Battle of the Brands

Boxing Glove[Correction: in the original version of this article, Escape was said to have 20 rooms open. This didn’t include the two escape rooms at its Noughts and Coffee branch in Edinburgh. This has now been fixed below]

Escape rooms in the UK and Ireland range from single room locations up to multi-site brands and everything in between. With over 400 rooms and 170+ venues, it’s no surprise that we’re starting to see some brands starting to really spread across the countries. Whether you prefer the “boutique” escape rooms, doing a single room incredibly well, or the mass-market companies that are perfecting how to deliver escape rooms across several locations, it’s fascinating to see what the movers and shakers are in the UK.

The analysis below is based on the room list here and will likely be out of date within a few days even if it were correct at the time of publishing. Any corrections gratefully received by email or in the comments below.

What’s the biggest brand?

Quantity isn’t necessarily more important than quality but, in terms of being a profitable company, it surely has  to help. There are four main contenders for biggest operator in the UK and Ireland, all of them with approximately twenty rooms, although the number of locations varies significantly. Note that this totally ignores any venues outside of the UK/Ireland which would change the picture significantly given that some major international brands have opened in the UK.

Escape sneaks the title for most rooms with 22, but are the clear leaders  on the venue front with nine. They opened the doors of their first location during May 2014 and have been growing steadily ever since, opting for large numbers of small venues. From their first location in Edinburgh to their most recent opening in Doncaster, they have never opened more than three games simultaneously in one site.
Breakout Breakout, spread across four locations sit just a single room behind with a total of 21. There must have been something special during May 2014 because they opened their first room the same month as Escape and have been steadily growing, developing new rooms and new venues, with two in their home town of Manchester, one over in Liverpool and their latest franchise opening in Cardiff just a couple of months ago. It seems that their model is to go after sizable venues in major cities with a good potential audience.
Sitting right behind those sites, ready to pounce, are Clue HQ and The Escape Room, both with 19 rooms:
Clue HQ Clue HQ started life in Warrington, just a month after Breakout and Escape, and grew steadily at that site before taking the plunge with their first franchise after almost a year. Since then, they’ve been driving forward opening their sixth venue back in June. They’ve generally gone for medium sized population centres but the site sizes vary hugely. One particular strand they seem to be following is co-locating with laser tag – that’s true of their Sunderland, Blackpool and Glasgow sites.
The Escape Room The Escape Room is the only one of the top four which didn’t start life in Britain, instead opening its doors initially in Malaysia. It was also a relatively late developer here with the first room only opening in early 2015 in Manchester. Since then it’s spread its wings to Preston, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Barrow-in-Furness, seemingly favouring smaller population centres after that initial opening. As you might expect with an international brand that has plenty of rooms in its portfolio, there’s a huge variety of games on offer although Prison Break is a firm favourite, being present at all of the local venues.

What other companies are there?

Those four companies are way out in the lead (no other companies have even reached double digits) but there are still plenty of interesting franchises out there.

Locked in a Room Locked in a Room are a fascinating company because they have just two distinct games but, with four copies of each, they sit quite high on the rankings with 8 rooms. What makes them even more interesting is that, in the next couple of weeks, they’ll be opening 13 rooms in the ExCel centre in London (which will become the biggest UK venue), bringing their total up to 21 and seeing them tied with Breakout for first place. It seems unbelievable that a company with just two locations and two games could have a total of 21 rooms.
Tick Tock Unlock Tick Tock Unlock have four venues across the UK and a total of nine rooms across them with a clear preference for large cities – Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow and Leeds. There must have been something special about May 2014 because this is yet another major brand that opened their first room during that month.
Breakout Games Breakout Games (not to be confused with the Breakout mentioned above) opened in Aberdeen first before expanding to Inverness. They rotate their rooms rapidly which is probably not surprising in relatively small locations but still manage to have a total of nine rooms open.
clueQuest The final company with nine rooms is clueQuest – the second oldest game in Great Britain and already on its third different location. Having started life in the relative outskirts of London, it’s moved towards the centre, finally alighting in a single venue in Kings Cross.

