Content uploaded by Andrzej Stasiak
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Andrzej Stasiak on Feb 06, 2017
Content may be subject to copyright.
e-ISSN 2080-6922
ISSN 0867-5856
Tourism 2016, 26/1
Andrzej Stasiak
University of Lodz
Institute of Urban Geography and Tourism Studies
Department of Recreation and Active Tourism
andrzej.stasiak@geo.uni.lodz.pl
ESCAPE ROOMS:
A NEW OFFER IN THE RECREATION SECTOR IN POLAND
Abstract: Globalization leaves its footprint on the leisure market contributing to the global popularization of brand new forms of
recreation. A perfect example of such instant diffusion of innovation on a global scale is the rapid development of escape rooms. The
aim of the article is to try and explain the extraordinary popularity of escape rooms in Poland, mainly through an analysis of what
they offer. The author presents the origins and development of this particular form of recreation, discusses the location of nearly 600
facilities functioning in 2016, as well as giving a detailed description of escape rooms in the ten large Polish cities. The study leads to
the conclusion that the phenomenon of escape rooms stems from, among other things, the fundamental assumptions of the
experience economy.
Keywords: leisure time, forms of recreation, escape rooms, experience economy.
1. INTRODUCTION
In the globalization era, ways of spending leisure time
are undergoing constant change, showing a tendency
towards a rapid diffusion of innovation at the same
time as easily adopting and adapting new models. It
concerns not only affluent societies, but also the in-
habitants of countries aspiring to belong to this group
and readily copying the Western style of living. In
hedonistic consumer societies, discretionary income is
willingly allocated to all kinds of pleasures and
increasingly sophisticated forms of recreation, to be
a particular manifestation of the buyer’s social posi-
tion and status.
A response to the growing demand for attractive
types of recreation is the development of the leisure
industry. The term refers to the sector of economy in-
cluding recreation, entertainment, sports and tourism
services (REST). It encompasses extremely varied
economic entities creating a commercial (paid) and
professional (expertly prepared) offer of goods and
services used for the purpose of organizing leisure
time in an original way. Due to very strong market
competition, people are continuously looking for new,
more sophisticated, sometimes even extreme forms of
recreation, building new and fascinating attractions
and facilities, as well as creating exceptional, emotions
and experiences.
The political, social and economic system trans-
formation in the 1990s introduced Poland to the global
free market. As a result, all major globalization pheno-
mena are reflected on the Polish market as well. This,
of course, concerns the leisure market, too, although
in Poland it has a particular character. The beginnings
of the economic transformation were related to the
pauperization of a large part of the society, which was
the reason why the demand for recreation services did
not appear until the end of the decade when the
middle class emerged and developed, together with its
aspirations.
The current dynamic growth of the recreation sector
in Poland is based on the following:
– systematic popularization of recreation forms
which until recently were regarded as exclusive
and financially inaccessible for the majority in-
terested in them, such as tennis, golf or horse
riding;
32 Tourism 2016, 26/1
– introducing attractions, popular in the West for
years, but for various reasons absent from Poland
e.g. gyms, fitness clubs, bowling alleys, shopp-
ing centres, theme parks, science and technology
centres;
– a new leisure industry offer, e.g. climbing walls,
ropes courses or military games (paintball, laser
games, archery battles, air soft guns).
One of the latest phenomena on the recreation
service market, not only in Poland but across the world,
are escape rooms
1
. They have become a real hit of the
second decade of the 21
st
c., and their number of fans
is growing exponentially. The aim of the article is to
explain the causes of the extraordinary popularity of
escape rooms in Poland, mostly by analysing what
they offer. The author presents the origins and develop-
ment of this particular form of recreation, discusses
the location of the 594 facilities functioning, as well as
giving a detailed description of the 381 escape rooms
in the ten largest Polish cities. The source of informa-
tion was the data presented on lockme.pl website on
30
th
April 2016
2
. The author focuses above all on the
issue of supply; the description of escape room users
will be the subject of a separate article.
2. THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT
OF ESCAPE ROOMS
TV game shows are sometimes considered to be the
predecessors of escape rooms; the contestants discover
the next clue to the treasure by accomplishing a variety
of physical and mental fitness tasks. This category
includes shows like the French ‘Fort Boyard’ and the
British ‘Crystal Maze’, broadcast in many countries all
over the world
3
.
