This post is not meant as a criticism of Gunsite, so I hope it doesn't sound snarky. If Gunsite is filling its 3 day classes at $1200 a head, I guess there's sufficient demand at that price and that explains Gunsite's charging that much on the supply side. What I wonder about is the demand side. Why would someone pay $1200 for a 3 day class taught by Gunsite, instead of, say, paying $650 for a 3 day class taught by Ernest Langdon? Or, I can't remember for sure, but I think I paid $550 for Craig Douglas's ECQC, which was about 21 hours of class time over 2 1/2 days. What makes Gunsite worth all that extra money? What's their secret sauce?
I mean, the weakness at Langdon's class was student/teacher ratio. A lot of traveling trainers have 1:20 or something, and that does cut down on their ability to coach. I think there were only 14 students at Ernest's class last year, but that still meant 1:14. Does Gunsite have a bunch of AI's? Craig Douglas had two AI's, so it was 3:20, which was very good (and the AI's were amazing). But he managed to have three instructors there for a pretty low cost to the participants. Does Gunsite have a super low ratio? What's the money for? Serious question, not a crack.