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“
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Funnest laser tag!

Funnest laser tag!

The funnest laser tag
 I've ever played!
Brady & Dane May 11, 2007
“
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TWO THUMBS UP!!
Sherwin, May 12, 2007
Doug & Patti Nelson's Red Surge Outdoor Laser Tag

Doug & Patti Nelson's Red Surge Outdoor Laser Tag

Red Surge Battlefield Live provides imported, state-of-the-art infrared technology which makes for the most exciting and safest team-based combat sports action in Western Canada.  Our dedicated 55 acre game site is located east of Nanton, just off Highway 2 less than 45 minutes south of Calgary.  Facilities include a 17 building 'Graintown' along with sandbag, tire, wood and bale bunkers.  Each player wears authentic camouflage coveralls to replicate realistic battlefield action.  Our scope mounted infrared 'taggers' can fire hundreds of feet during scenarios which often incorporate aspects of actual battles fought by Canadian troops during WWI, WWII and the Korean War. 

RedSurge's outdoor laser tag technology was developed in Australia to replace paintball.  The infra-red beams are similar to those produced by your TV remote and are perfectly safe, and allow for games which include a diverse range or ages and gender.  Red Surge Battlefield Live offers the perfect option for family, birthday, stag or sports parties as well as an excellent choice for corporate team building or mixed group company parties.  Check out the happy faces in our PHOTO GALLERY.

2019 Red Surge - - - - SCENARIOS

• CAPTURE THE TOWN (FLAGS)
• DIEPPE/NORMANDY
•

ORTONA
• COWBOYS & ALIENS
• TEAM DEATH MATCH (with Lee Enfields)
• GREAT ESCAPE
• CAPTURE THE FLAG (in our caragana hedge row)
•

VAMPIRE KING FINALE
 

Where do our scenarios come from?

A number of our scenarios come from actual battles involving Canadian troops.  Our Ortona Scenario is loosely based on a terrible battle Canadian troops fought against the Germans for the strategic Italian town of Ortona.  Ortona was situated along the route to Rome. English General, Bernard Montgomery, demanded that the Canadians take the town at all costs.  German dictator, Adolf Hitler, demanded his defenders hold Ortona to the last man.  After a terrible fight just to reach the outskirts, the Canadian troops eventually did take Ortona, but only after suffering horrendous casualties in the brutal house to house combat.  We replicate this battle with each team getting an opportunity to attack and defend our 'Graintown'.

Our Dieppe Scenario takes our players back to the disasterous 1942 attack on the Nazi occupied French port of Dieppe. For decades this debacle (which resulted in the death, wounding or capture of half of the 5000 Canadian troops involved) was considered a warmup for the later Normandy invasion.  Recently, we have discovered the mini-invasion was actually an unsuccessful attempt to capture one of the German's elusive 'Enigma' Cyper Machines.  We give our players a chance to change history.  Based upon the much more successful Canadian beach assault, our Normandy Scenario is loosely based on the Canadians' attack upon Juno beach during the Normandy invasion.  The Germans held much superior defensive positions, but they were limited in manpower and supplies.  We try to ensure that the Canadians win this encounter.  In our scenario the Germans receive no reinforcements or extra ammunition, while the Canadians can keep sending waves of troops from their landing craft.  We also allow the Canucks an opportunity to initially place a small portion of their men in behind the German lines as paratroopers.

We have developed several new scenarios, a 'Cowboys and Aliens' scenario for Vulcan's 'Spock Days', and a Zombie Apocalypse as well as a super new windup scenario tentatively titled 'Vampire King'. We are still working on Vimy Ridge and WWI trench scenarios as well as a hilltop defense based on the Canadian's amazing rebuff of hordes of Chinese and North Korean troops at Kapyung during the Korean War.

 


Red Surge - - - -   A Brief History:

Back in 2002 Doug Nelson and his son Tom were hiking around the old gravel pit site north of their farm buildings.  The two had attended an indoor laser tag facility the day before and were fantasizing as to what a great battleground the gravel pit's craters and berms would make, if only there were an outdoor laser tag technology.  As luck would have it, a couple years later Scott Seymour and his brother Andrew were out gopher hunting at the farm when Andrew mentioned that before he left his home in Australia he had played an amazing game of outdoor laser tag.  It sounded promising so Doug took the brothers over to the gravel pit area and asked them what they thought.  The Seymour brothers thought it looked great.  That evening Doug googled the gun manufacturer in Australia and started a dialogue which eventually saw one of their reps, Jason Wragg, stop in Alberta on a fall trip to North America.  

Duly impressed with the Battlefield Sports' guns, Doug, his wife Patti, Scott and his wife Evelyn decided to start up an outdoor laser tag business.  The company, initially named Red Surge Tactical Sports, ordered a package of guns and some camoflage coveralls and began setting up the game site.   I should mention and interesting sidebar to the gun order.   When the shipment arrived at Calgary Customs, the laser taggers were labelled as 'Morita Sniper Rifle', 'Commando Carbine', 'M4 Assault Rifle' and 'Scorpion Sub Machine Gun'.  Unfortunately Battlefield Sports had not noted on the shipping documents that these were laser tag, not real weapons.  Since the M4 looks very much like an M16, the package was held up for almost three weeks in Customs.  Meanwhile, at the gravel pit, Doug & Scott busily hauled over a dozen buildings onto the site, filled up a number of sandbags and utilized bales, tires and wooden pallets to create battlefield bunkers.  After a few practice sessions Red Surge was in business the spring of 2005.   After one year of operation, Doug & Patti bought out the Seymours and are continuing to run the operation on their own.

A board game creator, Doug designed a number of war game scenarios, several of which were based on actual battles involving Canadian troops during WWII.  The battle for Ortona in Italy, where Canadians suffered their greatest WWII losses, is recreated utilizing the town site and a tire bunkered crater area to the west.   In Doug's scenario the Red Surge Canadians must first breach a well defended bunkered area before beginning the vicious house to house battle with German defenders for possession of the town site.   Flag poles and flip flags represent ownership of bunkers and buildings.

How the Normandy scenario came about is an interesting story.  Doug was checking out the south side of the gravel pit's topsoil berm and trying to determine how that location might be used.  The 300 foot long berm was a perfect site for some kind of bunkers, but the area to the south was completely void of protection, no use at all!  With WWII on his mind, Doug surmised that the open area would have been just as unprotected as the beach head our Canadian troops encountered coming out of the landing craft at Normandy.   That was when the lightbulb went off!  But what to use for a landing craft?  A glance at the Nelson's horse trailer solved that problem.  A few, a very few pallet bunkers now give the assaulting Red Surge Canadians a modicum of protection as they attack the well defended German hillside bunkers.  

Doug has designed the scenario as a timed event, where the Germans get no immediate reinforcements or ammunition, and the Canadians have unlimited respawns.  The Canucks also have the option to drop several paratroopers behind the German lines.   Red Surge makes sure that the Canadians always win (Juno Beach, not Dieppe) as each outdoor laser tag team gets a chance to attack and defend the hillside bunker.  Like the Ortona scenario, each  Red Surge team get a chance to play as Canadians and as Germans.