The Airsoft Experience
The Airsoft Experience
Milsim Canada: From British Columbia to The Compound. Canada Wide community
What happens when passionate airsoft enthusiasts come together to create unforgettable military simulation experiences? Join us for a riveting conversation with Kyle Shannon, Stephen Katarius, and Troy Lindsay from Milsim Canada. These dedicated individuals share stories from their journey. As they work to expand airsoft events across Canada. From their early days with cardboard guns to the sophisticated gameplay of today, discover the evolution of airsoft in the Okanagan region and how it has shaped their mission to offer realistic, adrenaline-pumping simulations.
As airsoft fans face new challenges, particularly in Vancouver, we explore how recent legislation has redefined the sport, causing setbacks for fields and shops. Yet, there's a prevailing optimism as the community unites in collaboration with policymakers to amend laws and create new opportunities, such as indoor airsoft venues. Our discussion highlights a resurgence of interest in military simulation events. We also touch on the shifting dynamics within the paintball community, which reflect broader trends in recreational sports.
Milsim Canada is at the forefront of uniting airsoft communities across the nation. Join us as we discuss the resilience required to overcome past challenges, like financial disputes and unpredictable weather, to build trust through large-scale events. We dive into the nuts and bolts of tactical planning, from intricate territory control strategies to the role of player engagement in crafting compelling narratives. As we gear up for future events, the excitement is palpable, fueled by a shared love for immersive gaming and a commitment to fostering a vibrant airsoft scene in Canada.
https://www.facebook.com/share/CL2SH54AmCeBKWvN/?mibextid=K35XfP
https://milsimcanada.ca
Spades Tactical
airsoft guns tactical gear and knives
416 588 3667
https://g.co/kgs/qY2ygp7
Action Airsoft Club
www.actionairsoft.ca 905-615-7757
Ballistic Prints
www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089181244866
SlingX
www.slingx.ca
Lightfighter Milsim Airsoft Team www.facebook.com/lightfightersmilsim
Nsceibelab Laser Designs
www,facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089285134479
Army Issue Surplus Inc.
www.armyissue.com 905-271-1665
Thank you for listening to the podcast.
check us out on Facebook and Instagram for all your upcoming episode information.
www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088900910305
Instagram @the_airsoft_experience
Want More Content?
check out our awesome friends at THE CANDO EXPERIMENT podcast.
these guys are always having a great time listen to there antics on all your podcast streaming platforms.
https://linktr.ee/TheCandoExperiment?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=5c7718e1-98db-4eaf-bbba-6cf3f8cc19a6
Force feed us. Let's just do some talking real quick.
Speaker 2:Test test, test Test test one two Testing test one two.
Speaker 4:Six one. We have contact left, side 70. Coming to you, contact left, contact left. We're flanking left side. Suppress, push, push, push.
Speaker 1:Removing removing Right side right side Got him Welcome to the Airsoft Experience. I am Michael Mascot, also known as Magic, and we are going to work through some technical difficulties because we are live at the compound right now with three gentlemen that have flown all the way from British Columbia and we are here with Milsim Canada and we're going to start on our right-hand side and I'll have these guys introduce themselves.
Speaker 3:So go ahead. Yeah, my name is Kyle Shannon. I'm one of the co-owners of Milsim.
Speaker 2:Canada. I'm Stephen Katerius. I'm the second co-founder of Milsim Canada.
Speaker 4:I'm Troy Lindsay and I kind of just help out where they're needed Awesome.
Speaker 1:And let's quickly talk about, I guess, how was your trip?
Speaker 3:How was the flight? How did that all go? Is there a little bit of a story behind that, or how are we doing? The trip was good. It was a four hour trip but with the time change and all that, I only had three hours of sleep. So, we flew through the night and then we had rental car problems and we worked through that and we landed to get a, an uber and we ubered from toronto all the way up here to the compound wow that, uh, that's quite the driver for your listeners out there.
Speaker 1:You're about two and a half from uh pearson airport, two and a half hour drive, so that's quite the uber. It's a good way to get a couple more z's in yeah, for sure, and also to add to the story the road trip story. Yeah, so a little bit of background. Milsim, Canada they're a game host out in BC smaller community. They're trying to push things and kind of go all the way across Canada to different fields hosting events. Is that kind of the premise?
Speaker 3:behind it all. Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what we're trying to do.
Speaker 2:Early in October 2023, kyle had brought me up to the location that we've hosted our first two events at, which is known as BMAP Airsoft, and he was just bringing up the idea that we kind of have this opportunity with a great amount of land. They're already in the prospects of going down the Airsoft direction, already in the prospects of going down the airsoft direction, and what we've always been wanting to do as kids is have a military simulated experience, and so this kind of became a discussion in that month and the next day, we basically just started going hard on the computers and creating everything from the ground up, so we within.
Speaker 1:The first month let's kind of back up a little bit and let's kind of get into, uh, kind of your airsoft individual backgrounds, like how long have you been doing it? Where did that? Where did the story start with you? Like what? When did it all start?
Speaker 3:so me and steven were 13 years old, camping with my mom and dad up at pinnacle lake and we used to set up like wood sticks and then pile dirt on it so that when we'd run and step on the sticks the dirt would fly up.
Speaker 3:So it looks like we were shooting it, like like explosions and stuff that's cool, and we had, like the old clear plastic springers one shot, pull it back for every shot. Oh yeah, that's pretty much where it started. For us was just running around like hoodlums with cardboard guns and plastic springers.
Speaker 2:No, just a little bit. Before that we had a good group of friends. We started off making cardboard stencil guns.
Speaker 1:Oh nice.
Speaker 2:We'd cut out a stencil of cardboard, layer it up. You could pull out your mag, We'd camo up the guns and we'd go play in a little duck pond in the backyard of one of our friends' house. And so we started there running around with non-projectile shooting guns, just immersing in the experience of exchanging, really learning the value of calling hits.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, you can't hit a player.
Speaker 1:It's an honor roll system at that point getting the muscle memory going young at a, at a young age, and then just seeing over the years how airsoft has taken off in in the uh, the okanagan in canada.
Speaker 2:It's just, it's it's so amazing to be able to uh come into it, where it's at now, coming from cardboard guns to these realistic replica lookinglooking things. Oh yeah, and all the gadgets and gadgets you can have today. It's definitely a passion to pursue.
Speaker 1:It's a change game, for sure.
Speaker 4:Probably similar to these guys when you're younger grade 8, grade 9. We're playing out in the woods with our buddies, we're driving across the border I lived closer to Vancouver and stuff when I was a kid. So we drive across the border, pick up airsoft guns, come back across clear, soft, $10 for a little shotgun stuff like that and you know 13, 14, 15 years old running around the woods just having a blast. We're playing until 2, 3 in the morning, just doing your own thing, just doing what we can.
