The Devastating Impact of Venue Loss on Creators, Consumers, and Cities

In spite of popular perception, escape rooms and immersive games are not all created alike. Throughout this year, we’ve been preaching the gospel of escape rooms to new audiences, and showcasing examples of companies creating groundbreaking experiences that have changed the way we think about what immersive gaming can be.

When we hear of someone breaking the mold, we celebrate it. Many in our community travel from afar to experience it, to be awed by it, and most importantly, to learn from it.

A view down old, overgrown train tracks on a hazy evening. Three lights shine on the far end of the tracks. — *Demise of the Gricers*

When one of these experiences is lost, our collective loss is global. As an international community, we lose access to a beacon of design and implementation. Regionally, the city that the experience calls home loses a unique piece of art and an economic asset that only existed in one specific place.

Venue Loss

Loss of venue is an often overlooked reason why successful immersive experiences just… disappear.

Unless a small business owns their building, they can do everything right, and their fate is in someone else’s hands.

Venue loss is the reason that I never got to experience the pioneering Time Run in London. David scheduled a layover in London in 2017 specifically so that he could play and review their seminal works The Lance of Longinus and The Celestial Chain before the opportunity would disappear. As I understand it, second hand, of course, Time Run was building on scale and with a level of polish and world-building that was unheard of in 2017. They pioneered a throughput model that, while controversial at the time, inspired many of today’s pipelined experiences.

Venue loss stole Doors of Divergence in Brooklyn, New York, at the end of 2023, and this company has been searching for a venue to remount their groundbreaking, replayable experiences with branching narratives. I regret the amount of times over the past year I’ve spoken to a blossoming creator and wished I could recommend they visit Doors of Divergence to be inspired and to learn. But it no longer exists.

Venue loss stole Enter the Imaginarium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for far too long. This company was ahead of its time with its unified game world, in-character gamemasters, and one especially memorable set-driven interaction. They only recently re-opened in a new space after years rebuilding. The Mind’s Eye is the first of their new creations in their new venue.

Venue loss might just steal the singularly unique Demise of the Gricers too. But it doesn’t have to.

Venue Importance

Most venues are simply buildings, vessels for experiences. Sometimes they can be molded to the shape of the experience. More often, the experience adapts to immovable walls, outlet placement, emergency exits, and other particulars of an existing space.

But an unusual venue – one with a history, a personality, or a dramatic allure – can be the inspiration for a groundbreaking experience.

I first experienced this in 2018 at Logic Locks’ Catacombs in Amsterdam, where the setting in the basement beneath the Posthoorn Church at Haarlemmerstraat was an essential component of the dramatic story that unfolded as we played that game.

Exterior of the Posthoorn church at Haarlemmerstraat. — The Posthoorn Church at Haarlemmerstraat

The magic of turning a landmark into living history cannot be understated.

Demise of the Gricers is one of these such experiences. Its setting in a rail yard in As, Belgium, was the inspiration for the through line of the entire experience, which includes the story and the innovative game mechanic that Entered introduced. It can’t simply be rebuilt somewhere else. It’s a game about trains. But more than that, it’s a game whose existence depends on its location amongst the trains. That’s part of its magic.

The Win-Win-Win of Partnership

A partnership between a location and an immersive experience creator delivers value to everyone involved.

For the Creator

An unique venue inspires creativity. It presents opportunities that no other creators have access to. For the best in the business, it’s the perfect constraint. Immersive experiences exist in the physical world, and there’s no better constraint than the physical world itself.

For the Location

In a world where retail foot traffic is less and less relevant, experiences become increasingly more valuable. That’s why malls court entertainment like Level99 and Activate. They need entertainment anchors to bring in consumers.

Entrance hallway to Level 99 looks like a massive geometric sculpture. — Level99

A stellar, one-of-a-kind immersive experience will do exactly the same thing. It will bring new people to the city. They will spend on food, drinks, hotels, and other activities. This is an economic win, especially for a smaller municipality who doesn’t see a ton of tourism.

In addition to economic wins, a top tier experience brings recognition and prestige to an area. The industry of escape room tourism may be nascent, but it’s increasing each year. Demise of the Gricers was ranked #32 in the world by the global community TERPECA, the Top Escape Rooms Project Enthusiasts’ Choice Award, and for good reason. Nothing like this game exists anywhere in the world except for in As, Belgium.

For the Consumers

For the locals, most of us don’t get to live near a world class interactive attraction. Many metropolises don’t have games of such high calibre. These are the kinds of experiences that spark imagination and inspire greatness.

For the travelers, it will take them to new places, both within an immersive experience, and in the physical world. How many cities would I never have seen if I weren’t out seeking immersive games? I would have seen only Amsterdam, never Bunschoten-Spakenburg (a town only escape room travelers have heard of) … and only Brussels, never As. This passion has been a lens through which I’ve met people and seen the world.

In-game: A beautiful woman in a tight body suit approaching white and blue sci-fi entry way for The Dome. — Promo image from The Dome via Mama Bazooka in Bunschoten-Spakenburg

Collaboration Grows the Pie

In a world where everything is increasingly a chain, or just another business that looks and feels like thousands of other similar businesses, it’s special to find one that dares to do something unique… more so when that uniqueness is felt within an industry on a global scale.

As a world, we need less of the same. It’s a tragedy when an innovative creator and entrepreneur loses everything because the vessel for their work vanishes. It’s even more tragic when that vessel was the inspiration for an experience in the first place.