Why Escape Rooms are Great Family Activities During the Holidays

The holiday season is a time for families to come together, create cherished memories, and indulge in quality time with one another. While we know it’s not always perfect, amidst the hustle and bustle of the season, finding activities that engage and unite family members of all ages can be a challenge.

Enter escape rooms, the immersive and interactive adventure games that have been captivating the hearts of families worldwide. These intriguing puzzles and challenges not only make for an entertaining outing but also serve as the perfect recipe for family bonding during the holidays.

Fostering Teamwork and Communication:

Escape rooms are all about collaboration. When you step into the world of an escape room, you and your family members are immediately tasked with solving a series of puzzles and riddles to escape within a time limit. This requires effective communication and teamwork. Each family member will bring their unique strengths to the table, and you'll quickly discover that working together is the key to success. Through these challenges, family members learn to listen to each other, share their ideas, and work collectively to achieve a common goal, strengthening their bonds in the process.

Uncover Problem-Solving Skills:

The puzzles within escape rooms are diverse and often require creative thinking. From deciphering codes to connecting hidden clues, family members get the opportunity to flex their problem-solving muscles. This not only provides a mental workout but also helps family members appreciate each other's distinct problem-solving approaches. It's an excellent way for parents to witness their children's growth in cognitive skills and vice versa.

Quality Family Time:

In today's fast-paced world, carving out quality family time is often a challenge. Escape rooms offer a perfect escape from daily routines and electronic devices. They immerse your family in a different world, free from distractions, where the focus is solely on solving puzzles and enjoying each other's company. The experience is a welcome respite from the digital world, making it an ideal way to reconnect during the holidays.

Excitement and Adrenaline:

Escape rooms are designed to be thrilling, offering a rush of excitement as you race against the clock to escape. This shared excitement and adrenaline create memorable moments that you'll reminisce about for years to come. The highs and lows of the game generate a unique bonding experience and often trigger bursts of laughter and surprise, strengthening the family's emotional connection.

If you’re looking for more of an outdoor adventure you can also try things like a Scavenger Hunt through the company Roamli.

Multi-Generational Fun:

Escape rooms are accessible to people of all ages. Whether you're a grandparent, a parent, or a child, there's a role for everyone. The diverse puzzles cater to different skill sets, ensuring that every family member can contribute to the team's success. The experience bridges generational gaps and fosters a sense of togetherness.

Safe and Controlled Environment:

Safety is a primary concern for families, especially during the holidays. Escape rooms provide a controlled environment that ensures everyone's well-being. The rooms are supervised, and the staff is always on hand to offer hints or assistance if needed. This peace of mind allows families to enjoy the experience without worry.

Customizable Difficulty Levels:

Escape rooms come in various themes and difficulty levels, allowing families to choose an experience that suits their preferences. Whether you're looking for a lighthearted, family-friendly adventure or a more challenging brain teaser, there's an escape room for you. This flexibility ensures that everyone can have a memorable time, regardless of their age or puzzle-solving skills.

Post-Game Bonding:

After successfully escaping (or even if you don't), there's a sense of accomplishment and shared achievement. Families can relish the post-game discussions, sharing their thoughts on the experience and celebrating their victories, no matter how small. These conversations often lead to deeper connections as family members reflect on their shared adventure.

To summarize, escape rooms are a delightful way for families to come together during the holidays. They offer a unique blend of excitement, problem-solving, and quality time, all within a safe and controlled environment. With their ability to foster teamwork, communication, and shared moments of joy, escape rooms make for an unforgettable holiday experience that strengthens the bonds within your family. So, this holiday season, consider unlocking the adventure of an escape room and unlock the joy of togetherness with your loved ones.

Escape Rooms & Team Building

Happy 2023 friends! It’s been a great year and with Escape rooms continuing to grow in popularity especially in team building we wanted to highlight some of the best benefits for your organization. Escape rooms are a fun and immersive activity that has become increasingly popular in the past decade throughout the United States. These interactive puzzles & challenges require participants to solve riddles and clues in order to "escape" a themed room within a certain amount of time. While they are often thought of as just a fun way to spend an afternoon or evening, escape rooms can also have significant benefits for team building and personal development. Our experiences at Lock Chicago are all “Mission-Based” meaning you’re not physically locked in the room, rather you’re trying to work together and accomplish a common goal such as saving the world or recovering the stolen artifact.