Speaker 4:And then, you know, eventually go to a real gun store, a real airsoft store yeah, seeing my first gng on the wall, you know I was 18, yeah. And then I found out a local club, uh, you know, back back a lot of listeners have probably heard about panther airsoft in the surrey vancouver area, one of the older um fields to start rentals and stuff like that. But even prior to that it was all clubs, so there's multiple clubs running out of there and that's when I first experienced I more the airsoft that people see nowadays other than, like the, you know, clear soft stuff.
Speaker 1:Is there an abundance of fields out your way, or is it something that's kind of changing, or is it few and far between? Or is it just like kind of what you guys are doing and it's just a massive land parcel that you're kind of renting out and hosting events at?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we have a lot of clubs in the Okanagan and in BC. There are a lot smaller clubs and they're definitely separate from each other. Kelowna alone has three clubs or four clubs in Kelowna. Pretty much everywhere you go in BC you can find a small group of people that play airsoft.
Speaker 1:So is it called a club for insurance regions reasons, or is it just something that you guys do out west and that's just pretty much what it's called?
Speaker 4:um, I would say so just because a lot of people aren't playing at airsoft fields always, so a lot of. I guess they used to call it, um, what's the word? They used to have it for paintball outlaw paintball, oh yeah. So we're kind of just grabbing 20 buddies going out in the woods and if no one gets hurt, nothing happens, right. But a lot of those have changed now just because of more laws and stuff like that. You're getting more places going and actually renting out other people's properties. Like one of the clubs is at a shooting range, another one is privately owned. B-map is a privately owned field. Now the clubs we're seeing in some other spots are just, you know, similar someone's private property. They let us play on.
Speaker 4:Vancouver's had a lot of ebb and flows with fields, but if you've lived in vancouver you know how much it costs to live there and a lot of those places just eventually got developed into housing or whatever and it's it. It's where in the Vancouver area it's really consolidating to only a handful of fields. Yeah, but you went 15 years ago. There's little micro clubs, little micro groups. You know when Facebook would start coming out and forums and stuff like that. But it's really changed.
Speaker 3:I think the biggest change was when they changed a lot of the airsoft laws, when they started calling airsoft guns unregulated firearms, oh yeah, and they started falling under that firearm category. A lot of cities and communities had laws and bylaws stating no discharge firearms within city limits. Yeah, so it didn't matter if you were five minutes out of town and there was no houses around. It was against the law for you to go and play airsoft. You couldn't shoot.
Speaker 1:It is in Ontario, so you cannot shoot your airsoft in your backyard. You can't do any of that stuff in any major or even smaller towns. It's just, unfortunately, we're under a liberal rule and that's just what it is. I'm sure everybody fought C21 as hard as we did. It almost ended. You know our businesses, our community, everything. So luckily we're coming up to an election and I don't really want to get into politics because this show will go six, seven hours and uh. But yeah, we're fighting it, we all fought it together. I won't say we won, but we're on the other end of the mountain, so to say, and things are looking good. But yeah, I do agree, uh, and a lot of the communities, so to say, and things are looking good.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I do agree, uh, a lot of the communities that we have out in our way are starting to come back onto the radar in the coming months and years. That I've seen because everyone kind of slipped under to to hide away from all that legality, bull, bullcrap did it?
Speaker 1:did it end some fields and did it end some stores?
Speaker 2:absolutely yeah, absolutely a lot of, a lot of the clubs kind of dissolved and the stores followed with that because they weren't getting the uh, the sales that they needed to keep afloat. So it was. It was a bit of a blow. For a few years we'd see an airsoft shop that wouldn't last like more than four months and we would go in like sweet, I'm glad to see that you know a new thing's coming here.
Speaker 2:Hopefully this is moving forward and then gone yeah, yeah, a bit of a bummer, but it's definitely picking up from where it was two years ago, I'd say there's probably a bit of a covid hangover too a lot of people.
Speaker 4:You know, we all live through it. We know what it's like. Yep, a lot of businesses struggled, I think you would think, airsoft being outside and whole point is to shoot and keep the people away from you. But a lot of uh, you know, different clubs have different politics, different mentalities with. You know, maybe the local police didn't crack down as much on people having fun out in the woods. In some places you couldn't have any fun at all, right? So kind of depends on where you lived and what was going on.
Speaker 1:Definitely a dark day for Airsoft, but we're hopefully through that now.
Speaker 3:I think if more people can fight for it it'll benefit us in the end. I just started this new venture now where I'm working with some local politicians to add some exceptions into our firearms bill in City Limits, because we're legally not even allowed to have indoor Airsoft clubs Yikes, our bylaw completely bans all indoor airsoft play in city limits. We're trying to add some restrictions and remove some restrictions to be able to work with some benefits so we can maybe get some more indoor facilities in the Okanagan or around BC. How is the Milsim play at.
Speaker 2:West In what regard?
Speaker 1:In regards to size of events how many events? Is it something that's more regular or is it more of a walk-on type of community?
Speaker 3:I'd say it's definitely right now a little bit more of a walk-on type of community. There are some big events around, like 108 miles, a big event, three plus 400 players there. It's growing. It's as more people see it, they're starting to get more into it. It's definitely something we need more of, yeah, for sure Is that kind of getting back to that.
Speaker 1:That main question is is who and what is Milsim Canada? Is that? Is that what you guys are?
Speaker 3:Yeah, like we, we started this because we've always had a dream and a passion for the military simulation. We just never had the funding or the ability to get property to do it. It just so happened that we had b-map airsoft land in our lap with this enormous abandoned ski hill with a perfect ao for a military simulation. It fell in our lap and it allowed us to jump on this and do it while we could and get a good start to it.
Speaker 1:Is it so it's developed like? Does it have old buildings on it or is it just all land?
Speaker 2:It does have derelict infrastructure on it that you can utilize in game Nice, some structure to help keep sheltered in, because a lot of it's just Open woods, open woods and slopes.
Speaker 1:Nice Steep terrain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I bet Nice steep terrain, yeah, I bet ski Hill, yeah. And so Milsim, canada's aims and goals with that is to kind of host multiple events leaning towards the military simulated style gameplay, longer duration gameplay, um, working with the, the airsoft style game, but ramping it towards a new bar for for the okanagan so let's kind of sidestep real quick because I just want to get the listeners to get a little bit more history, um, and kind of what the communities are at.
Speaker 1:So right now I'm noticing kind of a shift in actually the paintball community and uh, I know you guys have heard of mag fed paintball. It's kind of the closest thing to what we're doing airsoft, yeah. So we're getting a huge conversion rate to airsoft from paintball now in ontario. Is that kind of same tread happening with you guys? Are you guys completely separate from that community?
