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Greetings, Escape Industry Newsletter Readers! Every May I make the "we may have escaped another month joke" but no longer, my May puns are behind me! After April-liant month it's June to be another instead. Jokes aside, lets look at the top stories this month. The World Escape Room Championship makes a return with some key dates for your diary. Similarly, enthusiasts and owners may want to hop on a flight to Prague this month, for the Prague Escaping Summit. I heard about it a little too late to join, but do say hello to Tom of Buzzshot if you're going. Later this week the Escape Rooms in Education Showcase will be taking place. I'm excited to share I'll be the closing keynote speaker, so do say hi if you pop by. If you have any feedback for us about the Escape Industry Newsletter, want to let us know about a news story near you, or just want to say hello - please let us know at any time by hitting reply to this email. Until next month! Mairi Nolan
Editor of Escape Industry News  |
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🕹️ Sponsored By BeBoldR |
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Most escape room owners either handle marketing themselves between game resets and staff issues, or hire an agency and assume everything’s “probably fine.” That’s exactly why so many campaigns go untouched for months. |
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Built by people who actually run escape rooms, beboldR helps venues grow through smarter ads, newsletters, and websites, without the generic agency fluff. |
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ER Champ Qualifiers and Stress Test Soon This year’s qualification stage will be held online on June 20, 2026 at 16:00 UTC. Before that, you can also join the stress test on May 30, 2026 at 16:00 UTC. It’s not mandatory, but it helps the organizers prepare the system for the competition, and it also works as a prologue to this year’s story. The Final of this year’s Championship will be the 10th ER Champ and it will be held IRL in Wrocław, Poland. |
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Prague Escaping Summit Details Announced Taking place later this month from May 21st - May 23rd in Prague, the Prague Escaping Summit is an escape industry conference which includes escape rooms, large-scale games, and many industry talks. Speakers include: David Spira & Lisa Spira (Room Escape Artist, USA)
Jeroen van Hasselt & Tim Vandewinkel (Entered, Belgium)
Dimitris Varelas & Vergina Savvidi (Paradox Project, Greece)
Nataša Potočnik (Enigmarium, Slovenia)
Zoltan Papp (clueQuest / Zolitopia, UK)
Vojtěch Vašák & Barbora Fričová (The Chamber, Czechia)
Ken Ferguson (enthusiast with 1300+ games played, UK)
Ron Kagan (enthusiast with 1000+ games played, Israel) |
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🕹️ Sponsored By Buzzshot Bookings The brand new, fully integrated escape room booking system by Buzzshot. |
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Got games that share resources? Many booking systems can’t handle that. Buzzhot’s Shared Resources feature manages complex availability automatically so you never double book, even with multiple games using the same space. A complete system built for escape rooms, with over a decade’s experience in the industry. |
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• On the Buzzshot Blog, I recently interviewed Pier Pressure, and wrote an article about setting up online checkouts for escape rooms.
• "Rethinking how edutainment experiences work", a new article by Blooloop discusses educational escape rooms.
• And speaking of, the Escape Rooms in Education Showcase takes place this week, and I'll be the Friday keynote speaker!
• The fundraiser for Sarah Dodd is still live, and accepting donations.
• for Room Escape Artist, Matthew Stein has done a write-up on English-friendly escape rooms in Japan.
• clueQuest is looking to hire a team leader at their site (in London, UK). Not quite an escape room but we think you'll be interested in...
• The Voynich Times has had a makeover, and it's super easy to follow their mystery puzzle related news.
• Andrew Reynolds of Room Escape Artist did a write up of the Toy Fair 2026.
• Thinky Dailies season 2 has now concluded.
• The UK escape room TV-show "The Way Out" has started to air this month in the UK on Dave.
• Ignoring the click-baity title, Buzzfeed has published an escape room puzzle you can play in your browser.
• The announcement for the upcoming NYC Midnight Madness of course, contains a puzzle.
• NYT Daily Puzzles Meta is out - solve all five to win. I normally list the following in "Other News" but I think they deserve their own spaces: Challenge Arcades Monthly Update
Thinky Third Thursday  |
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📆 Upcoming Dates for your Diary |
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🔑 Recent Doors Unlocked |
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🇺🇸 Empire Escape Games has opened a new room, Alchemists Revenge, in Beaverton, OR.
Escape Gallery opened their new site with one room, Odin's Dilemma in Poulsbo, WA.
Evasive Escape Rooms has opened a new room, Factory Heist: Operation Green Bean in Sarasota, FL.
Mindtrix has opened a new site in Tualatin, OR. 🇬🇧/🇮🇪 London & the South Co-Decode has opened a new room, Pieces of Eight, in Swindon.
COLAB has opened a new room, The End, in London.
Devon Escape has opened a new room, Prison Break: Uprising, in Newton Abbot.
EO Escape Rooms has opened a new room, The Marauder’s Lair, in Sudbury.
Other World Escapes has opened five new rooms in Portsmouth.
Pier Pressure has opened a new room, Siege of Spellbreak Bank, in Bracknell.
Screamworks has opened a new room, The Briefcase, in London.
TimeQuest has opened a new room, Bunny Vale, in Paddock Wood. Midlands Courtyard Escapes has opened a new room, Welcome to the Jungle, in Stourbridge.
Escape Coalville has opened a new room, The Adventurer’s Club, in Coalville.
Exciting Game has opened a new room, The Order Of The Seven, in Birmingham.
XscapeNow has opened a new room, Sultan’s Secret - Grand Edition, in Telford. North England Breakout Chester has opened a new room, The Faithful, in Chester.
Escape Hunt has opened a new room, The Chocolate Factory, in Sheffield.
Escape Stockport has opened a new room, The Vampires Curse - A Study in Terror, in Stockport.
Escapologist has opened a new room, The Unfaithfuls, in Cleethorpes.
Z-arts has opened a new room, Mission: Mad Hatter, in Manchester. Scotland Game Vault has opened a new room, Bomb Squad, in Kilmarnock.
LVLS Aberdeen has opened a new site with four rooms in Aberdeen. Wales Puzzled Escape Rooms has opened a new room, Going Up, in Cardiff. 🇦🇺/🇳🇿 Trapt has teased a new room, The Outsider, opening soon in Melbourne.
Ultimate Roomscape has opened a new room, Clockwork Express, in Malaga, Perth. A shout out to the resources & individuals who were a huge help this month: Escape the Review (UK).  |
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Last month in Podcasts, Radio & Live Shows Escape This Podcast
"A show that’s a mix of escape room puzzles and tabletop role-playing." Reality Escape Podcast
Reality Escape Pod is an interview podcast diving deep with people who make the world’s best immersive games and experiences The Infinite Escape Room
The escape room podcast where a bunch of friends make and solve homemade audio escape rooms for each other. One part escape room, one part role-playing game, a sprinkle of point-and-click adventure, and a whole lot of laughs. The following podcasts didn't release a new episode this month, but you should check them out anyway: Â |
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From the Mathematical Puzzles of Sam Loyd (1868) book, I came across this puzzle titled "Canals on Mars" and wanted to share: Starting with the letter “T” at the bottom, visit all spots exactly once before returning to the beginning, so that the letters you pass through spell a complete sentence. |
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