding a vision barrier. After some discussion, one of the people running the match (though not the SO) told me if I didn't "have my head so far up my A**", I would have seen the no shoot. I tried to explain that I don't care about the penalty, but I am trying to suggest how they could not make people feel slighted, that it should prevent the same challenge for each shooter. He said there is no such rule in IDPA. I told him that there was in IPSC, but I wasn't as familiar with the IDPA rule book enough to know. (oops, did I let the cat out of the bag that I am one of those evil IPSC shooters???). After further discussion I was told by this person that he didn't feel like arguing with "an A**hole with 3 rulebooks in his bag". I was also told not to "let the door hit me in the A** on the way" out and don't bother coming back.
I will admit I may have been a bit persistent, if only to state that I was not arguing because of the penalty that I received, but that I was arguing the point that people may feel slighted by such disparity and may not come back. I did not personally attack anyone, even after being personally attacked myself. I am not sure, but I believe that this person might have been the match director. While we will certainly have our differences, personal attacks and name calling involving aggressive and offensive language is just not acceptable.
I attended this match last night. I am very sorry that I have to strongly urge everyone NOT to attend this match. At first it looked to be a good time, despite the difficulty I had getting there. Unfortunately, I was treated in a very unprofessional and inappropriate manner. The match consisted of 4 stages with a minimum of 36 rounds. For $15, that is almost 42 cents a shot. When I arrived I was greeted by Melissa. Melissa is one of the sweetest and friendliest people you would ever want to meet. Because of her I had many reservations about sending this, but the experience was bad enough that I felt I had to make this known. I had the fortune / misfortune of them being ready for me to shoot as soon as I entered the range area. I briefly looked over the stage descriptions for the first two stages when they called me in. On stage 3, you had to retreat to cover and kneel behind cover. There was a flimsy piece of matting where you were to kneel and it slipped out from under me and my knee came smashing down on the concrete. Needless to say, I was in a lot of pain leading into the 4th stage. (This match is a shotgun start so you shoot all 4 stages in a row.) When I got to stage 4, I wanted to take a quick look at it. There was a wall to the right which blocked a target array. I asked to look at it and I was told no, it was a surprise stage. Yet, there was nothing preventing the on deck shooter from seeing the stage. The target array was even clearly visible through windows looking into the range. The SO did tell me there were 3 shoot targets there. So I shot the stage. When I shot the last array, I shot target 1, target 2, and target 3, and.... target 4...??? I had to look 3 times before I realized that the first target had the "no-shoot hands" painted on them. It was hard to tell because the "hands" were painted brown, maybe one or two shades darker brown than the rest of the target. At which point, I argued that the stage did not present the same challenge to each shooter as some people were able to see the array ahead of time. The SO took the penalty off. I further tried to make some suggestions on how they could make it a true surprise stage, just adding a vision barrier. After some discussion, one of the people running the match (though not the SO) told me if I didn't "have my head so far up my A**", I would have seen the no shoot. I tried to explain that I don't care about the penalty, but I am trying to suggest how they could not make people feel slighted, that it should prevent the same challenge for each shooter. He said there is no such rule in IDPA. I told him that there was in IPSC, but I wasn't as familiar with the IDPA rule book enough to know. (oops, did I let the cat out of the bag that I am one of those evil IPSC shooters???). After further discussion I was told by this person that he didn't feel like arguing with "an A**hole with 3 rulebooks in his bag". I was also told not to "let the door hit me in the A** on the way" out and don't bother coming back. I will admit I may have been a bit persistent, if only to state that I was not arguing because of the penalty that I received, but that I was arguing the point that people may feel slighted by such disparity and may not come back. I did not personally attack anyone, even after being personally attacked myself. I am not sure, but I believe that this person might have been the match director. While we will certainly have our differences, personal attacks and name calling involving aggressive and offensive language is just not acceptable.