Speaker 3:I'm not too sure about all of BC but, like in the Okanagan, we just lost Safari Ridge paintball. They shut down. A lot of those old time paintball people aren't really around anymore. Everybody that we're starting to see at all the fields around the Okanagan are new players parents coming with their kids, the dads are getting right into it and it's definitely a newer, a newer player base out there, sweet that's good to have a young community that's flourishing and growing, because that's exactly what you want yeah, next generation but sorry to cut you off, but that we're not saying in any way does that direct to age.
Speaker 1:So let's just clear that up, right now when we say young, it just means a new community like this. Sport is definitely great for any age, depending on your health right?
Speaker 4:yeah, I would say there's definitely a new I want to say peak or a new but since probably 2020 started and since covid, we're seeing a lot more brand new to like the action sport, the paintball, the airsoft, that just that sort of stuff. Talking to the paintballers, I know a lot of them are just diehard. They just, they're just, they don't even. They only play maybe once a year or something and they're just devastated. That paintball is basically just gone. Yeah, a lot of the old paintball fields converted to airsoft, a lot of them are just gone. Again, with the development thing, a lot of those properties in the vancouver area were just worth so much money. Like they're coming hands over fists, giving them millions upon millions of dollars to develop their land. Yeah, do you take 20 million or do you try to run a failing paintball field right?
Speaker 4:yeah, the two thousand dollars you make on a friday and a lot of the old guard, the guys that probably even ontario across the world.
Speaker 4:There was a lot of the first guys bringing in airsoft, some of the maybe 10 years older than how old we are a lot of the guys bringing airsoft in the mid-2000s, the Tokyo Maruis, the old school stuff, and a lot of those guys are just they got kids, now they. You know knees don't work so great, you know they can't really handle some of the big milsims For sure. And now we're getting, I think that I would say, the third generation after them. Nice, um, so it's. We're getting a really big uptick in the sport. In the past, especially two years, I would say it's really exploded in our area so for game hosts, like in ontario, we have quite a few game hosts.
Speaker 1:We have uh, we're lucky to have quite a few. Well, I guess we've lost quite a few fields, but we still have some pretty active bigger fields that are paintball and airsoft. The compound was primarily built as an airsoft solely field and we've just slowly started accepting mag fed. Only, there'll be never I'll never open up for a spray and and whatever that is paintball, where they shoot 50 paintballs in 13 seconds. That ain't happening here, I'll tell you that much. But it's good to see two communities kind of coming together in Ontario. I just wanted to see if the trend is continuing at West. That's the only reason for that question.
Speaker 2:Fair enough.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, so BC airsoft community community. Let's get back to the, the question here um game hosts. So I know you got you guys. Is there any other like prominent game hosts that are hosting maybe one, two events a year?
Speaker 3:yeah, trigger airsoft they're, they're one of the main hosts in bc. Uh, they're, I'm pretty sure they're the guys that do 108 mile, yep, um, and then pretty much every club they're their own game host. We don't really have any separate sole game hosts other than trigger right now and then now us it's. It's mostly just communities and clubs that host games and they try to do bigger games and bigger events and all that.
Speaker 1:So do you find that, um the way, like so, ontario, airsoft, we're one giant community and then it's game hosts, that kind of separate what they're doing? Do you find that maybe because it's a bunch of pocket clubs, you have more of a division in your community?
Speaker 3:absolutely yeah, right from the start, I feel that ontario is very european based in the way they deal with their airsoft. In Europe they have very minimal airsoft clubs, but they have tons of airsoft fields and all the fields host game days on different days so that player base will travel to all the different fields. In the Okanagan pretty much every club hosts games every weekend, so it's really hard to get that group of people together to be able to play at all the different fields. So I think that's one of the things that's creating a bit of the division there.
Speaker 2:What we're trying to do with that is move herds of each group to each other location. So say, four different communities will go to one community's game day for the weekend and then four others will go to another, and we'll just sort of share the client base of each community.
Speaker 3:We started calling them field trip days, where you know we can grab a couple people from each club and just go and hit a different club and go and raid that club with 15 players to add to their player base, and those, those games are fantastic so we're talking like like an eight hour kind of game on a saturday kind of deal, yeah usually. It's. Usually it's like six games in that eight hours though they're not consecutive games, yeah.
Speaker 1:So it's almost like a walk on day, like sometimes we have a community day where you'll do like a 15 minute skirmish and then you're off and then you'll do like a 45 minute uh, you know, mission-based little small game and then you'll come back, something like that or like what we do at action. You're 15 minutes on, 10 minutes off, 15 minutes on, yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 2:We're kind of hoping to kill some of that divide by showing these other, like bringing certain heads together that will click and create more groups that are solid and kind of weed out the ones that are the sour apples of the communities, and that is something that we have been seeing happen. In the last year and a half A lot of the communities we've gone to to talk to have told us, yep, we've gotten rid of X, y, z that were causing general issues.
Speaker 3:Most of the people were dissatisfied with the way that things went on, so we're seeing a good sign of that in the last year and a half, I would say One big thing too with Milsom Canada is we kind of reached out to all the communities and we've taken club admins from the different communities and brought them on board as milsom canada monitors moderators, so that it's not just us with our word against everybody. We can have input from different clubs as moderators towards what we're doing and towards our community so we can try to bring more people together that way as well so we're not stealing per se, because they're still helping and doing their roles in their own communities as well.
Speaker 1:What are the sizes of these clubs? Like player counts, 30 to 40.
Speaker 2:That's it so we're talking small clubs.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But there's so many spread out and that's what we were talking about, the divide of it. You guys are one giant community here. We have lots of little ones that we're trying to just sort of break up that divide.
Speaker 3:I think Panther is have lots of little ones that we're trying to just sort of break up that divide. I think panther is the biggest club in bc right now. Um, I think they hold the biggest game days.
Speaker 1:They're like they're the biggest club so does panther have a field that could run a big, multi-hundred player milson?
Speaker 4:um, unfortunately, uh, they're very tied into the film community. A lot of tv shows you've seen supernatural film there for years. What's the one with, uh, john cena in the silver mask? Oh, yeah, yeah, that new superhero one he had in the movie and he has tv show. I have no idea. Peacemaker, okay, film peacemaker there, tons of stuff all the time.
Speaker 4:So the problem is is for larger events it's you know, they're not going to really want to book it out when you know they might make a few grand off of us. But when they can get tens of thousands of dollars from a film crew, we're just not. It's going to be difficult to get priority, but on a weekend basis in the summer, like you know, when I, prior to moving to the Okanagan, we were getting 100 players, 125 players on a 30-acre field. So it wasn't a very big field but a very strong community, very good clubs, a lot of people constantly showing up, and now that the film has been there, they still find a way to make sure that they get to play pretty much every weekend. But due to those limitations, it's just Not happening.
