Tag Archives: industry meeting

The great day of The Great Escape UK

The Great Escape UK topic boardOn Thursday, I attended the first unconference in the UK dedicated to exit games and related topics, The Great Escape UK. Being an unconference, the attendees were invited to pitch discussions they wanted to lead, or to have. The board above shows the sessions that were pitched; it’s difficult to read them, so they were as follows:

Using Excel to write a budget forecast Social Media marketing “beyond the victory selfie” Back room equipment (cameras, systems) What other puzzle adventures exist?
  What is the future of escape rooms?   Mobile escape games
Ideas for “upselling” Outdoor escape rooms = geocaching Where does digital fit in escape rooms? Timetabling (illegible bullet point list)
What does a great employee look like? What is missing from the EG community? “Pimp my game” – high-tech and other ideas  

Slightly over 40 attendees booked places at The Cross Keys in Leeds; not everyone turned up, but there were walk-ins as well, so the final number of attendees is not yet known, but there were representatives from over twenty sites. Particular thanks to those who had come from afar to attend: not just London or Scotland, but all the way from Germany or the Netherlands. We had the private area upstairs, which was very good and an easily adequate size for us; the staff were attentive and extremely polite. (The fish and chips were excellent, coming with a particularly good home-made tartare sauce.)

The day started with an introduction to the unconference format; as an ice-breaker, we were split into five teams, each of which had to solve puzzles to crack a four-digit code to unlock a box. The main meat of the day was the four sessions of discussion; the end of the day was my presentation of the “state of the nation in 2015” and discussion on what might happen next to the community.

In the end, there wasn’t the demand to make every proposed session happen. Generally people would congregate around two or three tables and the discussions might have fifteen or twenty people each, though there were some smaller ones and happily some people found more use from talking to each other, perhaps in continuation of previous discussions rather than attending the sessions at all. The best news is that everybody was constructive, generous with their input and came across really favourably as far as I am concerned. If you were there, you’re straight on my strictly metaphorical “plays well with others” list – not to say that if you weren’t there then you’re on my “doesn’t play well with others” list!

Scribes took notes from each of the talks that took place and notes will surely be collated and published shortly, quite possibly in the same Google Documents format as used at the Ontario unconference so that other recollections will be shared. Certainly I’m interested in seeing what was said at the other sessions I missed, and there were usually two tracks that I wanted to attend in every session. Possibly the most exciting one concerns what is missing from the community; more on that before too long.

My presentation of the state of the nation and the 2015 survey results didn’t get too big a response while I was giving it, so I may need to rethink how I present the data. (People were kindly polite to me about the talk afterwards, but it didn’t feel like I had hit the mark at the time.) I shall publish the data in full within, hopefully, a week or so for you to perform your own analyses.

Lots more arising from the event to come over the weeks and months. A spectacular day; when the book on exit games in the UK is written, today will go down in lore!

Looking ahead to 2016: predictions for the year

Peering into a Crystal Ball

This site has ran predictions features over the second half of 2014 and over the whole of 2015, assessing the accuracy of the predictions each time so that the world can have a giggle at just how wrong the guesses were in the first place. Let’s have another go for 2016, more because it’s fun than for any other reason. (Compare to the 2016 predictions for London by The Logic Escapes Me.)

That said, predictions are only so-o-o-o interesting. It’s more fun to think about plausible edge cases; it’s more fun to predict a long shot than something more obvious, but who’s to say what’s obvious and what isn’t? This list of predictions will also attempt to minimise the extent to which it covers previously-trod ground, as “this was an entertaining long-shot that didn’t happen last year and remains an entertaining long-shot this year” isn’t particularly exciting. A couple of other starting-points for predictions: this site will steer clear of predicting things it believes to be foregone conclusions already, and this site will attempt to make the most ambitious predictions that it feels confident making; this site would set over-under lines for the numerical predictions only a little above the figures quoted.

This site considers each of the following to be at least slightly more likely than not:

