The co-founders of the popular escape room blog talk about their upcoming tours
David and Lisa Spira are the co-founders of Room Escape Artist and have been covering the escape game scene since 2014, playing games all around the world. Not only are they expert players and our co-moderators over at Everything Immersive, but also tour guides of escape rooms!
They recently announced two upcoming escape room tours they’ll be holding this summer, in both New Orleans and San Francisco, to showcase some of the best of the best in escape room design.
Through the magic of email, we asked them some questions about what players should expect in this year’s Escape, Immerse, Explore tours.
No Proscenium: Tell us a little about yourselves and your site, Room Escape Artist.
Room Escape Artist (REA): Room Escape Artist publishes daily well-researched, rational, and reasonably humorous content about escape rooms. This includes escape room reviews, related product reviews, design tips, players tips, and industry commentary.
The website is written by us — Lisa and David Spira — a couple who found escape rooms and then spent far too much time thinking about them. We aim to share our love of exploring giant puzzles and to push the makers of those giant puzzles to create the best experiences they can. We strive to grow the community of amazing people who love solving the puzzles together.
NP: What is Escape, Immerse, Explore? How did the idea for a tour come about?
REA: Escape, Immerse, Explore is our brand of escape room tours. We ran the first tour in New York City in November of 2017. New York has some outstanding games, but it can be daunting to navigate if you aren’t from around here. For solo or duo travelers, it can also be challenging to find teammates. We wanted to take the burden off the escape room tourists by booking the games, finding outstanding teammates, and making the trip as easy as possible. On our tours, players can focus on enjoying the escape rooms and each other!
NP: How did you decide what cities to focus on for 2019?
REA: In 2018, we took Escape, Immerse, Explore to New Orleans, Louisiana. The immense scale and exquisite details in the games was astonishing. We wanted to share that with other players. Plus, who doesn’t want to spend a weekend in New Orleans? The tour sold out and folks were asking when we’d run it again… so here it is again for 2019.
After we visited Palace Games in San Francisco, we decided to run Escape, Immerse, Explore: The Palace, our first tour focused exclusively on one company. Palace Games offers enormous escape rooms with a ton of content and some incredible technology. It’s especially challenging for traveling players to book at Palace Games because the games are massive and they are all private booking. If you don’t know enough people in San Francisco who like escape rooms, it isn’t feasible to play. We wanted to make it possible for travelers to visit Palace Games and see their depth of puzzle design and technological ingenuity.
NP: How do you choose what rooms you’d like to showcase on the tours?
REA: We want to bring players to the most incredible escape rooms we’ve visited. Both 2019 tours features Golden Lock-In Award winning games. This is our award for our favorite games that we played in a given year. We also feature other games that we liked because they were beautiful, unusual, charming… or displayed any number of other qualities that make escape rooms interesting.
For every tour, we’ve tried to put together a well-rounded selection of games that show the breadth of what escape rooms can offer. We book each player into the games we think will interest them most.
NP: How do you ensure people get to play rooms suited to their tastes?
REA: We send ticket holders a survey about their escape room preferences. It asks what you like best in escape rooms. It asks whether you lean into or away from different concepts, like horror or darkness. It also asks about your play style. We try make teams of players who will enjoy playing together.
NP: Can someone attend even if they aren’t an expert escape room player?
Get Kathryn Yu’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
SubscribeSubscribe
REA: Absolutely! On last year’s tour to New Orleans, we had a few people who had played fewer than 10 escape rooms. They literally doubled their escape room play count on the tour. And they had a blast! They made new friends — who were all eager to recommend games for them to visit in other cities — and left New Orleans invigorated to go play more escape rooms! They also left with new friends from all over the United States who shared their love of immersive play.
We love both the social and play aspects of these tours.
NP: How are you considering participant safety and consent when designing these tours?
REA: We take tour operation seriously. We bring our tours to reputable companies who run responsible businesses. These businesses meet all the necessary stipulations to operate entertainment in their municipalities. They have emergency exits and other safety precautions. They are insured and our tours are insured. Everyone is operating by the book.
We also alert our players to any physical restrictions (stairs, crawling) or potential triggers (horror theme, complete darkness) that exist in the games. We won’t ever put a player in a game they aren’t comfortable playing. If anyone has concerns that aren’t covered in the pre-tour survey, we will speak with them at length on the phone to make sure we give them an experience they will feel comfortable with and enjoy.
NP: Are there any rooms you’re particularly excited about showcasing?
REA: For New Orleans, Escape My Room is a fully immersive world from the front door to the exit. The staff are all in character. The rooms are all part of a common, cohesive world. We are also extremely excited to showcase 13th Gate Escape’s Cutthroat Cavern. With towering ceiling and wet depths, Cutthroat Cavern was breathtaking. For 60 minutes we frolicked in our own Goonies adventure. The scale of this escape room is unrivaled.
At The Palace, we are thrilled to showcase The Edison Escape Room. The invisible adaptive intelligence within The Edison Escape Room floored us. Palace Games took ambitious design to another level by hybridizing escape rooms and video games into something beautiful and new.
Both tours include some of the most spectacular escape rooms we’ve ever seen!
NP: What else is included on the tour besides escape rooms? Any surprises that you can tell us about?
REA: One of our goals with the tours is community building. To that end, both of the 2019 tours will feature a puzzle-focused group event… but those details will remain a surprise just a bit longer. Both tours facilitate opportunities to network and simply hang out with other escape room players. We’ll also give a talk that contextualizes the tour experience. There’s a lot more to these events than just playing escape rooms!
NP: Who is the ideal participant for Escape, Immerse, Explore?
REA: We welcome anyone who enjoys escape rooms and wants to play some of the best ones in the world, with other folks who will enjoy the games as much as you will. The ideal participant has played at least a few escape rooms already, and is eager to play more!
Our tours are particularly great for solo or duo players who may not be able to put together teams when they travel. That said, we encourage larger groups of friends to come together and meet even more friends.
The tours are perfect for anyone who wants to play escape rooms without the headache of booking them and organizing the team. We’re doing that for you! You get to enjoy each game to its fullest!
Tickets for both the New Orleans and San Francisco Escape, Immerse, Explore 2019 tours are now available on the Room Escape Artist site. Tickets are $799 for the New Orleans tour in July and $599–699 for the San Francisco tours in June.
NoPro is a labor of love made possible by our generous Patreon backers: join them today!
In addition to the No Proscenium web site, our podcast, and our newsletters, you can find NoPro on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, in the Facebook community Everything Immersive, and on our Slack forum.
Office facilities provided by Thymele Arts, in Los Angeles, CA.
Discussion