Entrepreneur Justin Tang thought he was being innovative when he opened a niche leisure and amusement business in Richmond in October 2013.
But 14 months later, the owner of the E-Exit gaming centre faces competition from five similar “escape room” facilities in Richmond and one in Burnaby.
The proliferation of escape room centres is far from over.
Tang is spending more than $1 million to renovate and open a second, larger complex in Richmond. He has sold franchises for escape room facilities on West Broadway in Vancouver as well as in Surrey, Kelowna and Calgary.
Finding clues to solve puzzles to escape from a room has clearly attracted a fan base.
“[The sector] is still in its infancy here,” said Smarty Pantz principal Chris Ricard, who plans to open an escape room centre in Gastown by the end of January.
He has partnered with Dan Civiero, who’s focused on an Edmonton facility that Smarty Pantz will open next year.
Ricard said his company has signed a lease in Edmonton and is finalizing the search for a Calgary location.
“Our goal is to have at least a dozen leases signed by the end of 2015.”
The real-life escape-room experience simulates similar games that have long been played on phones, tablets and other devices.
In the real-life version, players pay approximately $22 per hour to be part of a group that must find clues or solve puzzles to lead them to keys to unlock barriers to exit a themed room.
“We’ve added actors to elevate the experience,” said Buzz Comartin, who owns the three-month-old Krakit Escape Game in Burnaby near Lougheed Town Centre.
Most groups fail to escape on the first try. Comartin said some rooms have a success rate of approximately 2%.
Ricard stumbled upon the escape-room concept while he was studying for an MBA in April as part of a class project.
“The assignment was a case study on E-Exit,” he said. “I ran through some scenarios and decided that [opening a competing facility] could work.”
Tang, Ricard and other entrepreneurs in the sector are not exclusively targeting gaming geeks as customers. They’re also increasingly trying to lure tourists and corporate visits from businesses that want to enrich work cultures through team-building exercises.
“I consider this healthy competition,” said Xcape Vancouver principal Stanley Ho, who operates a facility in Richmond with two partners.
“There’s only so many theme rooms that one facility can provide. If someone really enjoys escape rooms, they’ll eventually have to go to another location. They can’t go to a room that they’ve already gone to before and solved [because it would not be fun].”