However, it was computer games that were closer
in the form of play to escape rooms. The first game of
this type appeared in 1988 and was based on… text
only! The monitor screen presented the description of
the adventure, including a locked room from which
the player could escape after solving all the puzzles.
Much greater possibilities were created in the later
adventure games of the point-and-click type due to
the visually more attractive graphics, full of detail.
They required the player to solve puzzles or find
hidden items; by clicking the mouse, the player led
his/her hero through a virtual world. One of the first
producers of this type of game was George Lucas. In
the most famous of them, ‘Myst’, the journey between
worlds depended on solving the puzzles found in
special books. The game is considered to be the pio-
neer of the ‘escape-the-room’ segment (K
OWALIK
2015).
The real beginnings of today’s escape rooms, how-
ever, should be sought in the world of computer
games from 10 years ago. In 2006, a group of computer
programmers from Silicon Valley, inspired by the
books by Agatha Christie, designed a game entitled
‘Origin’. It quickly became very popular, not only in
the USA, but also in Asia.
The next stage in the development of escape rooms,
i.e. moving from cyberspace into the real world, took
place in the Far East. In 2007, in Kyoto, a publishing
house SCRAP opened the first real escape room,
known as Real Escape Game (REG). Interest in the
new product went beyond the creators’ boldest expecta-
tions. In the following years, similar escape rooms
were created in many other Japanese cities, as well as
in Singapore, Taiwan and in China. The escape rooms
in Hong Kong even started to be used for educational
purposes during youth camps for secondary school
students (https://lockme.pl).
In short, we can say that the idea of a real escape
room was conceived in the marriage of TV game
shows and point-and-click computer adventure games
(K
OWALIK
2015). As a result, “the virtual escape room
was transformed into a real life escape room” (https:
//lockme.pl). The game really became real – the
player who had been sitting in front of the computer
screen could personally enter a mysterious room,
experience it with all his/her senses and ‘do the
mission’ (solve all puzzles and leave the room within
the set time limit).
Fig. 1. Escape room precursors (N
ICHOLSON
2015)
A definitely more complex version of the origins of
escape rooms is presented by S. N
ICHOLSON
(2015)
who believes that there were six precursors to escape
rooms (Fig. 1). Apart from the point-and-click adven-
tures and TV adventure game shows and movies, he
includes the following:
– live action role-playing
4
– the extraordinary po-
pularity of the fantasy game ‘Dungeons and
Articles 33
Dragons’ inspired in the 1980s sets of rules and
scenarios for this type of game; in some of them
the players were supposed to look for clues and
solve puzzles in order to escape from locked
rooms. This conception was used, for instance,
in 2003, during the Gen Con convention (one
of the largest conventions of fantasy fans in the
USA);
– puzzle & treasure hunts – in puzzle hunts, teams
of players (from several up to even 200) solve
puzzles (traditional, both ‘on paper’, e.g. cross-
word puzzles, jig-saw puzzles, anagrams, codes
or sudoku, or in a digital version) which led
them to further puzzles or so-called meta-puzzles
(only by solving a number of minor puzzles is it
possible to solve a major one)
5
. Treasure hunts
6
are based on similar principles – the participants
must find clues hidden in the area and overcome
numerous obstacles so they could finally reach
the target. A modern version of this game is geo-
caching, in which finding the hidden ‘treasure’
is possible using the GPS (Global Positioning
System);
– interactive theatre & haunted house – some
escape rooms make use of the interactive theatre
idea where the border between the actors and
the audience is purposefully blurred, and the
audience is drawn into the performance in
various ways. The spectators are not just passive
observers but take an active part in the spectacle,
interact with the actors, have influence on the
course of action, etc. On the one hand, the scenes
played in escape rooms by actors make the
players more active and provide them with
the clues they need, and on the other hand, they
create the atmosphere of a game, e.g. a horror
game like those played in haunted houses;
– themed entertainment industry – escape room
models also include all kinds from the enter-
tainment industry. For instance, in the Entros
restaurant opened in Seattle in 1993, diners wait-
ing for their meals could solve puzzles through-
out the room, and in the ‘5 Wits Productions’,
the players could find themselves in the very
centre of a film or video game action thanks to
computer special effects and physical interac-
tion.
S.