One of the primary benefits of escape rooms is that they encourage teamwork and communication. Since the puzzles require collaboration and problem-solving, participants must work together and communicate effectively in order to succeed. This can be especially beneficial for work teams, as it helps to improve communication and build trust within the group.

Escape rooms also require participants to think creatively and outside of the box. In order to solve the puzzles, players must come up with unique and innovative solutions, which can be a great way to stimulate the mind and promote creative thinking. This can be particularly useful in a work setting, where employees may be expected to come up with creative solutions to problems on a regular basis.

In addition to promoting teamwork and creativity, escape rooms can also help to improve leadership skills. Since the puzzles require strategy and planning, participants must often take on leadership roles in order to guide the group to success. This can be a great way to develop leadership skills and learn how to effectively delegate tasks.

Escape rooms can also be a great way to bond with coworkers or friends. The immersive nature of the activity allows participants to fully engage and connect with one another, which can lead to stronger relationships and a sense of community. This can be especially beneficial for work teams, as it can help to improve morale and increase productivity.

Finally, escape rooms can be a great way to relieve stress and have fun. The immersive nature of the activity allows participants to fully engage and forget about their daily stresses for a while, which can be a great way to relax and recharge. This can be particularly beneficial for work teams, as it can help to improve mental health and prevent burnout.

All in all - escape rooms are a fun and immersive activity that can have significant benefits for team building and personal development. They encourage teamwork and communication, promote creative thinking, improve leadership skills, bond individuals, and provide a fun and stress-relieving activity. If you are looking for a unique and engaging team building activity, an escape room may be the perfect fit. We’ve seen sports team including the Chicago Bears, Northwestern Wildcats, and many other visiting programs leverage this with new and veteran players so come join in on the fun!

Lock Chicago's New Escape Room Location!

Hello Again!

Our team at Lock Chicago is excited to announce we're moving to a brand new location (still in Evanston don't worry!) to 820 Davis Street. This facility will be close to 4,000 square feet and triple the size of our existing space.

This will allow us to add 3 additional escape rooms and enhance our existing rooms even further to provide the best possible experience for our guests. We're delighted to be able to leverage our new innovative technology in our 3rd upcoming room which will launch in July! More details to come in a following post :)

Stay tuned as we will be passing out some hot new deals and promotions on our new room!

Cheers,

Lock Chicago

Lock Chicago/Life Movie Partnership Contest

Hello All!

We're excited to announce a contest we're hosting with the upcoming movie "Life"! We're offering free screening passes to the AMC 21 early screening on 3/22. Visit either of our Escape Rooms from now until 3/22 for a chance to win or visit or Facebook page for contest details: https://www.facebook.com/lockchicago.

We also have free "Life" swag including multi outlet charging cords, metallic water bottles, sunglasses, and more so come check us out!

Good Luck - Lock Chicago

Now Hiring Escape Room Game Masters/Operations Manager at Lock Chicago!

Game Master 
Lock Chicago Escape Games – Evanston, IL 60610 
$10 an hour - Part-time

Do you want the coolest job you've ever had? We are currently looking to add multiple part-time team members to our Lock Chicago team at Lock Chicago - Escape Games.

We are a rapidly growing, team-building, design consulting and retail entertainment company. We are looking for someone with wide ranging talents to work in conjunction with our current Operations Manager and learn the business as we expand to our new location in the coming months.

The positions we are looking to fill will be titled "Game Master". To be considered please submit a resume with the subject of "Game Master Application" to info@lockedchicago.com.

