Escape Rooms: Helping You Escape Your Tech Dependency and Reconnect with Humans
It’s that awkward time of year in New Brunswick when no one ventures out of their cozy living rooms unless absolutely necessary, when even outdoor winter activities are out because the weather can’t decide between melting everything or freezing everything.
But you can only take your own company for so long before you start becoming more invested in the lives of that Netflix show’s characters than those of you own family and realize it’s probably time to figure out if your real-life friends are still alive.
It’s this very time of year that might be the best time to hop on the Google and find your closest escape room. It’s easy to see why the surprisingly lucrative escape room trend has been popping up across the globe: it’s a social activity, you get to use those sluggish brain cells and feel like you’re part of an adventure.
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Escape Rooms in New Brunswick:
Decipher – Fredericton
Escape Logic Games – Fredericton
No Escape: Unplugged – Fredericton
Breakout – Saint John
Room Escape Atlantic – Dieppe
Mystery Moncton Escape Rooms – Moncton
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Chris Richard is the owner of Mystery Moncton Escape Rooms, his second venture into the escape room concept. Richard’s business is described as escape rooms based on video games in which the player is locked in a room and must explore their surroundings to escape.
“In the summer of 2015, my wife and I, along with my family and spouses (nine people in total) opened Room Escape Cavendish in Cavendish, PEI,” Richard explains. “We were very pleased by the success of our first summer in operation, especially since escape rooms are still a new concept for many people.”
After the success of their seasonal escape room in Cavendish, Richard and his brother decided to try out a year-round escape room and settled on Moncton as the location because of the population size and central Maritime location.
“Our rooms have been received very well,” he says. “There is always a demand for something that gives people an activity to do on a night out. It’s nice to have another choice besides more traditional options like the movies or bowling.”
Richard says there are plenty of reasons escape rooms have become popular, but one of the greatest reasons seems to be that they appeal to virtually anyone looking to disconnect from their devices and reconnect with people in their lives.
“What makes escape rooms so popular is that they are fun, live experiences that allow you to build new connections with your family, friends and coworkers. An escape room allows participants to live out experiences that they see in the movies, such as finding secret rooms, like Indiana Jones, or solving mysteries, like Sherlock Holmes. Escape rooms are designed to encourage teams to work together without the help of cell phones or the internet.”
Richard explains that escape rooms appeal to people of all ages. He says they’ve hosted diverse groups from an under 12 boys soccer team to a grandmother’s 80th birthday party.
“If I had to pick the most popular demographic, I would say women between the ages of 25 and 40, but participation in our rooms is broad across all gender and age groups,” he says.
“Most of our clients come in groups with their families or friends, but we have also had many corporate bookings, and while some businesses do use escape rooms for team-building purposes, many are just looking for a fun outing with their staff.”
Andrew Waugh is a servicing account manager at HUB International Atlantic and a member of his workplace’s social committee. He and his coworkers tried out a room at Breakout Saint John based on positive reviews they saw on social media.
“We wanted to do something as a team builder that would allow us all to have a little fun and function as a team,” Waugh said. “We chose Breakout because it was going to force coworkers to communicate with people we don’t see in the office every day in a venue other than email.”
Waugh says he and his coworkers were impressed by the amount of detail that went into the rooms and the puzzles.
“It was a unanimous good time had by all of our coworkers,” he said. “We are possibly planning it again for this year’s annual team forum. We are always looking for activities that [make you] interact with each other,” he says.
“I think [escape rooms] are gaining popularity because it’s something new that we’ve never had before … I think they’re good for exercising your thinking skills and it gives us time to step away from emails, texting and social media and have some old fashioned human interaction.”
Richard recommends everyone give escape rooms a shot, saying it’s all about the process of working together.
“Escape rooms combine critical thinking, working under pressure, logic skills and encourage groups to work together,” he says. “But most importantly, they’re a lot of fun, if you escape the room or not.”