This is the fourteenth instalment of an occasional feature to act as a status report on the exit games in the UK and Ireland. On its own it means little, but by now hopefully it can be part of the basis of a survey of growth over time. It reflects a snapshot of the market as it was at the end of May 31st, before the opening of three sites on June 1st and another on June 5th. (So it’s already out of date…!)
The Census
| Category | Number in the UK | Number in Ireland |
|---|---|---|
| Exit game locations known to have opened | 64 | 7 |
| Exit game locations known to be open | 60 | 6 |
| Exit game locations in various states of temporary closure | 2 | 1 |
| Exit game locations known to have closed permanently | 2 | 0 |
| Exit game locations showing convincing evidence of being under construction | 6 | 0 |
| Exit game locations showing unconvincing evidence of being under construction | 5 | 0 |
| Exit game projects abandoned before opening | 2 | 0 |
The term opened should be understood to include “sold tickets”, even when it is unclear whether any of those tickets may have been redeemed for played games; the definition of location should be understood to include outdoor locations, pop-up/mobile locations and component parts of larger attractions that are played in the same way as conventional exit games.
There are more changes than might at first appear in this month’s numbers:
- Dr. Knox’s Enigma is now considered to have opened in late April;
- Jailbreak! is open for a second season, probably since late April, with no clear indication when this might end.
- On the other hand, Make A Break is now regarded as temporarily closed – possibly as closed as Cipher, which has now been “between its first and second seasons” for over a year – because its Facebook and bookings pages seem to be down for now.
- Time Run has a scheduled closing date, which might well be extended;
- Panic! has a scheduled closing date, where a second run would appear not to be likely to follow immediately afterwards by virtue of apparent plans for other attractions to follow in the same building – but, perhaps, some sort of Panic! 2 might occur at some point in 2016.
- As ever, there might well be other sites open that haven’t made it onto this site’s radar.
That said, this site is going to make a dangerous claim: it knows no reason why the map, the list, the Timeline and the reviews aggregator should now not be up-to-date. If you know otherwise, please get in touch.
The Report Card
| Site name | Number of rooms | The reviews | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Site name | Total number | Different games | Find reviews | Quantity | Quality |
| Adventure Rooms | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Few | Brilliant reviews |
| Agent November | 3 | 3 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| AK Escape Room | 1 | 1 | (TripAdvisor) | No | Early reviews |
| Bath Escape | 2 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Many | Brilliant reviews |
| Breakout Games Aberdeen | 3 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Some | Excellent reviews |
| Breakout Games Inverness | 3 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Very few | Early reviews |
| Breakout Liverpool | 4 | 4 | TripAdvisor | Few | Brilliant reviews |
| Breakout Manchester | 7 | 6 | TripAdvisor | Loads of | Brilliant reviews |
| Can You Escape | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Many | Brilliant reviews |
| Cipher | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | No | Early reviews |
| Clue Finders | 2 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| Clue HQ Blackpool | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| Clue HQ Warrington | 3 | 3 | TripAdvisor | Loads of | Brilliant reviews |
| clueQuest | 4 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Tonnes of | Brilliant reviews |
| Crack The Code Sheffield | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| Cryptopia | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Few | Brilliant reviews |
| Cyantist | 2 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Few | Brilliant reviews |
| Dr. Knox’s Enigma | 2 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| ESCAP3D Belfast | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Many | Excellent reviews |
| ESCAP3D Dublin | 2 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Few | Superior reviews |
| Escape Clonakilty | 2 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Very few | Early reviews |
| Escape Dublin | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Few | Brilliant reviews |
| Escape Edinburgh | 3 | 3 | TripAdvisor | Loads of | Brilliant reviews |
| Escape Glasgow | 3 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Many | Brilliant reviews |
| Escape Hour | 2 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| Escape Hunt | 10 | 3 | TripAdvisor | Many | Excellent reviews |
| Escape Land | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Many | Brilliant reviews |
| Escape Live | 2 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| Escape Newcastle | 2 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| Escape Plan Live | 4 | 4 | (TripAdvisor) | No | Early reviews |
| Escape Quest | 2 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| Escape Rooms | 2 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Many | Excellent reviews |
| Escape Rooms Plymouth | 2 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Many | Brilliant reviews |
| Escapologic | 2 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| Ex(c)iting Game | 2 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Some | Excellent reviews |
| Exit Newcastle | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| Exit Strategy | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Few | Brilliant reviews |
| gamEscape | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Few | Excellent reviews |
| GR8escape York | 2 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| Guess House | 3 | 3 | (TripAdvisor) | No | Early reviews |
| HintHunt | 5 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Tonnes of | Brilliant reviews |
| iLocked | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Very few | Early reviews |