Speaker 4:It would have to be so short notice that it would basically be a like a like a pop-up game day where milsim, canada, shows up and we're like, hey, you know, we're gonna, you know, pay a little extra money and we got cool gadgets to you know. Yeah, play with or something, but playing something bigger, it's just not realistic, unfortunately hard to get penciled in yeah, with panther we'd have to.
Speaker 3:We'd essentially we'd have to pick like three weekends and if the first one doesn't happen we'd try the second one, if the second one doesn't happen, we try the third one. Impossible and it's impossible. And it has to be all tickets at the gate. You can't pre-sell tickets because if the date pushes back, people that bought tickets might not be available that weekend. So it's a good feel that just it's a little harder for us, for what we're trying to hold, to be able to commit to something like that.
Speaker 1:Has it ever been approached as a like force on force competition between clubs at an event?
Speaker 3:I would like to see that a little bit, to try to, even even if it's just to, bring some communities together, even if they're, say, rivalries, you do it like one club is Canada, one's the States say rivalries.
Speaker 1:You do it like one club is canada, one's the states, you know one's china, one's whatever, whatever clubs they are, they kind of stick to their little mantra. You guys have your big, massive field. You bring them all up and say, hey, you're going on this side, you're going against him, and you do just the giant world attack and that's a good way to bring everybody together too. Yeah, so we kind of had something similar not really like to that extent, but there is.
Speaker 1:There was some separation amongst game hosts and followers of those game hosts and when I started becoming serious in the community and opening up clubs and and fields and stuff like that, I did everything I can to bring all those people together, because I just find like separation amongst the community just kills the community. Yeah, um, I'm seeing it now in ontario, especially with the compound opening up and just us being able to do bigger games. I just see a solidarity amongst the community. It's really nice to see now. So you have those like two game hosts that would just never do anything together now participating in each other's games and helping with game control and helping with you know props and and donating their vehicle to another crew because their vehicle broke down, and stuff like that. It's pretty cool to see.
Speaker 3:I was just throwing that out there yeah, I definitely think, like as with our tnf uh, our little airsoft team, that's one of the things we're doing is bringing communities together. That's aside from milsom canada, so that's definitely something I'd like to see. I'd like to see more of the things we're doing is bringing communities together. That's aside from Milsim Canada, so that's definitely something I'd like to see. I'd like to see more of the clubs coming together and doing bigger games, like that Milsim-wise.
Speaker 4:unfortunately, in the 20-teens there were some failed events where money wasn't getting back to the players after the cancellations and stuff like that, and I'd say for close to a decade there was really just the trigger and Omega. There was another game company called Omega ops and they were the they were getting once a year and that was really it. Everyone was too gun-shy to give someone $100 if they didn't know they were actually going to get the game 100% and it was one of the big uphill battles for Milsim Canada. So, surprisingly enough, before I met these guys when they announced their game, I've been in the community for quite a long while and I have quite a few friends across British Columbia and I had a lot of messages because they knew I lived relatively nearby Like who are these airsoft? Can or you know Milsim Canada? Who are these guys? Do you know them? Is it going to be good? Are they going to scam us? Are they rip us off?
Speaker 4:And I said I've already talked to them, I'm going to go meet them in first time. We actually hung out together. It clicked nice, it was great. We, we, they. They took my suggestions. Well, um, they pushed back where they wanted to make sure they had their stuff and I think, unfortunately, if it weren't for the torrential downpour of our first, like torrential downpour of our first game, july 1st, we were expecting, you know, 40 degree heat and we're getting inches of rain um I was, it would have been epic water out of my boot.
Speaker 4:It would have been epic, but uh, even including us.
Speaker 1:We weren't really expecting that much rain you're, you're speaking to the choir. That actually happened to us too this year for gunrunner it was torrential rain pour. We had 264 people sign up for that game. Uh, 204 people still showed up even though the heavy torrential rainpour, uh rains, and we still ended up doing the entire game and having people stay on the field. But man, that really threw it for a fucking curveball.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you that much. We, um, we lost half of our NATO team numbers on the second day of the rainfall, because everyone was Soaked. Yeah, they didn't plan to be able to stay dry with that much rain.
Speaker 3:We were prepped to pretty much do 100% refund based on forest fire, because the year before our first event, bull Mountain Airsoft was completely surrounded by wildfire. Oh shit, it burnt almost 360 degrees around minus West Kelowna. So we were. We had so many fire precautions no smoke grenades, no pyro, no, nothing leading into the first event. We were so worried about forest fires and then here it's like we threw like a hundred smoke grenades within the first day and pyro and it would just piss strain the whole time we were there. No fire hazard at all.
Speaker 1:So was that your first major event organized as milsom canada yep yep, all right, let's talk about event number two event number two operation bull mountain it.
Speaker 3:Uh, that one was a little bit short notice two months after the first. But we did some polling and people were bugging us straight away to do a second one because obviously people were wanting the milsoms yep. So we did a little bit of polling asking should we do a 24 hour or a 40 hour? We got a lot of pushback right away, a lot of good suggestions, and then we just instantly jumped on like all right, we're gonna do another 40 hour in september and we're just gonna go for it nice.
Speaker 1:So the first event rained out, so you guys really didn't get the chance to show people what you're about at that game. Yeah, so the second time, what were your numbers? Like the second game, the second?
Speaker 3:time. We were, I think, maybe 25 people less than the first event. That's right, but the we had way more intense gun battles. Nice all through the night.
Speaker 3:It was constant, like our goal, because troy's experience with milsom west and his experience in the milsoms, our goal, because troy's experience with milsom west and his experience in the milsoms, our goal as nato, is we were just going to constantly poke them all night so they couldn't attack us. Yep, so every time he was going out to do a mission we had guys there. So it was just constant, even if it was two on five or two on two, if we had one back road to yankee and I think for like 14 hours straight, it was just constant, constant. People dying, people dying, people dying, and it was just battle after battle after battle after battle, just nonstop.
Speaker 2:Even with that, you get two different outlooks on everything. We we seen a video clip from the rebel side. One guy's just like you know, I haven't really seen much action at all. And then, right after he says that, another guy's like really I more action than I've wanted this event. And then, right after he finishes that sentence they're building there and just starts getting lit up by the perfect timing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so for your games are you guys? Uh, is it like mission based? Is it capture the flag? Is it zone? Like what kind of game style? Or do you guys mix it up?
Speaker 4:well, in the beginning we were. The original intention of the games were kind of like capture the flag, um, we have alpha through zulu, um, these little like checkpoints throughout the field. It's a about 2500 acre field. There's a lot, lots of space. It's a little one, yeah, um and uh, a lot of it was. You had like a red flag or a blue flag if you are flag and but if you control it as nato, you put the blue flag on if you're rebel. Had like a red flag or a blue flag if you are flagging, but if you control it as nato, you put the blue flag on. If you're rebel, you put the red flag on. But we just looked at the logistics of actually having points and like actually doing that and we realized it just wasn't. We just didn't have the staff it it. The field was just too big.