  • This site will become aware of more than 51 exit game openings in the UK and Ireland in 2016. (Not part of the prediction, but this site suspects that at least 40% of the openings will come from brands and people already in the business in 2015, with a decreasing number of people starting from scratch. Deliberately short-lived pop-up games are not included in the count.)
  • This site will become aware of more than 13 exit game closures in the UK and Ireland. Not every closure is a catastrophe: some businesses have decided to deliberately run a game with a finite duration, possibly with later sequels in mind.
  • At least one brand will have at least nine locations open in the UK and Ireland in 2016. (This is perhaps the most marginal of predictions, but eight seems just a little too safe to predict.)
  • Crowdfunding will get harder; no reasonably traditional exit game based in the UK or Ireland will attract more than £5,000 in funding in 2016 unless the people behind it have an established track record in this or another closely related industry.
  • Many of the biggest gaps in the market will close. At least one exit game will open in 2016 within eight miles of the main train station in at least four of the seven following locations: Reading, Portsmouth, Milton Keynes, Hull, Middlesbrough, Coventry and Peterborough. (This site has heard people talk about possible sites in two of these, but that’s far from a done deal. Other possible cities have been rejected from the list for being too safe a prediction.)
  • The exit game industry will continue to grow sufficiently quickly that this site’s estimate for the number of unique players in the UK or Ireland by the end of December 2015 reaches or exceeds 750,000.
  • There will be a meeting in the UK or Ireland in 2016 with exit games as its focus which attracts more than 50 attendees.
  • This site will become aware of someone that it does not already know at the time of making this prediction running an exit game for friends and family on an amateur basis within the UK and Ireland in 2016 using something more elaborate than, say, a Breakout EDU kit or similar.
  • London and at least two other UK towns will each hold at least four Puzzled Pint events in 2016. (This site has six possibilities in mind.)
  • There will be a UK DASH event and it will sell at least 25 team spaces – or sell out completely if the organisers choose a lower capacity – within 12 days.
  • There will be at least 18 locations in at least three countries around the world at this year’s DASH.
  • Ulrich Voigt will win the World Puzzle Championship this year for his eleventh victory in seventeen years.
  • David McNeill of Northern Ireland will defend his over-50s title in at least one of the World Sudoku Championship and the World Puzzle Championship; hopefully both!
  • This site will finally predict the WPC winning team after picking second place for the last two years.
  • This site loves stories of marriage proposals taking place at exit games and there have been at least ten customer proposals on record. A more interesting prediction is that by the end of 2016, this site will become aware of at least one proposal between a couple who got to know each other by both working at the same exit game.

This site considers each of the following to be less likely than not – maybe something like 30% likely each? – but nevertheless these are interesting possibilities.

  • Some company may bring larger-scale live escape events to the UK, with relatively many teams playing the same game at once. (This is inspired by SCRAP’s Real Escape Game events playing in France and Spain as well as other continents, and is surely slightly more likely than last year.)
  • An exit game brand in the UK and Ireland may take over at least one other existing game, or maybe even another exit game brand altogether.
  • There may be a single-day puzzle hunt in the UK and Ireland that is not the continuation of a series run in previous years and that attracts at least a hundred players.
  • There may be some interactive transmedia storytelling (or an Alternate Reality Game, as people called them a decade and a bit ago) to promote a new exit game or a new room at an exit game.
  • This site may become aware of an Irish exit game community; the rooms do exist, as well as the Boda Borg centre at Lough Key and doubtless other things far too cool to exist in the UK yet, so it would be a delight for someone to start a blog with an Irish focus and maybe even get meetings going as is starting to happen in the UK.

This site considers each of the following to be much less likely than not – maybe something like 15% likely each? – but nevertheless these are entertaining outside possibilities.

  • There might be a TV puzzle show made in the UK or Ireland to match up with the best puzzle shows that we’ve had in the past; if someone were to commission a local version of The Genius and it were to live up to its potential, that would count, or if someone were to make a really good exit game TV show, that would count too.
  • There might be a puzzle competition (as opposed to an armchair treasure hunt or puzzle hunt) launched in the UK or Ireland which is designed to be played in teams – maybe even an inter-town league or an inter-university championship. This site really misses the Croco-League.
  • Someone might start an overtly humorous blog about the genre in the UK and Ireland: two-thirds serious content, one-third shtick.
  • Someone might start an attraction just north of Heathrow called The Crystal Hayes or in South Essex called The Crystal Grays

Meetings of minds near and far

"Up The Game" adApril 2016 is set to be an extremely interesting month. The banner above is an advert for Up The Game, a conference focused not just on exit games but also other real-life games, which will take place in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, on Saturday 18th April 2016. “ As one of the fastest growing entertainment trends since the rise of cinema, real life gaming has taken the world by storm. ((…)) Where traditional games are a bit of a niche, real life gaming attracts a wide range of customers and people who exit a great escape room do so with shining eyes and a budding addiction- ‘where can I play more?’ But it doesn’t stop here, new games keep adding even more crazy ideas, more technology and more compelling interaction to the experience. We love to see all those new ideas as the better our games are, the more people will become excited about real life gaming.