Game Master:

• This is a unique and one-of-a-kind job! You will educate our guests on how it all works. You will inform them of their objectives while in the room. You will work in a control room and coach the guests while on their journey to escape! You will be their guide when they stumble and offer them hints if needed. You will then prepare the Escape Room for the next group of guests.
• You must be fun and enthusiastic as you are a big part of the whole guest experience from beginning to end.
• Prior to applying to this position you must first familiarize yourself with the concept of Escape Rooms and the worldwide phenomenon that is spreading fast across the US. Escape Rooms stimulate the mind, your sense of curiosity and your ability to work with others in an effort to escape.
• Please visit our website at www.lockedchicago.com to learn more.
• If on one hand you like video games, playing chess, and solving puzzles/riddles, while on the other hand you like designing, building and/or fixing things, you have found the perfect job!

This job requires you to be:

• Remotely view and monitor games in progress and assist participants
• Customer Service focused
• Professional, polished and well-spoken
• Hands-on and handy with tools and gadgets
• Game or puzzle-minded
• Creative thinker
• Flexible with regards to work schedule

This job requires the following experience:

• Retail, amusement or hospitality experience.
• Comfortable engaging with both small and large groups of people.
• Public Speaking experiences a plus!
• We'll teach you the rest!

Escape Rooms and Advertising! How Lock Chicago Can Build Your Brand.

Hello Again!

As entrepreneurs who are constantly trying to build our brand presence on and offline we understand the importance and how companies are using escape rooms and other unique methods to increase their presence. We recently had the great opportunity to partner with McDonald's and help unveil their 3 new "Big Mac's" to the world as well as assist in delivering over 10,000 bottles of their secret sauce to the loyal fanbase!

We were initially contacted by a production agency tasked with making it all happen and knew from minute one that this was going to be no ordinary escape room design project. The task seemed simple enough - develop one escape room that could be replicated 3 times to be live streamed across the world on 3 major social media platforms of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

We worked closely with the props teams to develop puzzles that incorporated McDonald's legacy and culture as well as facts about the new Big Mac rollouts. All in all it was a very unique and creative way for McDonald's to get their message across (with over 100,000 views currently across 3 platforms) and we expect to see many other companies/brands hopping on board with this trend!

Even now we are seeing the video game "Resident Evil" launch their nationwide live escape room tour to advertise and promote their newest version of the game coming out. Companies are getting wise to the way that they can interact with their fans and escape rooms provide the perfect venue to do so.

Us at Lock Chicago certainly support that notion and are here to lend a hand for those looking to venture into this space and those who are just curious to find different escape games coming to their city! Until next time...

Cheers,

Lock Chicago

Christmas is Coming to Lock Chicago!

Hello All,

We hope everyone had a Happy Halloween and now that election mania has passed we can focus on the brighter things such as Holiday Parties and the Thanksgiving/Christmas season!

Escape Rooms provide the unique opportunity to be tailored in a wide variety of ways. Many rooms change themes based on the season, holiday, and more with Halloween and Christmas being the focal point of this. Generally escape rooms tend to be busier during the winter months as the weather gets colder and people look for more indoor recreational activities when there is a foot of snow on the ground (at least here in Chicago).

Themed rooms provide a unique experience and us at Lock Chicago are happy to provide that to our customers. Many escape rooms will open a completely new themed room for the holidays where others might opt to adjust the existing theme to make it more festive.

Corporate Christmas/holiday parties are a large factor in this as well as companies look to venture outside the box for their get togethers. What better way to celebrate a successful year than pounding back some egg nog and saving Santa's reindeer?

If anyone's come across a stellar holiday-themed escape room feel free to sound off in the comments or send us a message! As always we love hearing from you and can't wait to get our snow on this season.

Cheers,

Brian, Bane, and Alex - Lock Chicago

Escape Rooms: Where Are They? (Not Just Lock Chicago!)

Hello Again!

We wanted to follow up our last post to highlight a growing trend in the Escape Room Industry. When we began in Evanston back in January we were 1 of 15 companies in Illinois operating some form of an escape room. Just under 10 months later we are now 1 of 40 companies.

Escape Rooms are growing at an extremely rapid rate which is great for the industry as it continues to spread the word and increase exposure for this exciting and fun activity. More mainstream outlets are getting on board as well as we see hit television shows such as "The Big Bang Theory" and more highlighting Escape Rooms on their broadcast.

