Escape Room Construction Update: April'24.

Honestly, I've never been a fan of pirates, but Indestroom had a turn-key quest on discount, and since we were placing a large order, we decided to add it. I particularly liked the puzzles—they are easily customizable to create a fun and engaging sequence for a family adventure that appeals to both kids and adults.

Yes, we always change the puzzle sequence in turn-key escape rooms, and thanks to our support team for assisting with that. We also alter the voiceovers and storyline, hiring professional voice actors from Fiverr or Voicebunny.

Since we took on pirates, I decided to build the coolest pirate attraction, which of course needed a ship with a mast, a stormy sea projection, and most importantly— a system of ropes and pulleys for lifting the anchor, which has now become my favorite puzzle in the game. To raise the anchor, players need to fill a counterweight bucket with sandbags, which then activates the complicate mechanism.

We also changed the cannon logic; originally, players had to cover a skull's eyes with their palm, which we felt was not the best solution. Instead, we installed a magnetic sensor in the cannon's fuse and a magnet in the torch. When the torch is brought close to the fuse, the magnet activates, firing the cannon and triggering a relay that switches the video projection to display a firing shot with smoke effects. The teams are thrilled.

Now about sales. On the day of the test games launch, we achieved a complete sell-out of all available test games, even without access to bookings on our website or announcements on social media, using only email marketing. In one day, we received 55 teams with a 30% discount off our regular price. I've written countless times here about the importance of email marketing, but the main rule remains the same—they must be infrequent and each must offer substantial value to create the kind of excitement that causes Bookeo to block your page due to excessive customer activity. I plan to open public bookings only after a week, once we iron out any issues found during testing.

I also want to note that I'm experiencing no sales decline—April sales were 20% higher than March (550 teams versus 459) and 18% higher than last April. I recommend focusing on your work rather than attributing failures to "the economy" or other reasons. Your success depends mostly on you.

I'm always open to consultations (online and real life) and helping your escape room business with any issues. Yesterday, we had a super productive second 5-hours real life session and location tour with Eva Pinto and her team from Escape Gallery, who are just starting but will undoubtedly become very successful escape rooms in Poulsbo, WA.

As usual I’ll remind about my book about escape room business which is must read to anyone who wants to open their own escape rooms. As some have commented, everything in the book is available on the internet, but I'd rephrase that: everything you find on the internet is in my book.