Speaker 2:We didn't, yeah, we didn't have the staff for the size of the first game and we also utilized because we were trying to lay out somewhat of missions, so have a team in place and then have an objective to go and get that place surrounding the sector control bit about it. And then on the second one, we started utilizing more pushed forward operating positions, which that's what intensified the second event that we hosted. The first one, we kept pulling back to our original location, which was really exerting our players having to traverse so much land to get back into any type of a firefight. So we started incorporating some different feels for how we play in the second event, with a little bit less people, and I think we definitely brought up the tempo for everybody.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we put we put about six months into planning all boards. We built about 40 all boards with maps, full layouts with a whole storyline for both teams didn't even use a single one of them because it was just like we'd now we're. We were at the point where we're just sending patrols out, finding the enemy. They'd relay back to command. Command would come up with an attack plan, then we'd gather people together, then we'd go and attack. So we ended up just building the op wards as we played strategically based on who owned what ground, how the playing was going with, the tempo of the game was, and we didn't even end up using any of those op w boards. So we have them sitting there in a file. So now, at any point in time, we can just pull out all these cool stories that we've got to be able to add missions to the games and stuff like that. So we did put a lot of dedication into that at the start and then we didn't end up using it. It was a lot of our time.
Speaker 1:We put a lot of time into that yeah, I think, uh well, most people I guess don't know or don't think about the time, like player-wise I'm saying don't think about the time involved in organizing a game.
Speaker 1:But it is crazy the amount of time you have to do. Especially for our team, light Fighters, we host one I guess this year we're doing two at a different field, we're doing one in August, but we host one big one every year and it's just heavy missions. So it's one mission per team kind of deal with heavy props involved. Like is that, is that something that you guys are kind of going for, moving to a different field and stuff like that, or are you going to stick to kind of a territory control?
Speaker 3:I think we're going to stay away from the props, but it would be kind of essentially like territory control based on who who owns what land.
Speaker 3:I think that that's the one thing that keeps us separate from a lot of other game hosts is we're trying to keep the true military aspect of it without go and pick this laptop up, go and do this, get this intel, get this. It's a lot more based on the tempo of the game and who owns what land. And like if, for instance, nato, if we have some bad players and we lose a lot of ground, we're not going to throw off boards in there to force us to get ground back. We're going to be like, okay, well, they've gained the ground now. Now we have to do recon. We've fallen back with our tail between our legs, we're hiding in the bush, we're sending out little two-man squads, we're trying to find the enemy, see where they are, where they're staged, and then we can try to push back from there. So I think we are staying away from the props, but I'm definitely for the storylines too.
Speaker 1:I like the storylines is it gonna be like? Are you gonna release a storyline, um, with your information package, like your rules and all that stuff at the same time so people can kind of get into it before the game? Or is it going to be something like day of you kind of explain the situation at the game brief before everybody steps on?
Speaker 4:Normally we have a couple paragraph brief. We build the lore of the rebel versus the NATO volunteer force like story and hopefully every event event, depending on who wins who. There's no winners or losers we we don't really aim for. Well, they got 100 points, so this team won by the end of the game. You kind of know which team dominated who.
Speaker 4:Right, it's all internal, but it allows us to kind of write our stories for future games. So you know, we get to play a game. You know, this year, next year, we go back to the same ao. All right, well, rebels did. Well, let's adjust how we start our like patrol bases and stuff in more of a, maybe a dominating position for the rebels, um, so we can play with more of the field and we'll write that kind of short little three or four paragraph story, just a little snippet kind of like.
Speaker 4:Well, you know, in between the last two games, here's how the lore has developed. Um, maybe add a little bit more um, because we kept it very vague the first couple events, but we've been kind of adding little elements to it to uh, kind of depending on the teams who show up. Um, we haven't really shut, shouted out, but honestly I think over 50 of our players at our first event were from alberta nice. So really, alberta came out strong, and I think they would have came out strong in september if it wasn't so short notice. But every time we talk to them they're very, very ready to play they also had uh an event going on around the same time literally the the same weekend, unfortunately, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's one thing we try to avoid in Ontario. The best that we can Double lining. But with you guys, how are you going to say you sell 350 tickets? I'm just going to throw a number out there. How are you going to police and maintain 350 people on this field?
Speaker 3:So that's going to be huge on our platoon leaders. So we've got a decent group that we've been building of knowledgeable people for platoon leaders that are acting as like infield staff members, essentially in admins, and they've got the knowledge to run multiple squads. So that takes a little bit of the load off of the commanders and stuff like that. It's a little bit easier to police and if we have bigger numbers like that, we will put more admins in the field. No question about it, we will have more admins in the field for stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Awesome Insurance-wise out there. How does that work for you guys? Is it the field that has an insurance, or do you guys carry your own insurance? I don't know how it feel, how it works out in bc for the little pockets, because out here it's expensive and hard to get insurance to do what we're doing, so most game hosts will rely on the field to get insurance. Is it the same way for you guys?
Speaker 3:yeah, so we have to operate under bull mountains insurance because they have requirements through their insurance to be able to operate as a field as soon as they have people on that field, it doesn't matter if it's a separate entity holding a game.
Speaker 3:You are required to follow that field's liabilities. So they've got their own waivers, they've got their own rules. You know, once you reach a certain height you have to have handrails, stuff like that. So, nbc, we right now operate under his insurance. We bring his waivers in, everybody agrees and signs onto his waivers and it's pretty much the same as what you were talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, same here. So you like, I guess the cat's out of the bag now because you're on the show. But I know you guys posted on OAC. You're looking for a field and you'll be doing a game, tentatively, I guess, here next year, now that we'll be releasing this, so you'd be under our insurance. So we've talked about you being able to manage and police that many players. So when we off air we kind of talked about you kind of go the ghost ref kind of method. So you're saying you're admin, you're basically going to have players that are playing, that are actually refs and kind of curving any bad attitudes and any cheating and any stuff like that and that's the same with our medics too.
Speaker 3:You won't see, in our event, guys running around with bright red vests on that are medics. We have designated medics on each team that are nurses and highly trained medics that are basically blended into the gameplay with them, but they're more based on the patrol or the platoon end of things or the command end of things, so that they're always available if needed, but it's just they're not running around with bright red vests on with the white cross on them stating they're a medic. Everybody knows who they are. When we do our briefing, at the beginning, medics hold their hands up. Everybody can see who the medics are.
