Room Escape Artist

Update: This piece is outdated. The most recent report is US Escape Room Industry Report – December 2024

In this report dated December 2023, we present a data-driven look at the US escape room industry today.

Over the past four years, this industry has endured in the face of a hardship. It isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it is a community of creators who continue to define and redefine what immersive gaming can and will be.

This report is based on 9 years of data collected and maintained through the Room Escape Artist Escape Room Directory.

2023 Year-End Industry Numbers

In December 2023, there were more than 1,950 escape room facilities in the United States.

Since our last report in July 2022 (18 months ago), the number of escape room facilities is stable. It has neither increased nor decreased significantly.

As with previously published reports, it is critical to note that the number of facilities does not alone indicate the size of the industry. It is one indicator, and one we have the data to measure. It does not represent revenue. At this time, no one in the escape room industry has access to a complete picture of revenue data.

Historical Industry Numbers

We’ve been covering the US escape room industry since 2014. Here’s where we’ve been:

• In 2014, there were about 2 dozen escape room facilities.
• The industry experienced huge early growth: 317% growth in 2015, followed by 800% growth in 2016.
• By 2019, pre-pandemic, growth had leveled off to just 2%.
• During the pandemic, the industry shrunk: 4.3% decrease in mid 2020, followed by a 7.5% decrease over the following 6 months through early 2021.
• By mid 2022, the industry had stabilized, and it has remained stable since, through the end of 2023.

Given the rapid market expansion of the first few years, it was not surprising to see the market contract, in fact, we had predicted this in 2019. Some market entrants falsely saw escape rooms as a “get rich quick” scheme, and were ill-equipped to succeed. The global pandemic exacerbated business challenges and led to additional closures.

For the last 18 months, we’ve seen a steady stream of new entrants into the market, as well as a steady rate of exits. As we approach 10 years as an industry, we’re in a stable place.

Counting Escape Rooms

In this report, we count escape room facilities. These are permanent physical locations where you can go play real-life escape rooms in person. One business owner might operate 10 locations around the country or 2 locations in the same city. These would be counted as 10 facilities and 2 facilities, respectively. For more details on how we count escape rooms, see the final section of the report, titled Appendix: Details on Escape Room Facility Counting.

Closures

In 2022 and 2023, the rate of escape room facilities closing slowed.

We started removing escape room facilities from our directory and tracking closures in 2017. In total, since we started this directory, 43% of the escape room facilities we’ve added have closed and subsequently been removed from the directory.

If we look at the total facility closures as a distribution over time, we see that the years with most of closures were 2019 and 2020. We experienced far fewer closures in 2022 and 2023.

• 2017 – 4.92%
• 2018 – 17.37%
• 2019 – 21.02%
• 2020 – 19.96%
• 2021 – 14.57%
• 2022 – 11.31%
• 2023 – 10.11%

New Facilities

New companies are entering this industry. In 2023, we added more than 200 new escape room facilities to our directory. This is on par with the number of escape room facilities added in 2018 and 2019.

Expansion of Operations

By today’s count, 63% of escape room facilities in the US are single-facility businesses. (Of note, two non-affiliated businesses with exactly the same name would skew this count, so the percentage is likely even higher. However, there are also businesses that own multiple facilities with different names and branding – often due to acquisitions – so perhaps it evens out.)

While the majority of businesses are still single-facility operations, this percentage is lower than the 66% we reported 18 months ago. The industry has experienced consolidation. Some of these small businesses have also expanded their operations with new facilities.

Chains & Franchises

The companies with more than 10 facilities are:

Escape Room Company (Chain or Franchise)	Count of Facilities
Escapology	66
The Escape Game	38
Breakout Games	33
All In Adventures	23
Escape The Room	22
PanIQ Entertainment	19
Red Door Escape Room	15
The Great Escape Room	13

Increasing in Facilities

• Escapology continues to operate the most facilities in the US, with steady expansion since the last report.
• The Escape Game has climbed into the second spot, also with steady expansion since the last report.
• PanIQ Entertainment and Red Door Escape Room have also expanded, although not as rapidly.

Decreasing in Facilities

• Escape The Room holds steady, with exactly the same number of facilities.
• Breakout Games, All In Adventures, and The Great Escape Room have fewer facilities than they did 18 months ago.

According to our tracking, there are 66 businesses with 3 or more escape room facilities.

By State

As expected, the most populous states have the most escape room facilities. California, Florida, and Texas, are the top 3 most populous states, in order, and they have the most escape room facilities, respectively.

