What is a paintball walk-on?
The term "paintball walk-on" has been used for years within the paintball community, but not many people who are new to paintball, or who don't play paintball would often understand the meaning.
Walk-on paintball is also referred to as "own-gunner days", or open play paintball. Walk-on days are where a paintball site organises a day set for people who want to play paintball but don't necessarily need to book on, you can just turn up at any time and play with other people who have done the same. A person or group of people that aren't part of a pre-paid private session.
The paintball game will continue to be played with however many players turn up, split into 2 roughly equal sized teams within the total number of players available. Sometimes there may only be 10 players turn up and you'd only play 5vs5, but on good days you'll often find there could be upwards of 40 players!
You'll often find that paintball sites that run regular walk-on events throughout the year, they will change the map that you play on each time so that you're not playing the same field over and over again.
Walk-on events are primarily aimed at players who have more gameplay experience, they usually have their own equipment and like to play on a regular basis. This however does not exclude players who don't own any equipment, as most sites will still have rental equipment for hire for those who still want to be involved with a bit more of a relaxed paintball day against more experienced players. For example, if you have your own paintball marker but want to bring a friend who doesn't have one they could often hire one from the site.
Mayhem Paintball described walk-ons perfectly; "the equivalent of a Sunday kick around in the park." At most paintball walk-ons, you can shoot whatever you like, whether it be a mechanical paintball marker, electric or even pump action! As long as you adhere to the site's rules for FPS (the marker's firing velocity) and BPS (the amount of balls the marker shoots per second).
Photo credit:
/LluciaWoodPhotography
/MayhemPlayersClub
/CartelMedia