| Jailbreak! | 1 | 1 | (TripAdvisor) | Very few | Specific reviews |
| Keyhunter | 3 | 3 | TripAdvisor | Some | Superior reviews |
| Lady Chastity’s Reserve | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| Lock’d | 2 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| Lockdown-Inverness | 2 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Very few | Early reviews |
| Locked In Games | 2 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Many | Brilliant reviews |
| LockIn Escape | 3 | 3 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| Logiclock | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| Lost & Escape | 2 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| Make A Break | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Some | Excellent reviews |
| Mystery Cube | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Few | Brilliant reviews |
| Mystery Squad | 1 | 1 | (TripAdvisor) | No | Early reviews |
| Puzzlair | 2 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Many | Brilliant reviews |
| Puzzle Room | 1 | 1 | (TripAdvisor) | No | Early reviews |
| Quests Factory | 2 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Very Few | Early reviews |
| Room Escape Adventures | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Very few | Early reviews |
| Salisbury Escape Room | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| Secret Studio | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| The Escape Room Manchester | 5 | 5 | TripAdvisor | Many | Brilliant reviews |
| The Gr8 Escape | 2 | 2 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| The Great Escape Game | 3 | 3 | TripAdvisor | Many | Brilliant reviews |
| The Live Escape | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Few | Brilliant reviews |
| The Room | 5 | 5 | TripAdvisor | Very few | Early reviews |
| Tick Tock Unlock Glasgow | 2 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Few | Brilliant reviews |
| Tick Tock Unlock Leeds | 2 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Loads of | Brilliant reviews |
| Tick Tock Unlock Liverpool | 2 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| Time Run | 1 | 1 | TripAdvisor | Some | Brilliant reviews |
| XIT | 4 | 4 | TripAdvisor | Few | Excellent reviews |
This needs to be taken with a heavy pinch of salt. This site supports all the exit games that exist and will not make claims that any particular one is superior to any other particular one. However, you might be interested in the TripAdvisor’s “Fun and Games” rankings lists in (picking only cities with multiple exit games listed) Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham or Sheffield. If those aren’t enough for you, or if you’re interested in comparisons for exit games in cities where they’re the only one, this site also has a page with the details for every site.
Additionally, just to put this out there, TripAdvisor now has a page entitled Top Escape Games in United Kingdom. Evidence suggests that it lists the thirteen escape games that are both #1 in “Fun and Games” in their town and listed as an escape game first, in some order, then the escape games that are #2, then the escape games that are #3 and so on. The “listed as an escape game” criterion is a bigger one than you might think; at least three very highly-regarded exit games spring to mind that don’t appear on that list, for one is listed as an outdoor activity when it isn’t, a second is listed as a scavenger hunt (arguable) and a third is listed as “other fun and games”. (It’s also arguable whether you would choose to rank – say – “#1 of a very small number” ahead of “#2 of a very large number”, that sort of thing.) The interesting question is which order the games are listed in, within their category of “#1 in town”… and whether that order will change over time. Hard to know if there’s anything to be read into this, other that there are at least 13 (and, in practice, at least 15) towns with exit games listed as their local number one for fun.
You might also be interested in listings at Play Exit Games, a few of which contain ratings and from which rankings might be derived, or ranking lists from other bloggers (for instance, thinking bob‘s comparisons, the QMSM room comparisons and Geek Girl Up North site comparions). If you have your own UK ranking list, please speak up and it shall be included in future months.
It’s not actually very difficult to estimate the number of people who play an exit game over the course of a month, though it does take a fair bit of work and there are limits as to how accurate it can be. This site uses data available to the public from sites’ booking systems, the number of rooms at each site, any data supplied by the site (either to the public or in private correspondence), and bears in mind trends in the numbers of Facebook likes, TripAdvisor reviews, photos posted and team sizes per site according to team photos. This site won’t necessarily take owners’ claims at face value, but there’s nothing to be gained from turning business away and saying you’re sold out when in fact you aren’t.
So with this in mind, this site makes its best estimate that the number of people who have played at least one exit game in the UK or Ireland, at any point in time up to the end of May 2015, is 230,000. (This estimate is quoted to the nearest 5,000, but the site would not like to claim more confidence than “between 85,000 and 650,000”.) As ever, if someone plays more than one game at the same site, this figure still only counts them once, and this number is only really meaningful in the context of this site’s previous estimates. The other usual caveat is that this figure may exclude data from locations about which this site is ignorant – and this site keeps discovering new locations that it might have found out about earlier!
Couple of errata:
Lady Chastity’s Reserve: 5 distinct rooms? I’m pretty sure there’s only one.
Escape Plan Live: 5 rooms? I thought it had four.
(and note – while I was looking at Clue Quest, I noticed they’ll have two more PLAN52 rooms opening up this moneth).
Marvellous! Updated. A couple of blobs caught, a few more getting caught over time. Thank you!
Cyantist has two rooms – the second Clockwork Orange room opened a couple of months ago
Thanks for the correction; much appreciated!