Fifteen months of location scouting, designing, planning, permit-gathering, and building had finally led to this–our first day of beta testing. Some of us were pretty confident going in, as if all that time and energy (and money!) spent was somehow a guarantee of success.
Sure, a bit of the tech would act buggy now and then. And, sure, despite all our prep time, we still had some beta place-holder props. But we were like proud new parents; not the best judges of how pretty our baby really was.
I didn’t even have stage fright before hosting the first group; I’d been acting and performing magic for almost two decades. How scary could ten people be?
Short answer: terrifying.
After delivering my well-rehearsed (but not scripted!) introduction, I stepped back and waited for amazing-fun-time to begin. Minutes ticked by. Players milled about looking confused. They interpreted clues for one chain as belonging to another. They didn’t seem to understand room’s characters or story.
It felt like my world was crashing down around me. We’d spent so much time, went way over budget, and it was all for nothing… The room was a failure. Might as well tear it down and give the gorgeous warehouse/office space back to the hat company that had previously occupied it.
But then, after what seemed like an eternity (but was actually more like 6 minutes), one of the players exclaimed, “Hey, that ______ belongs to ________ !” Sorry I can’t be more specific, but they players were beginning to get it; not only the clues, but the plot. They were becoming emotionally invested in our characters. Amazing-fun-time had begun!
That’s not to say everything went smoothly afterwards. We discovered a few more bugs and a couple confusing clues. But I learned that those tortuous first six minutes were fixable; easily fixable. The room worked!
With each group after the first, as we implemented fixes from each group’s feedback, play got smoother and smoother. By the end of our second long day of testing I could sit back after I finished my introduction and just enjoy the guests enjoying themselves.
Enjoying themselves (we promise!) even when they got stuck in limbo
And then the spectacular reviews started coming in–most on Facebook, but also some amazing ones on Yelp and Tripadvisor.
We do still have a lot of work to do. But this Red Lantern thing is going to be a thing.
My name is Roy Davis, and I’m the proud parent of an Escape Room.
We open Thursday so come on down and see what we have created!
