Sometimes the whale-watching, the golf playing, the movies, an ice-cream cone or beer by the waterfront just aren’t enough. Not intense enough, active enough, mysterious or even scary enough.
Which is why escape rooms with their so-called live games are gaining ground, including Victoria, where two such establishments have recently opened.
Customers pay to put themselves, families, friends or work colleagues in pseudo difficult or even deadly ‘locked’ rooms for the fun and stimulation of figuring out how to get out against the clock.
Business is “really good,” said Chris White, 47, operator of Epic Escape above Utopia in Bastion Square, where Escape from New York has been the main event for nearly four months in business. “We do a lot of corporations,” he said, citing B.C. Transit and teams of engineers vying in duelling identical rooms to best one another. The way people work the room shows how people tick, said White “You can definitely see who the leader is and who takes control and who’s the doer.”
The scene is like this:
“Today is your last day in the Big Apple and you set the alarm early to make sure you can fit everything else in! However, as you look around the apartment, you notice that your friend is nowhere to be found. Upon further review, you notice that the door is locked from the outside and you can't get out. With no phone to call your friend or any keys in sight, you realize you must use your surroundings to help you escape.”
A competitor in the escape room business, Horror Escape, opened its darkened glass doors on Broughton Street on Canada Day. This is Victoria, so there are potted plants at the front entrance and the H word appears on the signs in subtle burgundy as opposed to screaming scarlet.
Unlike Epic, Horror draws on real-life serial killer John Wayne Gacy for one of its scenarios, to heighten the experience for older, hard-core horror fans, co-owner Derek Lovell says. “I’m so passionate about entertaining people and scaring people,” said Lovell, who holds a two-year lease on the site with partner Jeff Roberts. The 20-somethings both moved from Prince George to Toronto before setting up in Victoria.
“YOU’LL HAVE 30 MINUTES TO FIND AN ESCAPE BEFORE GACY TAKES YOU FOR HIS OWN” the website screams.Gacy was executed in 1994 after being convicted in 1980 of killing 33 young men and boys, up until then America’s worst serial killer. Almost all the bodies were discovered in the crawl space beneath his suburban Chicago house, where the victims had been lured for sex.
If that sounds like fun, the cost is $75 for a family of five for 30 minutes or $25 per person for those who book on FaceBook.
At Epic Escape, White welcomes the competition. “Because I think the more people who know about escape rooms in Victoria, the better.”
It’s definitely entertainment, but unlike paintball or bowling, people don’t have to be physically fit. And compared to attending a hockey game with your colleagues, there’s a lot more interaction, White added. Epic offers the chance for adrenalin-boosting fun without real danger, he said.
“It’s funny to see how people react to a pressure situation. They’re battling the clock and against each other for office bragging rights,” said White, who adds he’s “totally fine” with the Gacy Room.
David Leach, a University of Victoria professor who studies adventure sports and games in general, sees escape rooms as both an offshoot of alternative reality video games and a reaction to the digital environment that’s the backdrop to much of modern life. Yes, there’s an iPod game named Room, “but this is so much more interesting,” he said, because it’s real people, in a real room “getting their hands dirty trying to figure it out against the clock.”
It’s an interactive society, so people seek participation, he said, and if it’s hands-on adventure, so much the better.
Locked rooms, like Tuff Mudder obstacle runs, are another way to try to inhabit the hero role, Leach added. Designed to be completely immersive, their scenarios are highly social, collaborative and even cerebral.
Leach doesn’t know if locked- room games increase leadership, team spirit or creativity. “I don’t know if it builds it, but it certainly reveals it,” he said.
As far as a the Gacy room — “I think some people are certainly going to find it insensitive,” Leach said. “It’s a little weird to be playing a serial killer victim,” he said, but slasher films and horror video games are mainstream for younger people.
He thinks locked rooms “speak to a desire to play that we have naturally as kids but is just kind of squashed in adults.”
Epic uses riddles and hidden codes to aid the would-be escapees, but getting out depends on strategic and creative thinking, the website notes. “Unless expressly noted in the Room Description, there are no scare or surprise tactics used in our rooms.”
Another scenario will be coming down the pike, said White, who is from Victoria and works for a drilling company as well as having 15 years in the hospitality industry. His best friend, Dr. Austin Enright, started Epic Escape in Winnipeg with some co-creators and suggested White tap into the Victoria market.
Meanwhile, Horror provides so-called “scare actors” on Friday and Saturday nights to enhance the fright factor. Not to worry. “People are not tied up and you can leave the room at any time,” Lovell said.
As if a John Wayne Gacy scenario isn’t enough.
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