Other smaller companies of interest include:

  • City Mazes (eight rooms across three venues but two more imminent in Oxford and maybe more)
  • the Panic Room (about to open a third venue and potentially a total of nine rooms)
  • Handmade Mysteries (only four rooms, but spread across three different venues)
  • Xscape Reality (five rooms in a single venue but plans to open in a couple of other cities soon)

And that’s about it. Inevitably some interesting companies will have missed out on a mention here – this site tries hard not to play favourites but a line has to be drawn somewhere. Apologies if you feel that your favourite company deserved a mention here and didn’t get one. Feel free to leave a comment below to explain why!

 

Laser games and exit games: part one of possibly many

Clue HQ Sunderland lobby photoSome exit game owners in the UK remember the laser game bubble of the early 1990s; perhaps a couple of hundred or so laser game centres opened up and down the country, with the vast majority closing within a matter of perhaps two or three years. (Maybe longer, maybe shorter.) Some wonder – and some fear – whether exit games might do the same thing.

Exit Games UK notes major differences between the two in the number of games played per day per centre and the contribution made to a centre’s daily turnover by people who play one game and never play again. (The replayability of the two types of game is rather different, too.) The laser game industry is probably doing better now than even at the height of the bubble then, with many more game equipment manufacturers and with the barrier to entry to getting into the business being much lower now than once it was. While marginal centres come and go, the best laser game centres existed for five, ten or fifteen years, and the best exit game centres should last at least as long as well. Exit games have greater potential for reinventing themselves over time, too, which should only add to their longevity.

Nevertheless, it’s interesting to see some degree of convergence between the two game types. This started in this country when Clue HQ opened a branch at the (itself relatively new) Laser Quest in Sunderland, pictured above; its second game is due to launch soon. A second step is that there is another branch of Laser Quest due to open in Glasgow in March and its own web site suggests that Clue HQ Glasgow is coming soon, too. (This is no secret; it’s acknowledged on, for instance, the Clue HQ Facebook page.) It’s interesting also to note that it doesn’t necessarily have to work this way around; Laser Quest Preston opened very recently, practically sharing space with – and certainly co-promoting with – the branch of The Escape Room in Preston. It’ll be interesting to follow the trend as it develops.. and to see whether the other laser game manufacturers get involved.

Months ago, Ken pointed to this story from Newcastle-under-Lyme, which is very strongly linked with (and practically part of, de facto if not de jure) neighbouring Stoke-on-Trent. The regenerated Lymelight Boulevard shopping centre launched Laser Quest Stoke (told you!) last year, and the aforementioned newspaper article suggested “The laser light gaming centre is due to open next month with Key Quest, an escape room game, expected to follow later in the year.” Accordingly, this site has been looking out for further developments in the area, the Escape Artist Stoke-on-Trent initiative notwithstanding.

The name Key Quest reveals something very interesting, though. The Key Quest Escape Room in North America is an interesting chain where a common thread of the locations’ addresses runs located within Laser Quest. From the web site, “Key Quest is a live action escape room, presented by Laser Quest. Players must use observation and critical thinking skills to find clues, solve a series of puzzles, and ultimately, discover the “key” to escape the room within a set time limit.” Could the branch of Laser Quest at Lymelight Boulevard eventually host the first branch of Key Quest in the UK, analogous to branches of Laser Quest in North America? Might it be that the journalist, or the communication between site owner and journalist, simply misconstrued or misinterpreted the link?

This site doesn’t yet know, but will be keeping an eye on this fascinating development. Watch this space!

(*creeps behind you and zaps you in the back while you're watching that space*)

Some after-dinner fun

Winter scene with a snowmanWhether you have elaborate plans for your lunch or not, there are a few fun things you can do today between the main meal of the day and the last episode of Downton Abbey.

