Room Escape Artist

In the Room Escape Artist Patreon chat, Joseph Stamps of Escape on 13th asked:

“We’re currently in the process of redesigning our lobby, what are the biggest dos and don’ts for a lobby? We have pretty limited space and want to make the most of it!”

We had a great discussion where both players and owners exchanged thoughts on the dos and the don’ts of escape room lobby design. This is a distillation of the key takeaways from that conversation.

Restrictions

Lobby size and individual company goals are going to be a variable factor. There isn’t a one size fits all solution. That said, most of the dos and don’ts that we discussed scale up and down.

There is a massive version of these ideas and there are tiny versions. Take what you want out of these lessons.

Goals

When designing your escape room lobby, you should think through both your company’s goals and the typical goals of your guests.

For every goal that you or your players have, your lobby and staff should have a space or contingency for solving that goal.

Common Owner Lobby Goals

• Greet guests
• Deal with waivers
• Gather teams
• Introduce guests to escape rooms and teach them the rules
• Take a photo and suggest that guests review
• Sell merch, snacks, or refreshments
• Sell guests on their next experience
• Get the team out the door as quickly as possible while making them feel welcome
• Introduce the guests to the world or game

Common Player Lobby Goals

• Gather their companions
• Learn what escape rooms are about
• Find out where they can store their belongings (varies based on climate and weather)
• Use the toilet
• Have a snack or get caffeinated
• Figure out where to go after the game for coffee, a drink, or a meal

Escape Room Lobby Dos

• Have at least some seating. Some guests need to sit down.
• If you’re going to have a lot of seating, create clusters of seats. Escape rooms are only social within your group and giving those groups their own space is welcoming.
• Consider your traffic flow. Ensure that on your busiest days, your guests will feel like you are in control and they aren’t in the way.
• Make it easy to engage with you on social media… if you’re doing something interesting on social media.
• Have snacks and beverages available for purchase. The margins are good and you don’t need elaborate items to provide the little boost that some players need to get going.
• Present merch elegantly. If you sell branded merch, tabletop escape games, or anything beyond your experiences, put effort into presenting it well. Sloppy displays rarely move product.
• Entice guests with your games. All of your games should be represented in your lobby in a way that makes current guests want to return. (This will only work if they enjoy their time in a game.)

Escape Room Lobby Don’ts

• Litter the place with tavern puzzles. If there are games in your lobby, they should represent the kind of content that guests will find in your escape room. Don’t leave a tavern puzzle in the lobby unless that kind of puzzle exists in your game.
• Neglect lighting. Fluorescent lighting terrible.
• Have a messy, low budget “photo op.” Ideally, you should be handling photo ops in the gamespace. If you’re giving guests a souvenir, let it actually represent their experience.
• Share a leaderboard. Leaderboards are generally a mistake. Most of your teams will not be able to come close to the fastest times and this creates a false lose-state: a team can win, but be so far from the fastest time that they feel like failures.
• Let the lobby be the coolest part of the experience. Everyone enjoys a cool lobby, but making it the coolest room in the building is a formula for letting down your guests.
• Build a bar. Bars are expensive and difficult to operate. They are also dependent upon regulars and people who hangout… that’s not an escape room lobby. If you want to open a bar, that is a separate business.
• Make your seating too comfortable. If you want your guests to pass through your space, make them comfortable, but not so comfortable that they decide your lobby is the best place to hangout and catch up.

Thank you!

If you want access to all of these exclusive industry conversations, join the REA Secret channel via our Patreon.

Everything that we do is made possible by the financial support of our patrons. As we continue to try to make this business more sustainable, the direct support of people who consume our content is invaluable.

And beyond that, the ideas that they share and develop with us continue to help us iterate on our own ideas. Pieces like this are richer because of our community.

Special shout out to those who joined this month: PJ Mann, L, Barrett Cervenka, Twisted Limits Escape Rooms, Lynda Foley, Yvonne McDuffee, chris gileta, David Wynne, and Imagination Junkie

To those of you reading who have the means, we hope you’ll consider joining this wonderful group of supporters.

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