Speaker 1:If anyone calls corman, those medics know that's when they're in play and they jump right on it so in bc, if there is an injury like actually you know not, somebody fell and scraped their elbow, but like they broke their leg, do you guys do the no-duff system or how does that?
Speaker 3:go. We call it Corman, corman's a GameStop, complete ceasefire, because we use essentially the Milsom rules. When people get shot they fall to the ground and they start screaming bloody murder. And they're screaming medic. So we didn't want medic to be crossed over for real injuries, so we went with the corpsman. So when people yell corpsman, corpsman's, an actual emergency.
Speaker 1:Okay. So just to get it out to Ontario, nobody in our industry is going to understand what that is. So we call no duff, yeah. Or, if you're unsure, it's a November delta but no duff. So that's just one thing that you'll have to get into the back of your admin's minds and stuff like that. If you hear no duff, that's a serious fucking thing and it's happened here. We're not going to get into it. Thank you, tag, but we're going to not get into that on this episode and that'll be in the training of our leaders and our staff.
Speaker 3:They'll be fully aware that every field does have different rules and we can't just expect 300 of your players from your community to instantly completely change all their verbiage and words to how we operate. We have to be able to adapt a little bit, based on the communities you guys are used to. No duff. That'll be trained into our guys so that when they hear that someone will call corpsman or no duff. It's just. The biggest thing is is we don't want people calling medic. Don't call medic for emergencies. Medic is part of the gameplay. When you die and you need to get tourniqueted, medic is the word for that 100.
Speaker 1:Same thing here. If you're shot, everyone's screaming medic. Nobody ever screams medic. If they're, they're actually hurt. It's always been no duff and it will be continuing here. So just getting it out to the listeners. They'll obviously change Corman to no duff and they'll kind of adjust to the Ontario end of things on that end. So there's nothing to worry about that. There's a, like I said, touching back. There's quite a few game hosts that do they kind of have their niches. There are certain things they do some heavy and collecting smaller props, some are flipping flags, some are electronic doodads and stuff like that. What is going to set you guys apart in Ontario on a Milsom field?
Speaker 4:So our main key focus is slowly getting the players that want to be involved in our events, teaching them, uh, a little bit more official military tactics. Um, we've read the ranger handbook a lot from the states and it's harder to get a hold of the canadian stuff. But just, we want to get more towards the slower, more conscious, more purposeful actions.
Speaker 1:Yep not running gun we don't.
Speaker 4:We really want to avoid the one in gun or running gun. We really want to have a lot of the squads. When they go out on patrol, they're properly going on patrol. They're counting, their head counts. They're going to their platoon leader. 10 packs are leaving. We're gonna go. You know. You've planned out a route with your platoon leader. You know how long you're gonna be. There's a thing called a salute report and you know all the got one, all these reports you can learn. We're not expecting everyone to learn everything, but there's still things you need to know. So you're gonna go out out and tell us how long you're going to go, what you're doing, what to do if something happens. Right, like if you get in the contact. You want qrf or is this? You're just going to go out and have some fun. What's going on, right? So we just don't want groups just free willy out in the field doing whatever they want, capturing things, doing whatever, because that's just not what would happen in real life. You don't just let loose your soldiers into the field.
Speaker 2:So everything's purposeful, everything's, everybody's on the tasking, exactly um, so yeah, I think another thing that we're going to try to incorporate, to set apart, is sleeping on the field, not being able to go back to a comfort zone during gameplay or having a pause period. You're kind of always in action and you always have to be on your toes and make sure you have what you need for rations, which adds to the realism of survival and so those century guys sure feel bad when they fall asleep and their patrol base gets raided at night with guys with nods because they fell asleep on overwatch I can guarantee you that's going to happen here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably these guys standing behind you. Actually, they're very, very good at it. So this is going to be a ruck in game. You're basically going to ruck everything that you're going to need for whatever the time that you guys said is so. So be prepared for that. Like we do have that in Ontario Proper footwear. There's mud, water and sand. I mean, be ready.
Speaker 2:I can tell you, waking up at 3 am and pouring an inch of water out of your boot is not satisfying. So do your due diligence.
Speaker 1:For sure, and are you guys? I know you guys all put all the links to the description of this for all your social media and your websites. Yeah, but will you have information to prepare players for what they should expect on your event?
Speaker 2:Yes, so we're looking over and we have a lot of time here to start ramping up some videos here. I'm here to start ramping up some videos here, but we have plans on doing training videos on how to pack your ruck, how to properly unpack and set up in timely manners, best place to set up things, to look out for where you're setting up, and just certain things like that that'll help novice players be able to get the grasp and reality of what you have to do on your end to make yourself more sustainable for longer periods of time that's sweet, and it's always good to have that out there and available for players, because there's a lot of players that need that information for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're going to sorry, they're going off of like friend-based references. You know you get this and that you get to do this, and then they're not telling their friends totally what to expect. They're just building up that excitement level and then they come in and we get a bunch of people who feel like we didn't explain things enough.
Speaker 3:Steven, he brought a whole pack of socks, and he ended up giving away all brand new socks to people that just weren't prepared. Just like, here you go. Here's some nice dry socks.
Speaker 1:The looks on people's faces when they put that dry pair on it was it was rewarding enough to to do it again. We're doing that. That's a good idea.
Speaker 2:It does bring a camaraderie in your, in your unit yeah, for sure I think I had so many people coming to thank me. Sorry, try go ahead.
Speaker 4:It's all good I think if I had one thing to kind of try to explain maybe not so much how we handle it but kind of aiming towards the difficulty level is everyone's kind of seen. You know, you've gone for a jog down the street. That's probably going to be your normal Airsoft day Drop in, have some fun. 20 minutes, 45 minutes, good workout, but you get to go home relatively unscathed, hopefully, right, yep. Then you're going to get a lot more events where it's those cool fun runs, the paint ones, where there's always some wacky theme to it. You're having a great time but you still got to push hard. It's still 5K, it's still 10K. That's a lot of the airsoft that you're going to see. That's probably a lot of the Milsims that you're seeing here.
Speaker 4:We're aiming towards that like tough mutter spartan race, where with a little bit of preparation and a little bit of thought, and you know the average person can do it. Yeah, but we want it to be a bit of a test. We don't want you walking home like, oh wow, that was easy, let's go home. We want to be a little sweat, we want it to be a little uncomfortable. You're going to be unpacking your mre at 3 am, trying to, you know, warm up on your jet boil while you're you know, while you're on watch while you're eating thing.
Speaker 4:Because, because we think there's a lot of people not everyone gets to do that opportunity and I think that's something players are going to want to do or we hope want to do. We're hoping there's enough people out there that want that bit of challenge while also still getting some epic. You know, epic fights lots of good gunfights and stuff. So it's going to be a little slower pace probably compared to what some people are used to yep, um, but we're hoping it makes the fighting moments more epic when you've really earned, you know, getting to that fight, um. So that's what I hope is what's going to set us differently compared to the average mil sim that you're seeing around.