If you live near Preston, or even if you’re just visiting, you can get your exit game fix today at The Escape Room, who are open for business today as they are every other day. Hardcore! Are there any other sites out there who aren’t taking the day off? Will there be enough demand to make opening worthwhile? It’ll be interesting to see.

If Preston is too far to travel at little notice, there are alternatives where puzzles come to you. Dr. Bob Schaffer is running another online Holiday Puzzle Hunt. This is the fourth in the series; previous years’ hunts have been deliberately genuinely accessible and beginner-friendly yet thematic and imaginative. Experienced solvers will probably sprint through the three puzzles and the meta in a very few tens of minutes, but legitimate family fun to be enjoyed.

For a bigger challenge, East Anglia’s mobile pop-up Puzzle Room have put on a virtual Armchair Treasure Hunt to be enjoyed over the next two weeks. Thirteen cryptic questions hint at locations within East Anglia, letters of which can be extracted to reveal the location of the virtual treasure. One submitter of a correct answer will win a voucher for a team to play at the Puzzle Room in 2016; if you’re far from East Anglia and have no plans to visit, perhaps you can still enjoy the puzzles while taking part hors conours.

One more discount that arrived too late to make the previous post: Exit Games Scotland pointed to The Room of Glasgow’s deals page which has a code for a third off when you book before the end of the year to play before the middle of Feburary 2016.

Whatever you’re up to today, enjoy yourselves!

More good news

good newsI’ve had some very bad news. It’s not relevant what it is, for those of you lucky enough not to know it, and it doesn’t affect my ability to continue keeping this going. Instead, time to share some good news.

  • Congratulations to Clue HQ Sunderland for opening their first game! The planned opening was discussed two months ago yesterday and has – very unusually – come ahead of schedule. Bunker 38 is now open, with The Vault set to follow soon. Tyneside has proved a popular location – more news to come on this soon – so hopefully Wearside works just as well. All the very warmest of wishes to them!
  • Also the very warmest of wishes to a couple whose proposal took place at Cryptic Escape of Norwich. This might be the seventh UK couple to propose at an exit game of which this site is aware; let’s hope they all remain locked tightly – no, unbreakably, together.
  • The Escape Room have been welcoming the stars: both stars on two wheels at their Manchester location and stars of the screen at their Preston branch. Their third location, planned for Birmingham, is close to announcing a launch date; who knows what stars they might be able to attract there?
  • Lastly, and further afield, this site very much enjoyed reading about the latest SCRAP Real Escape Game event in Tokyo, this one “a puzzle-solving game played while walking through the streets of Tokyo. To find your next destination, you will need to solve the mysteries you find along the way.” In other words, a self-paced puzzle hunt, running at your convenience until December 27th. Cutely, there’s a tie-up with the Tokyo Metro, and the game kit comes with a one-day travel pass to get you from location to location. “English and Traditional Chinese versions are available for this game so non-Japanese speakers who can understand English or Traditional Chinese are welcome to play the game as well!” To give this claim a try, Escape Room Directory’s Dan Egnor posted his review to Google Plus and was rather impressed. Certainly it’s among the most mainstream puzzle hunts yet!

Now open in Preston: The Escape Room

Preston planning application excerptThe above diagram contains part of the planning application for the site under discussion today – though, obviously, it’s been clipped so any parts with potential spoilers are kept way out of view!

The Escape Room in Manchester has been open since mid-December and has become so popular that you often need to book ahead to play any of its five rooms. It has attracted several celebrity players; this site has referred to Manchester United’s number 17, Daley Blind, as its official footballer because he’s a regular there. Anyone can make a single appearance; to go back for a fourth game shows that he must be a big fan. (Wonder if he’s played any exit games anywhere else?)

This site recalls, but cannot immediately find, a Facebook post suggesting that The Escape Room plan to expand to six locations within the UK. The site’s Facebook offers a hint that the third will be in Birmingham, to be confirmed; however, the second site to open will definitely be in Preston. The first couple of team photos have already been posted, suggesting that a soft opening took place yesterday; excitingly, a launch party has been announced for Thursday evening. The Preston location sells food and drink and has a large communal area to enjoy, though doesn’t feature a licensed bar in the same style as the Manchester location.

