Cross Roads Escape Games. Sinister Pointe. The 13th Room. These escape room experiences are well-known to fans in southern California, and their owners/creators came to Midsummer Scream to talk about the phenomena of escape rooms, and their own experiences creating one.
Madison Rhoades from Cross Roads (The Fun House and The Hex Room) said she and her husband realized one day that, “we love theatre, but we hate actors.” The first time they did an escape room they realized that this was the perfect story-telling medium for them: interactive, highly-themed experiences that did not rely on actors to move the story forward.
Jeff Schiefelbein from Sinister Pointe first got started by getting hired to do the official Saw maze in 2007, where customers had to collectively solve a series of puzzles to move from room to room. Bare wires held concurrently by people, buttons that have to be pushed at the same time, and garbage disposals that must be explored by hand were just some of the fiendishly evil traps thought up by Jeff and his crew. As far as he knows, it was something that had never been attempted and it was a huge success.
Eddie from The 13th Room got his start ding interactive mud runs like Prison Break, where patrons play as inmates trying to outrun police and guards on their way to freedom. The 13th Room is located at an actual abandoned hotel, the Mayfair Hotel, which is rumored to be quite haunted. The Mayfair also hosts another experience Eddie created called The Ripper that starts with a nice dinner first, then a short walk to the location to find the elusive serial killer.
Jeff has been working on a series called Escape The Night which is now on the membership channel Youtube Red. Mini experiences like Seance, Operation, and The Dark have boosted Sinister Pointe’s profile as much more than just your regular old haunted maze.
Some of their escape rooms work okay if you get strangers, or “randoms,” working together, and some are only recommended for groups of friends or coworkers, people who know each other well. Cross Roads has both kinds: The Fun House is a straightforward carnival-themed room (with hidden areas, of course) that friends and strangers can play together. The Hex Room, however, separates the patrons into six different rooms, and they must all work together and cooperate with each other and pass things from room to room in order to help each other out of their rooms. Madison found that strangers only wanted to get themselves out of their own room, and never really wanted to help the others.
Jeff noted that during The Dark experience, where one patron was in a pitch-black room and another person was separated in a booth, he saw couples break up over the difficulty of it. The person in the booth had access to night-vision cameras and had to guide the “blind” person to all the different area (drawers, cabinets, closets, etc.) and put the clues together. Many couples seemed to not understand the concept of communication and much anger was on display. Especially when a stalking actor would silently enter the room, hehehe.
Jeff also noted that, and there’s no nice way to put this, sometimes people act very very stupid in their rooms. One example he gave was a gentleman who, for some reason, thought a clue was inside a television and promptly smashed it against the floor. Nice. They were, obviously, kicked out and sent packing.
They all agreed that obtaining city permits was a hard process, but a necessary one, because cities (at first, anyway) just didn’t understand the concept. “You’re going to lock people in a room? Really lock them in? And they can’t get out?” It’s getting better the more rooms there are, but the process is still not perfect.
At the close of this fun presentation, all three gave preview of their coming attractions. Cross Roads will have The Ward where some people are sane and some are insane and, depending on who you are, you’re trying to get your people out and leave the others behind–but you don’t know who is who. Plus, The Hex Room will be revamped to include different puzzles to allow for more replay-ability. They gave a tiny taste of this at the convention by offering to put you and a friend in the same strait-jacket with only 10 minutes to escape.
Sinister Pointe will get an entirely new haunted house: an interactive, “choose own adventure”-type of experience called Fear The Mark. Patrons are marked with one of four different symbols and, based on which symbol you have, you’ll be able to pick and choose (or maybe not) which of the various paths you’ll be taking through the maze.
The 13th Room is getting a Seance Room, inspired by an actual exorcism that was performed at the Mayfair Hotel. Also, there are plans for a much more active 6000 sq ft room, that includes trampolines and physical obstacles for their more energetic guests.
This was a great panel, and the presenters all gave a fascinating insight into the escape rooms. We here at HorrorBuzz highly recommend doing them all. Websites are below!