The states with the fewest escape room facilities (less than 5) are Delaware and Wyoming.

Unchanged since the last report, New Hampshire has the most escape room facilities per capita, being a smaller state with 17 escape room facilities. Mississippi has the fewest escape room facilities per capita.

Challenge Arcades

This year we saw a growth in “Challenge Arcades,” a term coined by Dan Egnor, who operated the first international escape room directory (no longer available) and currently operates a puzzle hunt calendar. Chris M. Dickson recently launched a global directory of Challenge Arcades. Chris has been following immersive gaming trends for a long time. He launched the first UK escape room directory about 10 years ago.

According to the explanation on Chris’ website, at Challenge Arcades “teams play many large, quick physical/ mental games chosen from a wide selection… They’re more like collections of little escape rooms, but mostly a bit less puzzly.” Like escape rooms, the games you’ll find at Challenge Arcades require creative thinking, problem solving, and teamwork.

The Room Escape Artist Escape Room Directory has included Challenge Arcades almost since its beginning. We first experienced Boda Borg in Malden, Massachusetts, in early 2016, and not knowing anything else like it, included it in our escape room directory. Challenge Arcades have existed longer than escape rooms. In our recent podcast interview with David Spigner, CEO of Boda Borg, we talked about how the company has been around since the 1990s.

This year we’ve noticed an increase in these types of experiences. As we added another 15 such facilities to our directory, we also noted “Challenge Arcade” in the facility name.

Activate (a Challenge Arcade we recently added to the directory, founded in 2019) has 8 locations, making it one of the largest businesses in our directory, by count of facilities.

Of note, “new” doesn’t mean “great.” Case in point: Bam Kazam in Scottsdale, Arizona. Like with traditional escape rooms, quality of experience varies widely.

Analysis

Business Models of Scale

The expansion of the Challenge Arcade business is indicative of immersive game creators looking to dramatically increase throughput. There are many ways to tackle this, from both game design and business model perspectives. For example, consider Phantom Peak in London. (Here is a podcast interview with creator Nick Moran.) An upcoming piece will also explore the integration of “open-world” and escape room gameplay, pioneered by escape room creators such as City 13 in Milwaukee, WI. (This piece is now available here.)

As the industry becomes more firmly established, and more normalized as entertainment, we can expect more variations on what immersive gaming environments and businesses can look and feel like. Different business models solve different problems. The throughput problem is a problem of success and viability.

Business Models of Viability

Although the Room Escape Artist directory stopped tracking individual games in late 2015 (about one year into the existence of the directory), we know that multiple games keep escape room companies viable. Rare is the company that survives a long time on a single game. Anecdotally, from speaking to many business owners over the years, we can say that a healthy escape room business has at least 3 games.

One of the biggest threats to new market entrants is getting enough games open, and open quickly. Dead space costs a lot. The bureaucracy of opening a new business, not to mention the prolonged challenge of building and testing games, will magnify the cost of dead space.

But it isn’t enough to be operating experiences. The games have to be high quality for new entrants that aren’t part of an established chain or franchise to survive.

The Threat of Low Quality Games

The market threat of low quality games has not gone away. We focused on this in our previous industry report, but it’s worth reiterating. A low quality game dissuades would be habitual players from embracing this industry. A low quality experience shrinks the size of the market. It is incumbent upon us as an industry to effectively communicate quality of experience.

Even as the industry pushes against the confines of what escape rooms and immersive games can be, even as incredible new experiences are created, there will be the low quality versions stifling opportunity for everyone else.

Resilience Prevails

Market forces have reduced what people spend on leisure entertainment like escape rooms. High interest rates and inflation have put a lot of pressure on escape room businesses. In a year when interest rates were being used to force the economy to slow down, stability was a win. Our industry has been enduring and holding on with a resilience that has exceeded our expectations.

As interest rates start to come down, likely in 2024, we’re hopeful to see a return to form for escape room businesses. We expect that will take many shapes and forms. We hope it means producing high quality experiences – of whatever shape or size your market demands – quickly and efficiently.

If you want to be part of the conversation about where we are headed, and how, together, we build toward a sustainable industry, join us at RECON Los Angeles this August. This is where our community comes together to grapple with hard and interesting questions around game design and business operations.

Methodology & Past Reports

Following the publication of our first piece on the US industry growth in 2016, we published more detailed information on our methodology for tracking the growth of the industry. That piece includes a bit of history about our directory and additional perspectives on the data.