Speaker 1:For sure. I don't want to give anything away. We did walk the field and we walked areas outside your comfort zones. That's all I'm going to say. Period on that. Let's touch a bit on, uh, ammo restrictions and technology restrictions on your games. Is there any, or how are you going to run that?
Speaker 3:so, based on the lore of our games, right now we don't really have any technology restrictions, other than we've been limiting drones. Uh, since you guys here are more used to drones, we're probably going to bring some drone warfare into play. We're going to give people the worrisome of someone's coming with a thermal drone. They really got to hide and take cover because we know for sure you guys are going to be coming with thermal drones and it's going to be challenging, but your community's ready for that. Yeah Right.
Speaker 1:So I think that way out here in ontario, we're not going to have as much restrictions towards that yeah, we're not by an airport, like we don't have any restrictions like the at piercy, or literally right beside an airport, so flying drones is just very not happening, okay, so ammo restrictions yeah, ammo restrictions.
Speaker 4:Uh, we were toying around with it in the beginning. We had a couple different, you know, rules changes between our first and second game was one actually probably the major rules. Um, what we're doing is because we don't have issued bbs yet, something we're maybe looking towards doing one day getting maybe we get a good bb sponsor we can start having that sort of stuff. Um, till then, basically it's mid caps or low caps only. Um, you can carry as many as you want on you while you're playing, but when you reload it has to be done at a forward operating base, at your or at your patrol base. So you can't what we call field reloading, you can't move, you know, into the enemy territory, pull out your Odin and load up 20 mags. It is just. It's just a way to control the game pace a little bit. It's not as realistic as you probably would be doing in. You know, in a real life scenario, you're not going to be carrying 10,000 rounds on you.
Speaker 2:I think the realism that comes out of that is you have to conserve your ammo and be mentally like cautious of like what your team's expending, what you know you have surrounding you, what you know you need to attack and whether you need to make the call. We don't have enough guys with enough ammo. We need to pull back.
Speaker 1:Even basic location on the field. If you are far from a FOB, or far from a patrol base, or a CP as we call it in Ontario, you got to watch what you shoot at man.
Speaker 2:Or how far you push far from it with what you have.
Speaker 1:For sure. Yeah, and you're going to have quite a few teams that are into that. I'll tell you that right now for sure. So that's pretty cool. I like that. That's right down my alley. But there won't be like a number of ammo limited. Like I know, we have the Deadfall series where you're limited to like 300 rounds for an entire game. Like that turns some people off. There's not going to be any like strict limitations like that no, no limitations like that.
Speaker 4:If you want to bring 20 bags with you and you, you're gonna have to ruck it in. Oh yeah, but no, it is at to your own pace. Some people run a little hotter, shoot a little bit more. Some people are like semi-auto only and only go through five, six megs and whole event. So it kind of depends. You know, this field's a little bit smaller than what we're used to, so we're expecting a lot more firefights. So we're hoping. We're hoping with the the. You know the limiting of you being able to reload is going to slow it down a little bit more so we have a little more breathing room to have fun and maneuver and do stuff. It's not just a firing line getting formed in three hours of babies being settled.
Speaker 2:Allow both fractions to kind of move about and take and capture both sectors of land and not just have one team. Have brought enough ammo to just steamroll one team right back to the corner of the map our teams.
Speaker 1:I don't want to give too much away because I want to let you guys do your kind of uh, development, development. Are fobs going to be issued right off the bat, or is that something that they're going to have to fight and earn for?
Speaker 3:They're going to have to fight and earn it.
Speaker 1:So they're going to start at a patrol base, at a area somewhere in the giant forest behind us, and they're going to have to fight for an FOB. Yep, that's right down, my alley boys, that's right down my alley, boys.
Speaker 4:That's right down my alley. Even though one team's going to probably have closer access to one, if they're lollygagging you know, the other team has full chance to go occupy it and be like kick rocks. This is our fob now, right, I like it, so it can change.
Speaker 1:It really can change a game, because that fob is your ability to respawn quicker than going all the way back to your patrol base correct. Yeah, do you guys do a bleed out like when you're shot? Is there a certain amount of time you have to wait before you can walk off, or yeah, there's a, so let's.
Speaker 4:We have tourniquet rules. Yep, and we also have, like, medic water rules. Yeah, so if you've never been shot fresh soldier, you get shot within five minutes. You need to get um tourniquet, okay, um, if, now that you're up and you get shot again, you now have five minutes to get a medic water in you and that's going to allow you to respawn in the field so, wherever you are, take your tourniquet off after water you will refresh, so that allows you to push forward 100 right and you can have and you can have field medics, like if you control the area, and you can have your platoon medics, your company medics, depending on how many players we get and stuff.
Speaker 4:You will have squad medics that will have three or four bottles on them, so this is going to allow you to keep operating even though you're, you know, maybe 100 meters past normal friendly lines. That's cool and then, but if you were to fail in those uh, five minutes, you're either going to have to go to what we call the casualty collection point, which is like a mobile fob, so that's going to be, uh, um, generally a platoon medic or sometimes, with bigger fights, depending on the ao, will have, you know, a mobile ccp in a vehicle. Yeah, so that is now your new forward spawn. So maybe we want a bigger, longer battle on a certain part of the field we normally don't get to play in, just due to the you know nature of the field. It's going to allow us to now push the boundary up and now we can have a bigger battle that lasts a little bit longer through the control of that ccp.
Speaker 4:Um, but generally, if there isn't anything planned because it has to be planned and set up by your command, by your platoon medics and stuff to actually do that yeah task. And if you don't have that task and ready, you're gonna have to fall back to the fob. But if the fob's not controlled by you now, you gotta fall back to your patrol, to your patrol base. You're walking and you're walking and you know what, if there's not a medic there, you might just have to go sit there and have a bit of chow and wait until your medic comes back and can bring you guys back in the game. There is no touching a pole and just coming back in.
Speaker 1:So it sounds like you're slowing the game down, but not slowing the game down. You're slowing the game down, but not slowing the game down.
Speaker 4:Yes, if you are prepared as a commander or a platoon leader, plan ahead, you can really turn it up on the enemy, yeah. But if you fail to plan or you're just kind of sending out squads, recce and stuff like that, you're not going to really get the benefit to these mobile CCPs.
Speaker 1:For sure. That actually touched on a good point that I want to ask to get the information out individual sign up, squad sign up is there a structure squad structure that you sign up under like? Do you have a separate division for recce or how does that all work?