Escape Room scareIn Preston, you can play five games in the business’s distinctive style that led to photos like the one above, one of this site’s favourite team photos of all time. Preston has the same The Mummy and Prison Break games as Manchester, but Manchester veterans have excellent reason to come back and enjoy three new games.

Gallery is a heist story. “A challenge has been sent out to international art thieves by the self-proclaimed ‘thief-proof’ gallery. You are a Master Art-Thief, and you have assembled a crew of criminal specialists with years of experience to aid you in breaking into this gallery, and your aim is for their most prized possession; the priceless painting being exhibited there for a one-day event. Security in the gallery has been set to its maximum level for this particular event, and you have chosen the very same day to execute your plans. You and your team only have 60 minutes to infiltrate the gallery, bypass the high-tech security system, steal the priceless painting, and escape before you are caught within the act.

The Vampire Chronicles is a supernatural tale without a sparkle in sight. “You hold the key to breaking the deadlock and potentially ending the 1000-year war between humans and vampires, and you have been marked for death by Ambrogio; the Vampire King. His vampire subordinates have killed your family and caught you and your comrades, whilst simultaneously holding you captive in his castle. You are given 60 minutes to navigate your way through his cursed lair to escape and bring an end the war and finally bring peace upon the land.

As for Taken, well, any excuse to link to this QMSM joke is not to be missed. “The boss’s daughter has been abducted and taken for ransom by a mob, consisting of internationally wanted criminals. The authorities have gathered the information needed to pinpoint the place where she is held captive, and you have been entrusted with her safe and immediate return. Now, with time running out, you find yourself in a life and death race against the clock as the abduction begins to spiral towards a terrifying and deadly conclusion. You have 60 minutes to utilize the tools and skills within your disposal to rescue the boss’s daughter and getaway before the kidnappers return.

All five games have 60-minute time limits; the pricing structure is similar to that of Manchester but a little more severe; teams of two and three will pay a shade more in Preston than in Manchester (£22/person and £20/person respectively), the price for teams of four is the same at £18/person and teams of five and six will pay a shade less in Preston (£16/person and £15/person respectively). There’s a 10% discount for booking online as well, at least for now.

Exit Games UK hopes that Preston proves to enjoy its facility just as much as the inhabitants of Manchester have done!

More and more news

breaking-newsMore and more short news stories at the moment; sadly, they can’t all be longer pieces. Eyes down for a full house.

  • Episode four of Race to Escape was broadcast on Saturday night and has made its way to illicit video-sharing sites already. (There are only six episodes in this series, but so much difference from epsiode to episode; treasure them before they’re gone.) This episode is perhaps the most so of the series to date in a room that looks like it would be tremendous fun to have played. The aforementioned illicit video-sharing sites don’t make it easy – there are doubtless plenty of adverts (noisy pop-unders and the like, maybe worse) – but here’s this week’s link to a list of sites. Megavideoz was the starting-point used here once again.
  • Less than two and a half days to go in the Enigma Quests Kickstarter and less than two and a half hundred pounds required for the project to fund. It’s looking promising, but there’s always more that can be done and those early bird prices look attractive.
  • Edinburgh’s the place to be for exit game excitement while the Fringe is in progress. Locked In Edinburgh have done extremely well before their temporary hiatus starts tomorrow; while the intention was to hold a short run before the venue would be used for a Festival performance, it has proved so successful that it’s now taking bookings for a permanent run from the same address from Tuesday 8th September onwards. Excellent news! The game is set in a disused small animal hospital; unusually, it is a dog-friendly venue, so do bring your dogs along and see if they can sniff out the secrets.
  • The top five entries in the current version of TripAdvisor’s Fun and Games in Edinburgh chart, at time of writing, are all exit games. Great work all round and well worth celebrating!
  • Elsewhere in Edinburgh, comedian Alex Horne and team didn’t have to say “We Need Answers” as they demonstrated that they could answer yes at Can You Escape, and husband-and-wife global medal-winning judoka (? judokas? judokae? Judo superstars, anyhow) Euan Burton MBE and Gemma Gibbons both enjoyed tying Dr. Knox’s Enigma in knots.
  • The stars aren’t just coming out in Edinburgh; The Escape Room of Manchester’s recent Open Night included an appearance by two Hollyoaks actors – but no indication whether they escaped their game or not!
  • Clue HQ of Warrington have launched their fourth game, The Teleporter. In it, the anagrammatic Professor Errol Tepet was a recluse and came up with a number of different inventions during his life time. Not much is known about this device. Nobody knows how he came up with The Teleporter or even if it actually exists – some say it’s just a myth. It probably doesn’t work, but do you fancy a look around? If you’ve played any of their other games before, then you very probably do!
  • CNBC have some rather lovely Time Run clips in a piece on the genre; pity they’ve got a couple of names very slightly wrong, but you can’t have everything!

