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Manchester Gets A New Outdoor Escape Room
| Published: 3rd April 2020 11:21 |
If you haven’t jumped on the emerging trend for escape rooms in the past few years, you’re missing out. Whether it’s for a team bonding session among your workmates or an alternative to going to bars or bowling with friends, escape rooms can be a lot of fun. You’ll never know how strong your relationships with your friends or loved ones are until you’ve been locked into a dark, cramped space with them for an hour or two, and forced to rely on a combination of your own wits and theirs in order to make it out again.
Although they haven’t been getting much attention from the mainstream press, financial publications have taken note of the way that escape rooms have become very big business in recent years. As more people have turned up to play the games, they’ve become more complex and sophisticated in their offerings. Official tie-in escape room games for popular BBC television series like ‘Sherlock’ and ‘Doctor Who’ now stand in the UK’s largest cities, and more are appearing all the time. Some of them rely on logic and mathematical skill for players to battle their way out again. Others are more physical in nature. All of them have become welcome additions to the entertainment landscape in their host towns and cities.
Manchester never likes to be left behind when it comes to emerging forms of entertainment. It already hosts several escape rooms with various themes, but now a brand new one is coming to the city - and it’s one with a difference. Unlike almost every escape room you’ve ever heard of, this one will be hosted outside. The question you’re probably asking yourself right now will be similar to the question we first asked ourselves when we heard the news - ‘how can an escape room work if you’re already outside when the game starts?’ It’s a good question, but it has a surprisingly simple answer. Read on, and you’ll find out more.
This new game, which goes by the name of 'The Big Escape', doesn't just take place in one location. It's stretching the definition of 'escape room' to its outer limit. Instead of being confined to one dark, dingy location, players sign up to face tasks in a range of different places scattered across the city center, and they'll need to use their smartphones to assist them. The ultimate aim of the gain is to perform the heist of the century by gaining access to and stealing money from the fictional location of 'Big Al's Casino.' We don't currently know which real-world location will be standing in for Big Al's Casino, because the company behind the game want to keep at least some of their secrets as close to their chest for as long as possible.
The combination of digital technology and a casino theme will probably appeal to anybody who’s a fan of playing online slots. We’re told that cracking the necessary codes and playing online slots will have a few things in common - both require maths skills, both involve using your mobile phone, and there’s a jackpot available to those who are successful in both cases! We don’t know whether starburst paypal will offer a cash prize to winners in the same way the games on online slots websites will, but we do at least know that there’s a competitive element. Instead of facing the game one team at a time, each team of two to four players will be in a race against time against several other teams. Where there’s competition, there are usually prizes.
Once players have booked a session, they'll be met at an agreed location by someone from Creative Events - the company behind The Big Escape - and talked through the process of installing the necessary software on their phones to play the game. With that done, they'll find a series of clues - and a messaging service that will enable them to either taunt their opponents or, if they lose all hope and all of their own dignity, desperately beg them for help. A typical game is expected to take between one and two hours for an average team, but it can be paused if players want to take a break - for example, to grab something to eat, or to stop in one of the city center's many pubs as they go past them. Creative Events say that their aim is to turn the city center into a giant playground, and also to capture tourist traffic as well as regular attention from locals.
While it sounds like a great idea, both residents and tourists are going to have to wait a while before they can try The Big Escape out for themselves. Tickets to play the game, set to be priced at £14 for each player, were set to become available online during the first week of April.
The company has experience at running similar games in nine more locations elsewhere in the UK and Ireland, but say that Manchester is their largest-scale project yet. If the game catches on here, the Dublin-based team hopes to be able to replicate their success in other major English cities such as Birmingham and London, as well as heading into Scotland. The idea of an outdoor escape room is a brand new concept on us - and we can't help but wonder how many players will simply wander off between locations rather than staying on to complete the game - but the novelty of it will probably encourage us to give it a try. Stay tuned to the Creative Events social media channels and website for news regarding when the game will become available to play.
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