Yazzeh...why did you say you would charge people entrance if you go 50+ people and moved to a larger gym? Do you have to rent the gym, like F_A24's wars? If not, then I'm sorry, but no one should ever have to pay to nerf. That's what makes the sport so awesome; the guns are cheap (relatively...) and the ammunition can be made at home. You've got a good thing going; don't scare people away by trying to make money off of them in ways other than selling your foam and tape creations.
I hope you and some of your guys can make a road trip down to one of the Season of Foam wars. I'd love to duel against some massive boffers with a nerf sword. We'll be in both Ontario and New York, which, with a bit of driving, might be doable.
I don't really make any money. The charge for everyone, even for 20 people, is 15 dollars each. for 20 people I have a smaller gym that I can rent for $45 an hour. Everyone pitches in so I can restock destroyed darts, rebuild anything that's been broken, like obstacles, upgrade the obstacles, repair swords, build more swords. To be honest, I've only broken even on the cost of hosting these wars after 3 of them. I charge around 15 per person so that no-shows that I can't calculate into the divided cost don't end up making the remainder of the gym rental fall on my head. I'm already spending literally thousands of dollars buying all the Nerf guns and making all the swords for people to rent, adding to the cost of buying and maintaining the materials for obstacles. This stuff doesn't happen by magic, and people would rather rent a 20 dollar Nerf gun and a 25 dollar foam sword for 5 bucks in total than buy them permanently.
The reason the price wouldn't go down for 50+ is because a larger gym to accommodate them would cost $100 an hour. I'd also have to make more obstacles and most likely supply more guns and definitely more swords for rent. The next war would be cheaper, of course, with everything mostly paid off.
The first war I hosted was a $20 entrance fee and 8 people showed up so I had to cover the rest with my own money on TOP of having made and bought everything. That was a sinkhole, but I did another and another and made enough to balance my books.
As for going elsewhere to Nerf, I don't have the time. Most of my friends like the melee aspect more than the Nerf gun aspect, which is why I joined them to appeal to a wider audience. They still like the guns, but wouldn't be a fan of gun only games.