Very late July news round-up

News round-upFor a link to a copy of the premiere of Race to Escape, see the previous post. Other than that, here are some news stories from closer to home.

1) The Escape Room of Manchester recently posted to Facebook that “Preston here we come and it’ll be open to the public in 30 days!” – exciting times. This site interprets the hash tags used to imply that the site will launch with two games already available in Manchester and three other games. Additionally, The Escape Room also commented that “We will announce the 3rd site in 2 weeks” – and no longer can you look for spoilers on the Escape Room International site as to where it might be, curses.

BlogPreston points to a planning application which hints at an address within Preston. Now some of the plans on the application itself (which are, arguably, possibly a little spoiler-y with regards to room layouts) hint at either it being an application for just that site, or perhaps for a second exit game whose rooms have suspiciously similar names. This would surely seem implausible, but, just on the wild off-chance: hey, the more the merrier – and lucky old Preston!

2) Escape Quest of Macclesfield recently posted news of their third game, Bad Clown. This site gets the impression that it’s not the Michael Jackson sort of “bad” either.

This game will be the first 90 minute room escape game in the UK, and the aim of the game is not only to find a way out of Mr Chuckles funhouse, but also to collect as many golden tickets along the way as you can. There will be several ways to gain golden tickets including finding and winning them throughout the duration of the challenge.

Bad Clown is not for the faint hearted, it will be played in very low light or occasionally complete darkness, and will be full of fun and frights. Mr Chuckles enjoys making his visitor jump and squirm. As such we recommend an age limit of 15+ with one adult accompanying every player under 18. It also means that pregnant ladies and people with heart conditions will be unable to play.

Advanced booking is now open from the 10th October 2015 onwards, and to celebrate our biggest, scariest and toughest challenge to date we have decided to dedicate Halloween 2015 at Escape Quest to Mr Chuckles with an exclusive chance to book one of a limited number of 13 games over the Halloween weekend, including a late night game on the 31st October which will see your team play well into the midnight hour.

Exit Games UK understands that this late-night scariest-of-scary games has already been booked by the Escape Game Addicts team – who were, incidentally, the first team to beat Breakout Liverpool‘s Wild West-themed Wanted room, when played from the perspective of the Indians.

3) You’ll hopefully understand and accept the reasons for the brief and somewhat detached coverage of these following announcements:

Colin Baker (no, not Six!) of Thames Underwriting wrote that they had “had a high level of enquiries recently which we have been able to help with as apparently most markets will not provide cover“. This site isn’t in the position to know whether exit games really are struggling to find insurance, or whether the thought of an insurer who is willing to specialise in the concerns of exit games would be valuable, or how good any particular insurance company is. Nevertheless, if it’s an issue, consider mailing Colin directly.

