Photo by Gary Baum
THE NATIONAL XBALL LEAGUE (NXL) got off
to a booming start earlier this season with its opening
event in Cleveland, Ohio—a host city new to professional
paintball. For its encore and second event of the 2015
season the NXL chose another city new to professional
paintball—Virginia Beach, Virginia. The chosen venue for
the league’s second event of the season and the second
in its short history was The Hunt Club Farm, located six
miles from the ocean and main strip in Virginia Beach. This
petting farm turned paintball venue had enough room for
parking, the fields, the vendor area and all of the other
things needed to pull off a national-level event—even if it
did seem like an odd fit for a paintball tournament.
The Hunt Club Farm had beautiful grass fields (and parking)
that really held up well, even with two nights of very hard
rain during the event in the evenings and a downpour the
day before the event began. The mud was limited to just
a few spots on the fields and for the most part it really had
no effect on the game play. Each of the event’s three days
saw beautiful weather with temps in the low to mid-80s. As
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paintball magazine
I mentioned earlier, the majority of the rains came before
the event began and during the evenings after the games
were finished each day.
For those not familiar, Virginia Beach is located about
three hours from Washington DC, 90 minutes from
Virginia’s state Capitol in Richmond, and close to cities
like Norfolk, Suffolk and Chesapeake. There are several
airports in this region of Virginia but the largest one,
Richmond International Airport was a bit over an hour’s
drive. Hotels are plentiful in Virginia Beach but a bit
expensive in the summer tourism season. Still there were
hundreds of rooms to be had in the $90 range provided
they were booked 3-4 weeks out. Virginia Beach is one of
those locations that even though it’s right on the coast,
it’s still driving distance from places like Washington DC,
Baltimore, Philly, New Jersey, NYC, Charlotte, Raleigh
Durham and many more populated cities. And if 10 hours
is your driving limit you can add citiles like Nashville,
Atlanta, Cincinnati and Lexington KY.
The NXL Virginia Beach Open vendor row saw the