Previous studies will remain available: 

• US Escape Room Industry Report – July 2022
• The Impact of the Pandemic on the Escape Room Market [Survey Results] (May 2021)
• US Escape Room Industry Report – 2020 Year End Update (February 2021)
• 6 Year US Escape Room Industry Report (August 2020)
• 5 Year US Escape Room Industry Report (August 2019)
• July 2018 Escape Room Industry Growth Study
• 2017 Escape Room Industry Growth Study
• 2016 Escape Room Industry Growth Study

Thank You

REA’s Directory Manager is Melissa Miller. She’s based in Connecticut, but she follows escape room facilities all over the country. This industry report would not be possible without her unwavering dedication to this project, and the many hours she puts in keeping the data up to date. Her research and fact-checking ensure that this report is as complete and accurate as possible.

Thank you to the many readers from all over the country who continually let us know about escape room businesses that open, close, move, or rebrand in their areas. Please continue to send us this information.

Learn More About Room Escape Artist

Room Escape Artist is your home for well researched, rationale, and reasonably humorous immersive gaming content and events.

Website

For more industry commentary, check out our room design and business sections.

Podcast

On Reality Escape Pod, co-hosts David Spira and Peih-Gee Law (Survivor), explore immersive gaming from all angles, alongside guests with incredible experience in this realm. Season 7 launches this spring.

RECON

RECON 24 will be in Los Angeles on August 18th & 19th, 2024. This is our escape room industry convention, now in its 5th year. This summer’s program is curated so you learn through experiences and play. We bring you brilliant speakers, discussion groups, new experiences, and opportunities to play fantastic and unique immersive games. RECON isn’t about the people on stage; it’s about the industry as a whole and the people like you who make it thrive. Tickets are on sale now.

Tours

Our Escape Immerse Explore escape room tours take escape room players to some of the world’s best escape room markets including New Orleans, Montreal, and Orlando. You’ll experience a variety of escape room styles, go behind the scenes with creators, and make life-long friends. Our next tour is going to New Mexico in June of 2024. Tickets are on sale now.

Escape Room Recommendations

If you’re looking to find an incredible escape room near you, check out our regional recommendations guides.

Support our Work

I’m Lisa Spira and you’re reading my 9th escape room industry report. Together with my husband David, we created Room Escape Artist in 2014 to help this industry grow into a sustainable form of entertainment that we could enjoy long into the future. When I’m not deep in the industry data with Melissa, I’m the Editor-In-Chief over here, where I empower our amazing team of writers to bring you daily analytical, insightful, or sometimes just plain humorous content.

If you’ve found this industry report helpful, please support us on Patreon. Your financial support makes this research viable.

Along the winding road that has brought us here, David and I have found an incredible community. If you’re still reading this report, we invite you to join in. Our Patreon backer channel is the perfect place to continue the conversation. Click the button below.

And thank you to our wonderful community of Patreon supporters. Your support makes all of this possible.

Appendix: Details on Escape Room Facility Counting

Games

This report does not count individual escape room games. While some facilities only operate a single game, many operate two or three games, and some operate far more.

Soon to Open

The Room Escape Artist directory includes some facilities that are not yet open for business, but appear to be opening in the near future. To be listed in the directory, we require a facility to have their address published on their website, and their website to tell us a bit about the business.

We do not include escape room facilities that might open some day. A social media page that says “coming soon” is not enough to be listed in the directory or counted in this report.

Dates

All dates in our data are when we added a company to our directory or removed it from our directory. While we try to find companies as soon as they open, and check often for closures, our dates don’t necessarily correlate exactly with when a facility opened or closed.

Permanence

Our directory only includes established entertainment facilities that continually operate physical escape rooms. We do not include escape rooms that appeared for a weekend, a week, or even a month, in a temporary structure or other facility, but will not operate continually.

Venue

Most escape room facilities are independent operations. Others operate out of larger entertainment venues such as bowling alleys, arcades, or restaurants. We include these as well, as long as the escape room is a permanent fixture in the larger venue.

Mobile Facilities

The count of escape room facilities above does not include mobile escape room venues, which we stopped actively tracking in 2020. In past reports, mobile facilities were included within the Room Escape Artist US Escape Room Directory, and in the report. However, the current directory interface requires a full address and does not include mobile rooms, and because our mobile data is now outdated, it is not included here. The change to no longer count mobile facilities also accounts for a portion of the decrease in facilities in 2020.