Category: Business

“Solving an escape room is like being the hero of your own movie.” I’ve said that a lot over the years, trying to describe this real-life adventure and the rush that goes with it. I’ve used that analogy because it evokes a set and a story with me (or you!) as the main character, and it’s relatable to just about anyone.

Theater

An escape room might be like a movie in many ways, but I wouldn’t say it categorically is a movie. If I had to categorize it – and I do, but more on that later – I’d say, it’s theater.

Live Entertainment

Escape rooms take place in physical venues where groups of people come together in person to experience a story. Unlike the recorded movie, this performance happens live on stage every time.

Stage

The set is the stage for this piece. It might look like the attic of a manor, a spacecraft, or a pirate ship, but it has been designed around character action, story beats, pivotal scenes, and hidden effects.

Stories

Originally, the goal of the escape room was just that: escaping a locked room. Since then, this form of entertainment has evolved into a form of storytelling.

Early on, David argued that escape rooms wouldn’t be a passing fad because they had the power to tell stories. The guests interpret the story mostly from the set, the actions they take within the game, and the outcomes they accomplish.

After interviewing some of the most innovative escape room creators throughout 2019, Richard Burns concluded that today, storytelling is the driving force behind innovation in this industry.

For many top creators we’ve talked to, how guests feel while experiencing the game is even more important than the actions they take within it.

Performers & Spectators

In an escape room, the guest is both the performer and the spectator. They are the archeologist when they open the mummy’s tomb. They are the spectator when their teammate pulls the sword from the stone.

The staff too can be both performers and spectators, even when they never step onto the stage while the guests attend. In their performer role, they perform introductions and send hints as different characters. In their spectator role, they watch the performance of the guests.

Technicians

There are many technicians behind the scenes in an escape room. They rig lighting and sound. They trigger effects.

Box Office

While most tickets are booked online (for escape rooms and traditional theaters), at the escape room there is a box office too. It’s the person at the front desk who answers the phone and helps you with your booking questions, credit card woes, and sells you souvenirs.

Labels

In August, we published the 6 Year US Escape Room Industry Report.

When we included in that report our analysis of the PPP loans that escape rooms received in the first half of 2020, one of the reasons it was challenging to find these businesses and the database was the lack of consistent categorization. While most escape room businesses are too small to have received more than $150,000, and thus were not included in the ProPublica loan database we analyzed, we did find 13 escape room business loans listed.

These 13 businesses are classified in 7 different ways:

• All Other Amusement and Recreation Industries
• Amusement Arcades
• Other Spectator Sports
• All Other Support Services
• Other Performing Arts Companies
• Theater Companies and Dinner Theaters
• Food Service Contractors (Boda Borg does have food on site.)

While some of these seem pretty far off base (Spectator Sports? Support Services?), I can see why “Amusement” seems like it could fit.

Scale

The Amusement business operates at a scale escape rooms do not. At an amusement park, arcade, or similar attraction, many people consume entertainment at once. These businesses rely on a high volume of customers at once, and high throughput.

Escape rooms are more intimate. When I think about the staging, performance, effects, interactions, and especially the scale, escape rooms belong in the entertainment category of theater.

Context

We aren’t big fans of categorization and labels, but we are in favor of contextual clarity.

Theater is a context Americans (and people anywhere in the world, for that matter) broadly understand.

That’s the place where you go in person to take in a story that is set on a stage, realized through performance for an audience, and augmented by lighting, sound, and effects.

Escape rooms have something unique to offer beyond traditional theater. That’s why they are new and different. However, it’s the element of theater within them that gives them their staying power.

And when an escape room is staring down the barrel of a… government form with only broad entertainment categories, an escape room is most certainly a theater.

We recently passed 1,800 published blog posts on Room Escape Artist, written over a bit more than 6 years. During this time, I’ve given a lot of advice to folks who want to blog about escape rooms.

Here are my top dos & don’ts of getting started.

1 – Start

Do start producing.