That’s not April’s only attraction, though. Back in June, this site proposed that the UK industry meet up at the forthcoming The Crystal Maze live attraction. We have a date – Tuesday, 26th April 2016 – and an afternoon timeslot. (We don’t have a location, other than King’s Cross, London; this site’s uninformed guess is “somewhere within the Granary Square complex”.) There’s no guarantee who’ll turn up, but tickets have been bought by representatives of Escape Hour, Enigma Quests, Escape Quest, Archimedes Inspiration, Agent November, the The Escape Room chain, Breakout Manchester/Liverpool, Escape Live (both Birmingham and the forthcoming Southend branch) and the Escape chain, as well as by five fans with no business connection. 31 tickets have been paid for in total with a 32nd still available, plus potential resales from people who can’t make the event in the end. That 32nd ticket is available at cost price – £32.50 – which is rather cheaper than the £50 or £60, plus booking fee, you’ll pay for a ticket today. If the company appeals, as well as the price, then please get in touch by e-mail. ((ETA:)) Someone has called dibs on the 32nd ticket but if you’re still interested in going, I’m operating a waiting list in case there are resales.

Why wait until April, though? On Wednesday, 13th January 2016, there will be an exit game unconference in Leeds at a central venue to be announced. This has been discussed previously and the discussion of the counterpart unconference in Canada sounds intriguing. Be sure to grab yourself a ticket today.

Why wait as many as five and a half weeks, though? This Tuesday is Puzzled Pint day, and the December theme is Mad Men – though, as ever, no knowledge of the subject is required. The location puzzle has been posted; solve it to find out where the event will take place. My partner and I will be helping to run the London East location; being December, we’ve had to guarantee a high minimum spend so that they don’t pass us over for another Christmas party, so we really hope to see you there on Tuesday night!

Looking ahead to 2015: what’s on the wish list?

Fairy tale princess presents her prince with an "I want..." wish listFor the seventh and final part of the “Looking ahead to 2015” series, this site will take some slight flights of fancy and produce a short list of things it would like to see in the coming year, but has no basis in reality to believe they might ever exist. (On the other hand, it knows no reason to be sure that they might not come to pass!) This site wouldn’t even want to guess at a probability for any of these happening, other than “low”.

1) The UK was tremendously fortunate to have so many day-long puzzle events last year, with both the “Top Secret” hunt in Essex in August and Girls and Boys, Come Out To Play in September. There’s no evidence to suggest that something similar might happen in 2015, but the puzzle community of the UK might still hope. If anybody is tempted, it could be really fun to celebrate the Back to the Future trilogy on 21st October 2015, particularly if anybody has a way of flying more than ½” off the ground on a real hoverboard

2) It’s always delightful to read about the TMOU series of games in the Czech Republic, though much of the information that this site has about them comes from Wikipedia. They seem to have a great deal in common with the sequential puzzle hunts of the US. Wikipedia suggests that the experiential education practitioners there may have inspired counterpart games in other countries; perhaps they might bring the genre to the UK as well. Definitely one for the wish list.

3) This site really enjoyed reading about Escape Run within the Enigmatic Escape blog. This event was a puzzle hunt featuring 30 teams, representing six of the branches of Escape Room within Malaysia. The six fastest finishers went to play a special 20-minute exit game – and as none of the six teams finished that, the fastest finishers of the hunt won prizes. It would be tremendous to see competition between exit game branches in the UK, whether it’s a special event or just branches sending representative teams to other events that might already exist.

4) This site also really enjoyed reading one of the Chasers on ITV’s The Chase challenging another one to Laser Quest. Wouldn’t it be lovely to see famous TV brains (could be your Chasers, could be your Eggheads, could be whoever wins University Challenge this year…) tested to see whether they’re as smart and resourceful as they are knowledgable? Are they genuine quick thinkers or just fast at factual recall? This site gets the impression that that event arose organically, without the need to get agents or the like involved. Surely it’s a good match, though…

5) Would there be any interest in an industry meeting at some point – perhaps towards the end of the year? It’s not immediately clear if there are any leisure conferences at which a meeting might more naturally take place, so perhaps there might have to be one created more deliberately. If you’re a player, rather than someone in the industry, and think this suggestion comes across as a little snooty, fair enough. As well as industry members, it would be thoroughly delightful to meet site readers, and probably this is most naturally done at other puzzle events along the way; the next couple of Puzzled Pints sadly clash with my schedule and I’m not sure about the UKPA‘s UK Open tournaments, but you never know…!

#basicallyeveryoneshouldcometoDASHthisyear

What’s on your puzzling wish list for the year?