“Room Escape Artist has built a community within this industry.”

The year is 2014. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie just got married. Facebook is the largest social media platform. Celebrities everywhere are doing the Ice Bucket Challenge, and somewhere in New York City, Lisa and David Spira have just written their first review about a new activity called escape rooms.

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been ten years since Room Escape Artist started covering escape rooms. A decade is a long time to be doing anything, especially when it comes to writing about something many considered a fad. In this episode, I sit down with David and Lisa Spira, who are partners in both life and business, to take a look back over ten years of Room Escape Artist and talk about how it has grown up alongside the escape room industry.

I especially enjoyed hearing about the “inflection points,” including a key event that changed how they perceived and ran Room Escape Artist. Lisa talks about the sobering realization that people were making business decisions based on their reviews. This was one of the first turning points where they realized that they needed to take this fun blog of escape room reviews a whole lot more seriously. 

For me personally, one of the greatest things to arise is the wonderful community that sprung up around Room Escape Artist and all their productions. From the lovely people who participate in the Escape Room Tours, the interesting discussions in the Patreon Discord, and the joyous learning opportunities of RECON, David and Lisa have brought together a community of like-minded people who all love the same thing. There is magic here for everyone involved, and I’m really looking forward to seeing ten more years of Room Escape Artist. 

Thank You to Our Sponsors

We are immensely grateful to our sponsors this season: Morty App, Buzzshot, and COGS. We truly appreciate your support of our mission to promote and improve the immersive gaming community.

Topics Discussed in this Episode

• 00:13 Sponsor Break: Buzzshot, Escape Room Marketing Software
• 03:12 Origin Story of Room Escape Artist
• 07:16 Setting the Right Expectations for a Game
• 11:15 Why REA Doesn’t Use a Rating System
• 15:53 Criteria for the Recommendations Guides 
• 22:13 Sponsor Break: Morty App, Discover And Track Escape Rooms
• 23:52 Thoughts on Creating Their Own Escape Room
• 28:02 Sponsor Break: Cogs By Clockwork Dog, Interactive Show Controls
• 30:25 Early Challenges
• 37:33 Inflection Points for REA
• 44:24 Impact on the Escape Room Industry
• 51:56 Expansion Struggles
• 56:41 Story of the Pink Bow 
• 58:59 Rubber Ducks
• 01:01:20 The Secret to Working With Your Spouse
• 01:04:53 A World Without Room Escape Artist
• 01:14:59 Bonus Story About Playing With an Expert

Leave us a voicemail

Got a question or thought for the podcast? You can submit a voice recording by calling the Room Escape Artist not-so-hotline that always goes straight to voicemail (551-227-7273).

Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• Escape Immerse Explore Tours
• 2024 Golden Lock Winning Games
• Recommendations Guides
• Review of Mission Escape Games’ The Art Studio
• REA Contributors
• No-Knead Sourdough Recipe

About Lisa and David Spira

Instagram: @roomescapeartist @realityescapepod @realityescapeconvention

Facebook: @roomescapeartist

Created by an experience designer and a predictive data expert in 2014, Room Escape Artist publishes daily well-researched, rational, and reasonably humorous escape room reviews, design tips, player tips, and industry commentary.

Our mission is to share our love of exploring giant puzzles and to push the makers of those giant puzzles to create the best experiences they can. We strive to grow the community of amazing people who love solving the puzzles together.

To that end, REA produces the leading industry event RECON and Escape Immerse Explore Tours.

David conceived of Room Escape Artist because he saw the potential of this new entertainment medium back in 2014. From the start, he applied his professional skills as a digital experience designer to the burgeoning industry of escape rooms. David is full of ideas: from in-depth research pieces to new content types… like cute animals solving puzzles. He is always pushing REA to try new things, take risks, and be something more.

Whether she is editing REA’s content, leading the Hivemind, or wrangling the logistics for RECON or the Escape, Immerse, Explore Tours, Lisa is the reason that everything runs like clockwork. As a linguist and data expert, Lisa also leads our Industry Data efforts and is responsible for our annual Industry Reports. Lisa is the heart of REA and also bakes all of our escakes.

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The money that we make from these helps us to grow the site and continue to add more value to the community that we love so much.