John Jacobs of Quirky Caches also got in touch. The titular caches refer to bespoke containers for geocaches, both sufficiently rugged to deal with the outdoor conditions and original in their design, featuring puzzles that must be solved to be opened. He’s clearly a highly skilled craftsman and has apparently already been supplying UK exit games with bespoke props. His site and social media have examples of his work; whether you’re looking for something for your room, or just for your own unusual storage requirements, he might have something relevant to your interests.

Mid-May Newsroom

The NewsroomThe Newsroom has the news from the rooms, hot off the presses.

This site has been following the progress of Dr. Knox’s Enigma of Edinburgh. It’s uncertain when the location opened and its proprietor has not replied to a couple of enquiries to this regard. Nevertheless, the TripAdvisor reviews started on 26th April, so opening can have been no later than that and the map has been updated to show them open. Early reviews are impressive – and, even more telling still, two other location owners in Edinburgh have tweeted about how much they enjoyed their game there. What more could you ask for?

The Escape Room of Manchester have announced something hugely exciting on their Facebook: “We are very proud to announce that we will be opening 6 new stores in the UK, 6 Locations in Europe and 8 Locations in the Middle East! Watch this space for the locations to be revealed!” The location has made a very fast start in Manchester; fingers crossed that other branches can do just as well. There are no updates as to potential UK whereabouts on the Escape Room International site that have not been there for some time, though second-hand information points to the potential for escape rooms to come to new towns in the UK. That’s sufficiently vague.

Puzzle Break of Seattle have launched an exit game on the Anthem of the Seas cruise liner that sails from Southampton during the summer, as previously discussed, and early indications are that it’s being very well received. Cruise Critic were wowed and the fan Royal Caribbean Blog have pictures.

As for passengers on the ship: the boat, still on its first few voyages, has got generally very good but somewhat mixed reviews. Perhaps this is due to teething troubles while things are so new, perhaps this is because the variety of offerings on board are so different to seasoned cruisers’ expectations; in one case, perhaps it’s because the passenger had his suitcase dropped overboard. (The crew rescued the case and washed the clothes, but the iPad and hair straighteners therein were a matter for the insurers.) However, Puzzle Break on the ship has received nothing but standout positive comments in reviews at CruiseCritic and at cruise.co.uk as well.

Any word from Make A Break of Manchester recently? Their booking page leads to a dead end and their Facebook page seems to have gone as well. If you can’t book to play at a site then is it really still in business? Perhaps they’re upgrading their game, perhaps not. One to keep an eye on.

And finally: perhaps it’s not just exit games that have hidden items to find!

Competition compendium

Competition rosettesA comment on a recent post requested more coverage of deals that might be available. Entirely reasonable shout. Clue HQ have announced that the second game at their Blackpool location will be available from May 22nd and have announced that groups to booking it using code LAB38 can do so at a price of just £50, regardless of team size. (No clue how long this code will last.) Clue HQ are also taunting the world with this image, speculated to be – among other guesses – possible details of a fourth game at their Warrington home base.

The only other hint of a deal that springs to mind relates to potential players at a new site in the north of Scotland; more on that very soon, hopefully. Other than that, this site has news of competitions to win free games; not the same thing as deals, but not a million miles away. Every month, Crack The Code Sheffield hold a monthly giveaway which you can enter by sharing their Instagram image, appropriately tagged. Winners will be announced on May 15th so you haven’t got long to do so.

The Play Exit Games site, which does a quicker job of reporting on new openings than this site (and which has a clustered map of which this site is sorely jealous), has a competition offering tickets for Hidden Rooms London, due to launch on June 1st. (It’s a good route to gain publicity; this site hopes to be able to report on more competitions at Play Exit Games before long.)

Similarly, The Gr8 Escape of Belfast have announced a competition on their Facebook offering not just a free ticket but a VIP experience as a prize, with champagne and nibbles as well as a free game on offer. Exciting times and you have a real chance of winning.

