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Escape Rooms - The new frozen yogurt store of the 80's. Get one while they are hot!!!

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  • #16
    Originally posted by Novus View Post
    And on that note, it's getting pretty silly to continue the argument at this point. I sent you a follow-up in private so we can just start cursing each other out and really start the insults. I'll respond in a new thread on Escape Rooms.
    I do not curse out anybody, in public or private: So speak for yourself.

    Nor have I insulted you. I have responded analytically and cogently to your questions and comments. Some people look to be insulted, and see slights in everything. If anything, I could be accused of taking a cold, clear look, of being a pragmatist, of satire, of levity, and perhaps of holding a mirror up for you to look into.

    Nor am I arguing with you. I have answered your questions, but you don't like my answers.

    And please do not try to project my words and motives to your own. You speak for you and I will speak for me.

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    • #17
      Just going to leave this here... I need some help with pricing for my escape room! Lol No seriously... I remember frozen yogurt! My wife says yes they are going to be a fad... But she also said, go for it! Our town is 12,000 and the closest escape room I have seen is 1 hour 45 minutes away. I have always seen the prices between $20-$30 for the hour. I am thinking folks around here might want a bit more of a discount, but I want to be fair to the industry as well. Thoughts? Yogurt?

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      • #18
        Pricing an escape room and more.

        I imagine it is difficult for anyone to accurately determine the prices for you as there are many factors at work. What is your overhead? How long do you estimate your escape room will take to go through: 15, 20, 30, 60 minutes? How many cycles a day? Will you or your wife operate it yourself or will you have to hire people? What kind of town is it? If it is an Amish community, for example, those folks don't pay much for escape rooms and you have to hire someone to clean up the road apples in your parking lot after they leave. 12,000 is not a large number of people, are there any larger municipalities closer with larger numbers?

        Did you make it to Transworld this year? Suddenly, everyone was an "escape room specialist" and there were a lot of ways to spend money on escape rooms. Heck, there was a bathroom attendant I saw working on Thursday, and by Friday morning he had opened an escape room booth and was offering advice to escape room operators at the Marriot at night. Really warms the heart to see the entrepreneurial spirit alive and well.

        That said, for a proper creative and artistic person, building a good escape room does not have to be an expensive venture and if you operated solely at night and weekends, you could pull it off and still work a 9 to 5 day job. Build it up over time. Hopefully you have a location where you can grow more attractions as need arrives.

        Maybe frozen yogurt and an escape room? Although the Amish complain that frozen yogurt hurts their teeth.

        Frozen yogurt has made a comeback in some markets, but there are already a number of fatalities happening. Over-saturated market, those danged machines are expensive, and maintaining the fresh toppings are expensive.

        The key to frozen yogurt, which you pay for by the ounce... is to buy as large as cup as possible, for example a gallon sized cup. That way it becomes very difficult for people to assess how much yogurt they have dispensed at any given time, and no matter what they dispense... it always looks like a small amount. The best are the dumb parents that hand their kid a bucket and let them have it... a $17 score on average.

        Maybe the escape room is actually a closed down 80's yogurt store??? Trying to think outside the box here.

        And remember... stop exercising people... it's time to dance! You don't realize it's a work out, you dance and lose pounds!
        Last edited by SAWDUST JONES; 04-24-2016, 12:02 AM.

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        • #19
          Originally posted by SAWDUST JONES View Post
          Heck, there was a bathroom attendant I saw working on Thursday, and by Friday morning he had opened an escape room booth and was offering advice to escape room operators at the Marriot at night.
          The Great Bathroom Escape was my favorite!
          Spinning Tunnels www.spinningtunnel.com

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          • #20
            Umm . . .

            I believe Escape Rooms are no different than Haunted Houses, in the sense that there are people who open haunts and have no idea what they're doing, same with escape rooms. But on the flip side, those who are doing them correctly are seeing a great return already. With every business it comes down to your product, if its good, it'll most likely last.. but if its terrible its going to die our quickly.

            There are tons of Escape Rooms that I believe will be closing within the next year or so, mainly because the quality escape rooms will be replacing them. Theres a difference between a bland room with padlocks or a room with hi-tech puzzles and an actual immersive experience. But we shall see how this industry grows, or doesn't.

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            • #21
              Ummmm...

              Lot's of 80's yogurt stores made lots of money, millions, in fact, national chains were even created... and then they all but dried up and disappeared. No doubt some of those millions were used to fund bankruptcy proceedings. That said, all of life is a risk, no gains without risk for most.

              But the Thursday Transworld bathroom attendant turned the Friday escape room engineer / specialist agrees with you. But he also said he was getting ready to open a video rental store, so I'm not sure if he is a good source to reference.

              Haunts and escape rooms are very different in my estimation.

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              • #22
                I actually think escape rooms and haunted houses are almost the same exact thing... escape rooms however are cheaper to operate and have a lower threshold to make customers happy! I think you are going to see MANY MANY haunters leaving the haunted house operation side of the things and only doing escape rooms.

                You heard it here first... so I'm going to say it again. MANY HAUNTED HOUSES ARE GOING TO CLOSE DOWN and those haunts will ONLY operate escape rooms.

