It’s been a decade since the first escape room has been invented in Japan. Four years later escape games appeared in Hungary and Australia and after that escape-mania has spread across the globe. Is it too late for starting an escape room business? Is this business right for you?
Designing an escape room and watching people play your escape room is fun. But running an escape room business involves hard work, too. Before you quit your job, it’s a good idea to really evaluate whether being an entrepreneur is what you want.
Here’s a closer look at challenges escape room business owners may be facing, and suggestions for overcoming these obstacles.
Once customers have experienced a room, they can’t really go back because they know all the secrets. It’s challenging to survive with no repeating business.
Solution: Build more rooms. While doing that, have in mind that the new generation escape rooms require more technology as players demand higher quality and innovative games. Another solution is to partner with other escape room nearby. So, when someone asks you what are the best rooms, recommend them a couple of your partners. I believe they will do the same for you.
If you hire someone full-time you might not be able to be fully booked and justify their pay. On the other hand, if you hire staff part-time, you have to make sure that you have someone available when you have bookings.
Solution:
Advertising of an escape room can be tricky because of that. You’re actually selling something invisible. You can’t show it to your customers until after they’ve paid for it. So, how to convince them to pay for something they aren’t allowed to see?
Solution: One-minute videos might help you. It’s like watching a movie trailer before going to the cinema. Publish the video on your YouTube channel and promote it on social networks.
Today United States offer 243 escape rooms, but Europe is the leader! There are 3 times more escape rooms than on the American and Asian continents. What proves its popularity is the fact that the first Room Escape World championship was held in March 2017, in Hungary. It was a huge event where more than 9000 players took part in the qualifications.
People are curious and excited by mysteries. So, it’s no surprise that escape rooms are adored by everyone – tourists and locals. While locals visit escape rooms to spend a good time with their colleagues at team buildings, for tourists that’s the part of whole experience connected to the country they visited.
The industry may hit saturation within the next five years, business incubator Updraft Ventures founder Giuseppe Crosti predicts, but every region will have its own saturation point. It is too early to tell what that point is because no market is there yet.
Like most retail trends, the future of escape rooms is hard to predict. But if you follow the clues, you just might figure it out.
ORIOLY
on November 15, 2017
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