Speaker 4:no, um. So when you sign up for tickets, it's just an individual ticket. There is, if it's not already there, we're going to make sure that there is a group affiliation thing so at least you can play with your buddies. We'll make sure that when we do our rosters and we build our platoons, you're going to get to play with your friends. But when it comes to there's no like battlefield class of like you know, you sign up as a DMR and you're just like recce or you're just a medic unit or um, that's built in with your commanders and what your platoon leaders need. Right, you're going to probably want a heavy weapon squad. Ideally you have a pkm or, uh, you know, and you can have that. Every platoon hopefully has that heavy weapon squad. Right, and uh, we do have caps on how many you know we want to see. We don't want every second player with an LMG. We want it to be closer to what a real platoon would look like. So when it comes to special weapons, we will have limits, but that's going to be in the roster building phase.
Speaker 4:When you're talking to our admin and you get in on the Facebook pages and stuff, you're like, hey, our squad really wants to do this and we have these assets. Maybe we have a drone. Maybe we really wants to do this and we have these assets. Maybe we have a drone. Maybe we have certain special weapons. How many guys have grenade launchers? Right, and we try to make sure that it's kind of following that nato standard. You know a little bit of everything, so there isn't just like 10 guys with dmrs, because it's just not, it's not realistic. Yeah, right and um, that is all plant pre-planned ahead, um, and.
Speaker 4:But you know what, if players are, you know, let's say, I'm a platoon leader and a group comes to me and they're like hey, we've been doing a lot of fighting, we're a little tired, but we'd love to go on a recce, you know we would then sit down and build a plan. Okay, well, where are you going to go, how many people are going with you? You know what's your route you're going to take and you're going to check in, right, and then, if they're a newer group, especially if they're a newer group, hopefully our commanders are going to be then saying, okay, well, this is what I'm expecting for you on this reconnaissance. You're going to be out for this long. I'm looking for this information.
Speaker 4:You know um and if you get into contact I have, hopefully, if you have the ability to, if you have the players you know available at hand, you have a qrf ready to go support them right away because you can maybe turn that recce into a, like, you know, a dynamic, you know aggressive raid um through that knowledge right okay, sorry, it's all good not so used to talking on the mic, so sorry if I come in weird.
Speaker 1:It's all good. Okay, so I'm excited about what you guys are trying to do here. Do you have any sponsorships or anything like that, that you have donating to the game or involved in the game or anything like that?
Speaker 4:I know.
Speaker 1:I know trigger sponsors our events all the time and I know they're a big player out in your end.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we started off in Kelowna with Spades Tactical as our main sponsor and then the biggest push for Ontario was Malik just opened a Toronto store and in the process of him opening the Toronto store, we were like we got to follow him to Toronto. We need to get an event out there. He's our main sponsor and so Spades Tactical is our main sponsor that deals with the majority of our giveaways, and they just opened up in Toronto. They just opened up a brand new store in Toronto.
Speaker 1:I'll link their information in the description of this podcast here. It's just, I've never heard of them. It's weird.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's a Kelowna based store them it's weird.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're. He's a colonna bay, uh, colonna bay store. So how long has he been in business? Two months or, sorry, two?
Speaker 3:months in ontario. Yeah, he's been around for a couple years now he's doing good.
Speaker 1:Nice, I gotta go check it out. I didn't even know he existed. Yeah, there you go. That's.
Speaker 3:That's why we're doing this right now, people I'm actually uh, when we're done here, I'm going to buy a brand new gbb tomorrow, so nice, what are you getting, uh vfc mk18 nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of those on the field. They're very nice. I uh gbbr wise. I'm more of the uh, the ak type of dude. Yeah, yeah, that's that's me on the. On that end, you guys want to talk about ticket pricing or you want to just wait and release it?
Speaker 3:I think we're going to sit down when we get back to Kelowna and we're going to take a couple days to dial in whether we're going to do two tiers, a two-tier system for this event, and when that happens, we'll have ticket prices released when we release our tickets, do you?
Speaker 1:guys have a heads up for the community of when tickets are going to be available for purchase and how are they going to go about doing that?
Speaker 3:So January 1st we were going to release the tickets for sale. Okay, there'll be a complete information drop. There'll be a full write-up. We'll have sponsored ads. Everything they're going to want to know they'll be able to find out from our website and our Facebook on January 1st.
Speaker 1:Excellent you guys heard it here first, so it's, I guess we can let the cat out of the bag. So if you guys read the post before you got to hold the date, it is September, september 6th. September 6th, at the compound Milsom, canada will be hosting a 40?
Speaker 3:A 40 hour, and we're thinking about adding a second tier for people that can't make the full 40 hours.
Speaker 1:So then that would mean they would come on Saturday and start playing there, but the game would start Friday. For the more recce end of the game Yep, love it, awesome. Any other final notes you guys have before we close this episode off?
Speaker 3:No, I can't think of anything other than talk about, but we are super excited to be expanding across Canada. It's one of our goals and we're pushing for it really hard.
Speaker 1:Honestly, when we opened up this place, it was about becoming one community, and for us to become one community with the complete other side of Canada is something huge to me and I really appreciate you guys flying all the way out here to check us out and sitting down with us and and talking and we're actually going to pack up here and head to action airsoft right after this. And, uh, we'll go check that field out. That was my first uh, and we'll go check that field out. That was my first airsoft field project Actually no, that's a lie, it was Wild Wolves in Brampton. That would be my first field.
Speaker 4:I am.
Speaker 1:It's been a long time. Yeah, we're super excited. It's crazy, it's CQB, it's tight and it is fast, and I think we'll be there just in time for almost in time for the evening game.
Speaker 4:So yeah, so we're super easy to find Just Google, milsim, canada Super easy websites. There. We have a full tax op. It shows all the stuff that you're required to bring for gear medic rules, vehicle rules, all that stuff All written up in there. We're looking at adding some more documents just to vehicle rules, all that stuff all written up in there. We're looking at adding some more documents just to you know, for the newer players who might maybe have never done this stuff before and want to learn, so some more instructional stuff put in there. Eventually we're going to add like kind of a vibe guide of what we kind of want the players to look like on each team. Right now it's explained pretty well in the tax off, but we'll maybe get some photos up there so people kind of know what we're looking for for our players, so what your character supposed to be when you're playing more information that you can get out, the better 100 especially for a game that's something like that, where they you kind of want to have everybody dress apart, kind of deal.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. So, yeah, it's really good to see. I've watched your videos, I've looked at your website, I've looked at everything and I'm pumped. So let's make this happen. And I can tell you right now, light Fighters will be signing up for your event. So show me what you guys have. Awesome. I'm looking forward to it. I really appreciate you guys coming out to the field and coming on the show and hopefully we can do another one after the event before you guys head home.
Speaker 4:I like that Sounds good. Thank you for having us on.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Appreciate it, guys. Thank you.