                I think the biggest haunts have made it nearly impossible to compete ... look at Netherworld how do you compete with that in Atlanta? That is just ONE example of MANY!

                So you can open an escape rooms, run the whole thing with only 4 or 5 people, make the same money, and use a lot of your haunted house props to do it.

                Haunts are going to CLOSE over the next TWO years ... TRUST ME!

                Larry
                Larry Kirchner
                President
                www.HalloweenProductions.com
                www.BlacklightAttractions.com
                www.HauntedHouseSupplies.com
                www.HauntedHouseMagazine.com

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                • #23
                  Escape rooms are for nerds. They are a fad just like the zombie runs and the zombie paintball. Maybe in St. Louis escape rooms are all the rage. If I tried to operate an escape room in Duplin County NC, the rednecks would tear it to pieces.

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                  • #24
                    We debated a month or so ago about changing plans and doing an Escape Room. Only to find out there was one being built for the last few months, and another company coming in as well. So allegedly two people are opening up, for a total of two places, and 6 rooms total.

                    I don't know if it's a fad that's gonna fade soon, but I do know this town is dead for excitement. People are itching to have something.. ANYTHING to do here. I'm glad I decided to stay with the haunt for now. We'll see how it goes, but to be honest, we were talking about it today, it's still HUGELY successful over in Asia and other places, if it's still huge there, it's gotta last some decent time here... given that people who open up, aren't just shoddy productions and actually putting a lot into it.

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                    • #25
                      Japan / Asia is an entirely different market, particularly in Japan.

                      We cannot compare anything we do here in the US to things that are trendy in Japan, or other Asian countries. It is an entirely different dynamic there for virtually everything. In Japan, a small, hole in the wall restaurant with 6 bar seats can succeed cooking chicken on skewers cooked over a charcoal grill. I saw in Japan where there was a successful restaurant that served only different animal penises and balls.

                      They are also a fetish driven society, always seeking out the odd and different, and being accepting of such.

                      While I am relating food here, and not Escape Rooms, it is certainly worth a comparative analysis. Look at this:

                      "Andrew travels to Japan where the locals are all adventurous eaters. In Japan, some of the food Andrew tries includes: live river eels, raw blue fin tuna, poisonous stonefish, raw sea squirt, eel, tuna eyeballs, a variety of mayonnaise dishes, octopus egg, cucumber egg jerky, turtle blood cocktail, seafood and snake ice cream, pig's windpipe, cow uterus, raw horse meat, five year old sushi, goya fruit stir fry, squid ink soup, giant sea snail, sea snake, and raw goat testicles."

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                      • #26
                        What I meant Larry...

                        Haunts and escape rooms are very similar as a concept and structure, however, I was referencing them as perceived by the general public and willingness to pay money to attend, more than once.

                        It's like the McRib and Shamrock shake... they are seasonal and so people anticipate them and buy them heavily when they are available... that is what haunts are: Special. This seasonal marketing of food is being done by more and more restaurants... it keeps people looking out for them.

                        Escape rooms, something that is still relatively costly to attend, is done so in small groups (often needing reservations), without all the fanfare and excitement of haunts... and will not be as well as received or special as a haunted house. Escape rooms will be a fad, people will tire of them quickly... particularly as the economy continues to erode.

                        It is not just haunts that will close over the next two years or so, tons of businesses will be shuddered as more an more jobs are lost, as more disposable income is gone. Anticipated Obamacare high cost increase may see to that alone.

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                        • #27
                          While we are on the escape room topic. Has anyone seen a countdown timer that accepts a trigger input to start the countdown that could be used with a boobox or similar style controller?

                          We are planning on adding a 5 to 10 minute escape room to our haunt this year and are trying to make it as programmable as possible.

                          Also trying to figure out puzzles that do not require resetting between groups. Any ideas would be appreciated!

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                          • #28
                            I can’t help you with that specific request, but we use a TV in the room with a video with clues and we have a countdown clock that runs across the bottom of the screen. We just hit stop at the end and play when ready to start without any problems.

                            We have to reset our game after each group (which takes about 30 - 45 seconds). There’s a company that sells electronic games; Haunting FX out of Columbus. I think they’ll have what you are looking for. They will have a booth at MHC too.

                            Kelly Collins
                            The ScareATorium

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                            • #29
                              We use triggable video players with a trigger button that the door person presses before "locking" the door. The video just runs and has a countdown.

                              It would be nothing to put that into a BooBox or similar.

                              For cheap you can use Raspberry Pi for the player, or use http://www.frightprops.com/video-vis...eo-player.html though that requires an extra trigger input.

                              I build custom props and sets for Interactive Displays. I even do custom programming for the Raspberry Pi to make it triggerable video players. Feel free to contact me through my website: http://mattsdrake.com

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                              • #30
                                We are set to open our escape rooms in about 14 days. Our Subway Escape is ALMOST done and next week I'm going to upload a ton of pictures. Once we get this going full blast I'll let everyone in the haunt community know what i learn from a do and don't standpoint. You know me I will tell you everything. Larry
                                Larry Kirchner
                                President
                                www.HalloweenProductions.com
                                www.BlacklightAttractions.com
                                www.HauntedHouseSupplies.com
                                www.HauntedHouseMagazine.com

                                Comment

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