TIME TO PLAN YOUR ESCAPE
If you look up ‘fun and games in Kent’ on Tripadvisor, one pastime dominates the list like no other. Of the top 20, a remarkable 17 are escape rooms - a recent phenomenon which shows little sign of slowing.
On that list are rooms in Margate, Maidstone, Canterbury, Medway, Ashford, Faversham, Gravesend, Tunbridge Wells and Paddock Wood. And all have average five-star ratings.
What’s more, the top-rated Kent room is also ranked the best in the UK on the same site. No small feat given there are an estimated 1,500 now operating across the nation and close to 30 in Kent alone. If you have yet to try your hand at one, you may be scratching your head at exactly what they are.
And there is a danger in trying to explain what an escape room is to the uninitiated which makes it sound like some form of tedious torture.
You go into a room with your nearest and dearest and are locked in for an hour with the only weapon at your disposal to end your confinement being your wits. Oh, and you can pay the best part of £100 for the experience.
But that would be doing the genre a terrible injustice.
The reality is that escape rooms are one of the most addictive forms of entertainment to have emerged in the 21st century. Little wonder then that the last five years have seen them explode across Kent.
The blend of puzzle-solving, teamwork and the desire to escape reality - let alone the room itself - is proving a winning formula; often transforming previously empty properties into thriving businesses.
Sitting at the top of the Tripadvisor pile is The Escapement in Margate. Perched on the corner of Cliftonville’s Northdown
Road, its exterior gives little away. Inside, depending on your fancy, you can experience a pirate, Egyptian or mining adventure, all with engaging back stories and energetic, friendly hosts. All feel as though you have walked straight onto a film set, complete with special effects. Little wonder, then, it’s ranked by users as the best in the UK as well as Kent.
Lewis Hunt, who, along with partner Mica Dougan, has run the venue since July 2017, is something of an aficionado of the genre having recently returned from playing some of the top games in Europe.
But he feels the term ‘escape room’ doesn’t do the industry any favours.
He explains: “When speaking to customers I always say ‘think Crystal Maze, mixed with a murder mystery and a theatre production and it’s an amalgamation of those things’. It’s like a theatre set with no actors, but you play the part, and the puzzles make you the protagonist and the story teller and it has nothing to do with the rooms or escaping. “The biggest mistake was whoever called it an escape room. Had we adopted the Russian term, which is mystery game, that would be far more appealing.
“But there is no other activity which can span so many generations. We’ve had five generations in one room before and they can all contribute, create a memory and have fun together. There’s nothing else quite like that. It doesn’t matter about fitness or intelligence you’re just going somewhere to have some fun whether you’re good at it or not.”
Escape rooms’ success is perhaps intrinsically linked with social media and sites such as review websites.
Six years ago, when Kent had no venues, the only two escape rooms in London - HintHunt and clueQuest - were ranked numbers one and two as the capital’s most popular attractions on Tripadvisor. Curiosity may have killed the