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Escape Rooms

Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2019 3:02 am
by stephen1974
After the recent fire in Poland it got me thinking about Escape Rooms.

Most escape rooms are single rooms with a locked door. I would imagine it would be pretty simple to convert the locked doors to magnetically locked doors that cut out when the alarm goes off or the power goes out and thus people inside can escape easily.

However, I have seen an escape room where you have people crawling through a maze of tunnels in the pitch dark. If that room caught fire, I cannot see how they could escape. Even under the best of circumstances it would take a couple of minutes of crawling to get out. With a fire next to you or below you, the best of circumstances go out the window.

Should such places be allowed? How would you make such a place safe? the tunnels are lets say no more than a meter high a meter wide with changes of level up and downon slopes and with vertical climbs and descents in places.

Re: Escape Rooms

Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2019 8:52 am
by Messy
I have never been in one, so am not 100% certain what they look like. I would imagine the risks would be similar to a children's adventure play centre.

I have been to enough of them and have wondered how you would get 40 frightened kids out of the elevated climbing tunnels and bridges, when you have 80 parents frantically climbing over each other to get their children. I saw a child freeze in a child size only tunnel and it took a while before they could be coaxed out

Escape rooms should not present as many problems as the customers will be less vulnerable. I think with overrides on locked doors, additional emergency lighting and trained staff, it should be achievable to have these places without an outright ban

My fear is that the day to day running of the places may be left to youngsters or poorly prepared casual workers . The inability to deal with an evacuation or apply the emergency plan may be more of an issue than the actual building layout and infrastructure

Maybe they need licensing like nightclubs and theatres are?

Re: Escape Rooms

Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2019 12:16 pm
by bernicarey
Messy wrote: Sat Jan 12, 2019 8:52 am I have never been in one, so am not 100% certain what they look like. I would imagine the risks would be similar to a children's adventure play centre.
Think of it as a 'Crystal Maze' challenge (as in the TV show), but it depends on the safety mindset of the designer/owner as to how dangerous it is.

SHP did an article on them, published yesterday, which provides an insight into how a good ones are operated.
https://www.shponline.co.uk/sports-and- ... _cid=37566
stephen1974 wrote: Sat Jan 12, 2019 3:02 am
Should such places be allowed? How would you make such a place safe? the tunnels are lets say no more than a meter high a meter wide with changes of level up and downon slopes and with vertical climbs and descents in places.
If they have sufficient safety designed into them, there's no problem.

Re: Escape Rooms

Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2019 7:39 pm
by stephen1974
I've also worked in children play centres and have had to evacuate the building quite a few times due to kids peeing their pants and parents drying the clothes under hand dryers in the toilets. despite the signs saying don't do it. They can be surprising easy to clear out. And fun to as for the sweep you go to the top of the play tower and work your way down :) but I appreciate that situations like the one you mentioned could easily arise. There are other issues as well with parents not leaving until they get their kids and kids being made to leave without their shoes and so on and so on.

I've also worked in the crystal maze style games bernicarey mentions. f designed properly those are easy to get out of as well. Each room leads to a corridor which goes to a final exit. When we evacuated those we found the kids were incredibly well trained by the schools and its like the guide turns in to a giant kid magnet. They stop talking immediately and all crowd round the guide waiting for instructions. I wrote to the school and said what a great job they had done.

The escape room I have is different from most places, possibly unique in this country. As it only gets used halloween and wasnt used last year. I've only had a 5 minute look around have not tried going through the tunnels. Im pretty sure no emergency lighting would have been put in and I hate to think what state the electrics must be in as there could be leaks and mice and rats and dirt and allsorts that could have gone into them. There isnt much as they do the majority with live actors but there are one or two bits of electrical equipment. No fire detection that i'm aware of at all. Smoke could easily be mistaken for a special effect an ignored.

In this case, definitely no built in safety but i'm wondering if certain things, such as long dark tight tunnel systems are inherently too dangerous, and thats something I would never normally say as I am NOT risk adverse. Dangerous stuff is fun and I encourage it, within reason.

I'm sure a smart designer could put something safe together, but you won't get smart designers you will get bodge job barry and his mate charlie cheapo knocking something up in a shipping container.

Re: Escape Rooms

Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2019 5:06 pm
by bernicarey
stephen1974 wrote: Sat Jan 12, 2019 7:39 pm The escape room I have is different from most places, possibly unique in this country. As it only gets used halloween and wasnt used last year. I've only had a 5 minute look around have not tried going through the tunnels. Im pretty sure no emergency lighting would have been put in and I hate to think what state the electrics must be in as there could be leaks and mice and rats and dirt and allsorts that could have gone into them. There isnt much as they do the majority with live actors but there are one or two bits of electrical equipment. No fire detection that i'm aware of at all. Smoke could easily be mistaken for a special effect an ignored.
I agree, that does sound worrying. Any commercial venture that is thrown together for only Halloween use sounds like it will be a bodge, since it hasn't got the income of year-round use. :shock:

Re: Escape Rooms

Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2019 2:59 pm
by Blackstone
From my experience of going into 3-4 escape rooms, there is always a member of staff monitoring your progress through the room and able to offer assistance on completing the room.
My thought has always been that in the event of an emergency the staff member would let you out and lead you to safety.

I've not yet experience an escape room where nobody is monitoring you while you are in there.

Re: Escape Rooms

Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2019 3:59 pm
by witsd
Yeah, I've not been to one, but I can't imagine that it could possibly be worse than the really large 'soft play' sites. Some of those that I spend my weekends at are far too complex to simply 'start at the top and work down'.

Re: Escape Rooms

Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2019 11:59 am
by Rowebin
The one I went to in Bristol was about using your imagination and the door was "locked" in the sense that if you opened it you would lose the game. You were not actually physically locked in.

The tunnel we had to go through was 1m long and if you were physically unable to get through we just stood on the same side whilst a few team members went through.

It was also monitored via CCTV and the staff would talk to you, to give you some pointers as it would have been really boring and a great waste of money to get stuck on the 2nd clue of 20 and just stand there for an hour. Whilst it is meant to be a challenge it is also meant to be entertainment not a strict competitive environment.

Re: Escape Rooms

Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2019 10:43 pm
by stephen1974
Would be interesting to know what went wrong in Poland. The above experiences highlight the easy solution, no locked doors, just a staff member there to assist. Very much like the crystal maze style one I ran some years ago. Our current one is nothing like that. I can guarantee there are zero risk assessments done on any aspect of it.

Has to be bad when the general manager isnt allowed to see the risk assessments.

Re: Escape Rooms

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2019 11:07 am
by stephen1974
Just read a report on this and it generally said what we've said above.

Rooms are not locked, or have magnetic locks tied to the alarm system, and there is a member of staff in every room, with CCTV (though I doubt this is monitored that well).

Apparently over 100 rooms have been deemed unsafe and 13 were immediately closed. In this case, the fire started outside of the room and those inside suffocated. The fire service had to break the door down, so it sounds well and truly locked.