Don’t wait. Even if you don’t have a place to publish the posts yet. Get in the habit of producing content regularly. It’s easy to stay in “planning mode” forever, so don’t let yourself into that endless cycle; just dive in.

2 – Tech & Infrastructure

Don’t get bogged down in custom tech.

I strongly recommend using a hosted solution from WordPress, SquareSpace, Wix, or some other similar low-cost, low-effort provider. We use WordPress.com’s business plan. We started with a less expensive plan.

Whether or not you have a background building websites, I still recommend the lightest solution possible because you don’t want to spend your time maintaining your website.

Since day one we’ve had a “content first” approach. It’s tough to produce content when you’re spending all of your time maintaining your tech.

The result of our decision is that we have a ton of content that we’re incredibly proud of, but from a tech standpoint, our infrastructure has never been exactly where we wanted it. We continue to improve it.

All of that said, I wouldn’t have done it differently if I were starting over.

I’ve seen a ton of heavily customized websites with next to no content come and go… and that’s confounding.

3 – Motivation

Do it because you love these games and/ or the community.

If you don’t love playing escape rooms, thinking about them, and analyzing them… then you’re not going to have the fire to keep your site rolling. You need that intrinsic motivation because the early days of writing a blog are lonely. Sometimes you’re writing for almost no one, so you have to be writing for yourself.

There’s an old joke among those of us who have been producing content about escape rooms since the early days of 2014 and 2015. The joke is: “I started my blog for the money.”

You’re not going to get rich or famous from producing escape room content.

4 – Consistency Feeds Growth

Don’t be erratic if you want to grow.

We publish at 10:01AM Eastern every single day (and sometimes publish a bonus post at a different palindromic time in the afternoon). Back in the early days we used to publish 3 times per week, and in the extra early days it was once per week.

Consistency and stability – at whatever pace – feeds readers and attracts new ones. Consistency is really hard.

5 – Pacing

Do it at your own pace.

Contradicting myself… I really respect bloggers like Randy Hum from Escape Rumors and Alejandro Osorio & Stefan Bauer from Two Bears Life. They don’t publish tons of stuff, but what they do produce is well crafted and has a clear perspective. You don’t have to write a lot to add value to the community.

I am so happy that we have people like them adding to our community and whether they are consistent or not, it’s a better community because they are part of it.

6 – Intention

Don’t do this just to get free games.

If you’re thinking about blogging to offset the expense of your escape room habit, just get a side job. I’m serious. The bloggers who are just in it to get free games rarely last. If they do, their content is usually weak in quality.

Also, don’t review if all you want is for owners to like you; do something else. The reviewers who clearly just want to be liked can’t be honest even if they are knowledgeable.

7 – Perspective

Do evolve.

Cultivate your own perspective and let it evolve. The longer you do this, the more you’ll realize how little you knew when you started. Don’t resist that change; it’s growth. You’ll look back on some of your old pieces and realize that you were off. It’s part of the journey.

8 – Regionality

Don’t believe that you’ve seen everything.

Be aware of the fact that escape room trends are regional. If you’ve only seen games from a single region or two, that’s cool. Regional blogs are amazingly helpful to the community. Just remember that your worldview might get rocked if you visit a new place. Don’t let that rattle you.

9 – Adjacent Spaces

Do keep learning.

Whether it’s tabletop games, video games, immersive theatre, puzzle hunts, augmented reality games, improv comedy, set design, electronics, fabrication, or anything else really… there is an endless opportunity to learn new things that relate to the way that escape games are designed and played.

That’s my favorite part about all of this. I’m fueled by curiosity. I love that no matter how much I learn, there will always be something more to learn.

10 – Community

Do disagree without being disagreeable.

We’re not all going to like and dislike the same stuff. That’s cool. Embrace the fact that perspective on experience is subjective… and be kind to those who see things differently.

The moment that you feel that your way of seeing an experience is the only way of seeing an experience, you eliminate the possibility of discussion and learning. The beauty of this community is in learning from one another and seeing things through the eyes of others.