Real-Life Escape Game Industry overview YE2015

Source: www.iAudit.info & www.TheBreakOut.eu
Escape Game
Industry Overview
February 2016

About the research
● Respondents - Total number of 138 Respondents (representing 217 rooms)
● The mix is partially skewed toward Europe as 58% respondents come from Europe and
30% from North America. Remaining 12% were respondents from Asia, Africa and
Australia. South America did not deliver any respondents. Because of that only EUROPE,
NORTH AMERICA and TOTAL results are shown.
● The survey was made based on random convenience sample technique
● The research was conducted between 2nd of February 2016 and 25th of February 2016
● While working on this research we have come across of White Paper study “Peeking
Behind the Locked Door” from Scott Nicholson, which would be of a great interest for
anyone interested in the Escape Game Industry.
● Another short research came out at February 2016 from EscapeRoom Master

Growth of Escape Game Industry
The industry growth has been tremendous in the past 2
years. The operators who opened their rooms in 2014 has
seen a growth of almost 3,900% (2014 escape games were
only in a few countries with few rooms, where as on the end of
2015 many “new” countries were opened and existing
countries are seeing much higher saturation of rooms). On
average the growth of the industry is 175%
The respondent's operations have grown by 99%. That
means that on average the operators doubled the number of
rooms in the past 2 years.

Billing Methods
The way of billing for the product (Escape Games) is done
on average 50/50 either by billing per group or billing per
person, but there are huge differences in the arrangement
based on continents. It can be easily said that North America
operates on per person billing as 96% of operations use this
way of charging their customers and per group billing is more
of an exception. Europe on the other side uses the per Group
billing as the way of charging customers as 74% of operator
use this form of billing.

The Pricing
The pricing is very different between the continents.
North America with their per person billing is on average
charging its customers $28 per person. In Europe, where it is
used, the average price per person is only $18. That makes
North America 55% more expensive than the european
prices. And if we look at the per Group billing, North America
is again more expensive as the Group pays on average $130
(very limited sample) vs. the european average of $67.

The occupancy
On average the Escape Game rooms of the operators is
on a good week filled with 51 groups of players and on a bad
week 17 groups play the games. But the differences between
continents are enormous. In North America the operators
Escape Games on a good week are played by over 100 groups
and on a bad week 24 groups enjoy the game. A bad week in
North America is almost as good as the good week in Europe
since the good week in Europe delivers 29 groups and in a bad
week only 14 groups play the room.

Size of Premises
The size of the premises are typically between 50m2 to
150m2 (500 sq.ft. - 1,600 sq.ft.) as more than 50% of facilities
are of this size. In the North America the concept of Escape
Rooms is done a bit differently and there is also the tendency
to operate out of larger premises as 55% of rooms are over
150m2 (1,600 sq.ft.). As an interesting fact, it is possible to
note, that not all of the Escape Games must operate from a
room, there are some cases to operate Escape games outside
in the nature.

The Rooms Themes
The themes used in designing the Escape Game rooms
the most are Historical. The Historic story is more accented in
Europe, where the Historic theme is used twice as much as
the second used theme the Escape from prison. In the North
America the history stories are not as popular and it occupies
the 3rd position behind Movie based story and Prison Escape
story. The other stories in Escape rooms are:
Time Travel, Medical, Bank robbery, Horror, Spying, Mining, Paranormal, Fantasy, Living room, Stop bomb to
explode, Science, Mob, Science, Alchemyst, Supernatural powers, Terrorist, Vault Robbery, Life facts, Hackers,
Race to the game, Games based, Famous detective to name just a few.

The Employment
To manage the facility the owners usually employ up to 5
people of permanent staff (78%). Another 18% get by with up
to 20 permanent staff and 4% use even more permanent staff.
There is a slightly more permanent employees in North
America, which seems understandable based on the previous
info about size of facilities and occupancy rates. As for the
temporary staff, again about 77% get by with up to 5 temps
and 5% use more than 20 temp workers. The difference
between continents is not really significant.

The Marketing
The owners use the most the relatively less expensive
marketing, such as Travel sites (TripAdvisor), Social Media
and Word of mouth. Secondly SEO, Internet Display
Advertising and PPC campaigns are used to attract the
customers.

Success of solving the rooms
The players are not that much successful in solving the
puzzles in the rooms in allocated time. In 53% of the rooms,
the success rate of solving the game in allocated time is 50%
or less and on the other hand only 23% of rooms have success
rate better than 80%. In general in Europe the rooms are
“easier” as only 44% of rooms have sucess rate of 50% and
less and contrary in North America the rooms are “harder” -
70% of rooms have sucess rate worst than 50%.

Local residents or tourists?
The players are mostly local residents as almost 80% of
operators have more than 70% players recruited from local
residents and only 8% of operators rely more on tourist than
on the local residents.

The age of the players
The Escape Room Games are mostly played by younger
audience as 94% of Players are under 40 years.

Real-Life Escape Game Industry overview YE2015

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