Room Escape Artist

Is friendship with my escape room’s competitors an option? How do I form positive relationships with escape room owners in my area? How should I approach competition with other escape rooms? Are there any pros and cons that I should be aware of?

This question comes courtesy of a RECON Los Angeles Champion guest.

RECON Los Angeles takes place later this month. Champion tickets are sold out, and there are only a couple of General tickets available.

Is friendship with my competitors an option?

One of the joys of the escape room business is that you truly can be friends with your competitors.

Most local brick and mortar businesses are playing a zero-sum game where winning business means that someone else is losing business. Competing for business means trying to gobble up as much marketshare as possible.

Escape rooms are different because for most players, they will only ever play a game once. As an owner, your job quite literally is to manufacture repeat escape room players. Your games should be built to turn one time players into two time players. You want them to have a great time and play again, and again until you don’t have any more games for them to enjoy. Then you need them to go play games at your competitors’ locations because you want them to stay engaged with escape rooms so that these players are there for you when you open your next game.

Not only is friendship with other escape rooms and option, it’s to your benefit.

There are so many potential upsides to befriending your competitors.

How do I form positive relationships with escape room owners in my area?

For many of us, making new friends is a struggle, but it gets easier if you have something in common… in this case, escape rooms.

Now, I’ll be honest with you: Not every escape room owner wants to be your friend, and I promise you, you don’t want to be friends with every escape room owner out there. Some are too busy. Others have an established friend circle. Some don’t want friends in the business, or at all.

But your question here is, “how do I form positive relationships with escape room owners in my area?”

If none of them have reached out to you, the best way that I’m aware of, is to ask your enthusiast players, “who should I know?” In addition to knowing which owners make good games, they’ll also know which owners made them feel welcome… and who made them feel unwelcome (or worse). Those signals are usually meaningful.

After that, a couple options for approach include:

• Asking them to meet for coffee
• Offering a game swap for them and their staff

Don’t try and force it.

If it turns out that making friends in your immediate area is difficult, a lot of owners have an easier time making industry friends in the next town/ city. Sometimes a little distance makes things feel safer for people. Not everyone will have the same philosophy on competition. It’s not worth spending too much thought or energy on those folks.

If you’re feeling discouraged, broaden your range (or come to RECON or one of our Tours).

How should I approach competition with other escape rooms?

The best answer is friendly competition: many of the top escape room markets worldwide have a ton of fairly friendly competition going on.

Simply trying to one up each other with each new game can put all companies involved into a virtuous cycle of improvement. You don’t have to go nuts with this. Small, meaningful improvements game-over-game is great.

Similarly, competing on customer experience and maintenance is fantastic for all involved.

All of these create a win-win-win scenario. It’s great for your company, your competitor, and your customer. It’s great for the industry in your area.

There are a also number of productive ways to compete with other escape rooms:

Filling Different Niches

Some of the most productive competition comes from doing things that your competitors can’t or aren’t interested in.

A few examples of specialized niches include:

• Kids birthday parties
• Large groups
• Corporate groups

A lot of good cooperation has been born from passing along or receiving referrals for more niche needs.

Contractor Sharing

Some escape room specialties are challenging to come by, and they can become even harder to find if there isn’t enough work for the contractor.

Sharing these folks can help everyone involved. Both companies get the work done, the contractor makes more money, and it doesn’t all have to come from your pocket.

Additionally, the more a contractor is working in the escape room space, the better they get at it.

Intentional Differentiation

There are plenty of owners who share theme choices or design concepts with their competitors to make sure that they don’t create games that are too similar, and thereby easily confuse the players.

This is another win-win-win scenario.

Literally Helping One Another

They’re good at tech. You’re good at scenic painting. You swap some time and effort (or whatever you’re good at, and they’re good at… you get the point.)

When people have skillsets that they have honed over years, trading them is a lot faster than learning from scratch.

Just Having A Friend With Similar Problems

Look, running a business is hard. It’s a lot of work. And it can get pretty damn lonely, especially when you have problems that your regular friends cannot relate to.

For me, there aren’t a lot of US-based escape room review sites out there that have a similar ethos to us. That’s why I speak to Noah Nelson of No Proscenium at least once per month. We have different strengths and weaknesses, but we have a lot of similar problems and frustrations. Can we solve things for one another? Sometimes… but usually just having a friend who gets it is a big help.

Friends can have inherent value.

Are there any pros and cons that I should be aware of?

Absolutely.

Making friends can be tough, and sometimes friends disappoint.

The best advice that I can give you is to open yourself up, and read the room.

A good rule to follow is: Keep away from people who bask in tension and pain. Even if they are on your side now, eventually they will turn that weapon in your direction.