Taking competition a little more loosely, here’s a competition that isn’t held between players where the reward is offered by the exit games, but is a competition between exit games where the players offer the reward… sort of. Specifically, Escape Game Paris are operating their Escape Game Awards 2015, looking to crown winners in six categories: best room overall, best room gameplay, best room decoration, best site overall, best site game masters and best online presence. Already, within a very short period of time, they have attracted over a hundred votes, so clearly the exit games have got well and truly behind it. Presumably the winners then go on to a tricky tie against the champions of Istanbul in the exit games Champions’ League that someone will inevitably launch some day.

Speaking of which, for no link is too tenuous, this site has a favourite footballer: Daley Blind of Manchester United. Daley has won this accolade by being pictured both here at Escape Newcastle and here at The Escape Room in Manchester. Perhaps there are other contenders to the throne; who’s to say that, say, Graeme Le Saux hasn’t used his retirement to marathon five sites in London? This is a title to be won on the weight of evidence!

((Edited to add: On the same day this article is posted, Daley Blind has gone back for at least his second game at The Escape Room, so there’s no way that he isn’t a fan, and pretty much all the Manchester City under-21s had a big booking at Breakout Manchester.))

January 2015 Dealwatch: coupons and discounts to play exit games for less

"Special Price" stickerDealwatch is an occasional feature which, as the name suggests, looks out for special offers that exit games are promoting. The frequency of the feature depends more on the availability of deals than anything else. Some ground rules apply:

  • Do check voucher companies’ terms, conditions and guarantees and this site takes no responsibility for deals that fall through for whatever reason, which sadly has happened once;
  • Many of these deals only permit a limited number of vouchers to be purchased and then the deal will expire. It’s quite possible that deals may have expired between being published below and your attempt to use them;
  • This non-commercial site does not attract any commission for promoting these deals, or for you using them;
  • These deals are not exclusive in any manner.

As it happens, none of the discounts quoted this time do seem to rely on social buying services, but the principles apply nevertheless.

Mystery Cube of Wimbledon is the most recent new location to open; as is often the case, a location is most likely to offer discounts as, and just after, it opens. Booking using the code Mystery Cube will offer a 50% reduction for teams playing between 24th January, the presumptive opening date, and 7th February. The regular price is also one that might be more likely to be found in the provinces than in London at large.

Another recent opening took place at The Great Escape Game of Sheffield, and they too posted an opening offer to their Facebook page. As described on a linked story at TicketArena, a £20 discount is available for a limited time (though no clear limit is specified, but why wait?) for teams booking using the code GR8TA20.

One more recent opening still happened at The Escape Room of Manchester, who also have a limited-time opening offer with no deadline specified. The site has a total of five different rooms, some that will take teams of sizes two to five, and others that will take teams of up to six. You can get a 20% discount by booking using the code ESCAPE20; another one to take advantage of sooner rather than later.

Lastly, one site that’s not quite such a recent opening is Can You Escape of Edinburgh, though they have already climbed to number seven in the TripAdvisor attractions charts for the city, a list with three sites all now in the top nine. A recent Facebook announcement suggests that student teams who book a slot on a Thursday using the STU-295-ZMV code receive a 20% discount; “just make sure your team bring their student cards”. Facebook suggests this Thursday discount will be running until mid-February; perhaps it’ll last longer, perhaps not – best not wait to find out the hard way!

((Edited to add:)) Another deal that came a day too late but is far too good to ignore: Room Escape Adventures of London have released a Wowcher for their Trapped In A Room With A Zombie show, reducing the price of one of the twelve tickets for each show from £28 plus booking fee to just £14. More about this exciting development soon, hopefully! This deal will only be able until the end of Friday night; vouchers booked in this way can be used until the end of April.

As ever, if you know of other coupons, deals, vouchers or competitions, please send them through. If your site has a offer not listed above, please assume incompetence rather than ill-intent; get in touch and this site will happily spread the good news. (Alternatively, if you would prefer that this site does not list your coupon, or if the details of the offer are mangled, that’s fine too; again, please get in touch.)