Disney recently announced a new "Guardians of the Galaxy" themed Escape Room in their park. The success of rooms throughout the country will undoubtedly spur an increase for larger outlets to capitalize on the success. 

To us at Lock Chicago this is great news because it continues to challenge us and other Escape Rooms to create the best possible experience for the most important person, our guests. If you're looking for nearby escape rooms feel free to visit the popular website: http://escaperoomdirectory.com/ which has a large index of rooms across the world!

Until next time take care and happy escaping!

Cheers,

Brian, Bane, and Alex

Lock Chicago and Partnering with Local Escape Rooms

Hello again! It's been a while since we last posted but don't think we took the summer off - today's feature is regarding connecting and partnering with other Escape Rooms in your area. Last night we met with a dozen other escape room owners in the Chicagoland area at another location (thanks to DOA for hosting)!

In an industry that's growing faster every day it's important to understand the dynamics at play and what's working across the business. The worse thing that can happen to the industry is poor quality escape rooms opening and turning potential customers off to the whole idea. This is why escape rooms must continually help and push each other to create the ultimate live experience for their guests.

We are currently working on forming a Chicago Escape Room Association which will give us leverage when working with as many partners as we do. All escape rooms need the same things, insurance, building materials, building space, and if you can work together as a team to reach these common goals you have a lot more power than if you stood alone.

While it can be challenging to unify those in the industry with as many new rooms appearing across the United States and International community, the nice thing is everyone understands what one another has to go through within their own escape rooms and by sharing ideas and fostering a helpful community it will only continue to further grow the business.

That being said please feel free to reach out to us at Lock Chicago if we can provide any advice, tips, or just conversation regarding anything Escape Rooms!

Cheers,

Brian, Bane, and Alex

The Potential of Escape Rooms: Location

When we started designing our first Lock Chicago escape room, we asked ourselves, "What is an Escape Game, and what are its restrictions?" One of the biggest considerations for an Escape room is of course the room itself. Most commonly, the space is a room in a building (usually an office or something similar) that's been revamped and redesigned to hold an escape room in it, but that is in no way the only way to have an escape room.

Giant Escape Rooms

There is a myth (/truth) that in Japan, the chain Escape Rooms (which is where all escape rooms started) actually plan out special escape room events that go beyond their actual rooms. I'm not sure how often they do these, but every now and again they will rent out a giant warehouse and prepare it to hold 1000 people for a HUGE mass escape room event. Now I've never done one, nor can I imagine how they would run an escape room on that scale successfully, but it completely breaks the restraints that having a confined space puts on your every day escape room. Granted you're still in a 'confined space', but it's a warehouse.

Teeny Tiny Escape Rooms

 Now this option is much more doable for the average escape room owner, and one that we at Lock Chicago plan on taking full advantage of once the weather gets warmer and the city festivals start coming out. Escape rooms usually last an hour, but there's nothing that says that's how long they absolutely HAVE to be. An hour is the absolute sweet spot, of course (and if you want to read more on that then take a look at this), but if you make the room smaller, you can easily design something that players can have fun trying to solve in 15-20 minutes. This is where the idea of the fair-ground escape game comes into play.

At a local festival or block party, a simple escape room can be easily (and cheaply) popped up with a simple canvas tent and some furniture. By making the time limit 15-30 minutes instead of an hour and dropping the price of entrance per customer, you can make a great activity for guests and festival-goers. This also allows younger children to participate, as escape rooms are usually made for the 16+ demographic. Easy to reset and easy to run, these one-day escape rooms bring the game to a much wider audience in a much friendlier and casual environment, and should be considered by any escape-game owners looking to get more involved with their communities.

While we're just getting our start, we here at Lock Chicago are always thinking of ways to expand our escape rooms beyond the room itself, and beyond 'escaping', too. This not only opens us up to more creative avenues of provision, but it also makes our games in the actual space more creative, too. The more you do, the more you do. That's as simple as it gets.