N
ICHOLSON
(2015) points out, however, that
there is no single inspiration that would be common
for all escape rooms. They have been created in-
dependently and their creators were inspired by
different experiences.
At the beginning of the second decade of the
21
st
c., the fashion for escape rooms reached the USA,
Canada and Europe where they immediately became
realistic, furnished rooms, situated in ordinary flats in
city centres (https://lockme.pl). It is interesting that
the pioneers of this type of entertainment on the ‘Old
Continent’ were Hungary and Switzerland. In 2013,
the first escape room was created in Poland at Wroc-
ław called ‘Let Me Out’.
Towards the end of 2013, in Beijing, there were
120 such facilities and in 2015 – 182 (Fig. 2). In October
2014, on the Escape Room Directory website, there
were 514 registered escape rooms all over the world,
while in June 2015 – 1,765. This is not, of course, the
full list as it includes only English-language rooms.
According to MarketWatch, globally, there could be at
least 2,800 registered escape rooms. Nearly all of them
have been created over the last five years, since 2010.
The growth rate is clearly explosive. Some escape
room proprietors and fans claim, however, that this
boom cannot last forever and that in many cities the
market is slowly becoming saturated (F
RENCH
&
S
HAW
2015), but in many countries, including Poland, there
is still a lot of space for new escape rooms.
Fig. 2. Cities with the largest number of escape rooms,
according to the Escape Room Discovery (as of 20/07/2015)
Source: S. F
RENCH
&
J.M.
S
HAW
(2015)
It is an interesting fact that the idea of an escape
room was used for the production of a TV game show
entitled ‘Race to Escape’, broadcast in 2015 in the USA
and Australia. The spectators were excited to observe
a contest between two teams that competed against
each other to leave the themed escape room as fast as
possible. The prize for the winner of each of the six
episodes of the series was 25,000 USD (https://en.
wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_Escape).
34 Tourism 2016, 26/1
3. THE IDEA, TYPES AND ORGANIZATION
OF ESCAPE ROOMS
The escape room rules are very simple. It is a feature
game, in which all the players are voluntarily locked
in a room, and they must leave it within a time set
(usually 45-60 minutes) with the help of the clues and
items found there. To achieve this, they must perform
a variety of specially prepared tasks. They can be
ordinary mind games (crossword puzzles, sudoku,
puzzles), looking for hidden objects or padlock codes,
or manual tasks checking the player’s reflexes and
skilfulness. Every item, word, symbol or element of
the room’s furnishing may be significant and move the
players one step closer to winning the key which will
allow them to unlock the door.
The majority of games are designed for groups
consisting of 2-5 people because some puzzles cannot
be solved alone requiring the cooperation of at least
two players. Thus, they are team games, requiring not
only perceptiveness, intelligence and cleverness, but
also the ability to work in a group, good communica-
tion skills and an effective share of duties. The emo-
tions evoked by solving subsequent puzzles are ad-
ditionally intensified by the pressure of the running
time.
The attractiveness of an escape room depends not
only on how interesting the puzzles are, but also on
the room’s atmosphere. Therefore, the most popular
are rooms having one leading theme. As the aim of the
game is to get out of a locked room, the first escape
rooms were modelled the following types of interior:
a prison cell, space station, hospital room, doctor’s
surgery, etc. With time, the range of room themes
was expanded and may intrigue, amuse or scare the
players. Apart from themes commonly known from
computer games, literature or films, original local
conceptions and motifs based on the local heritage
(history, art, legends, etc.) can be found.
Analysing the themes of 175 escape rooms across
the world, S. N
ICHOLSON
(2015) noticed that most of
them referred to reality, to specific historical sites and
periods: 25% to 2000-15, 24% to the 20
th
c., and 13% –
to the 18-19
th
c. The most popular themes are horror
(13%), fantasy (12%), science/laboratory (12%), future/
new technologies (7%), the military (7%), and a toy
room (3%). The character of every tenth room was
abstract and did not represent any specific theme.
As for the game conception and storyline, nearly
every third (30%) escape room was based on an escape
from some strange and unpleasant place, e.g. a dunge-
on, prison or a kindergarten. Other, but less frequent
motifs, included investigating criminal cases and
mysteries (9%), fighting supernatural powers (8%),
solving a murder (5%), diffusing explosive devices
(5%), being an adventurer (4%), collecting information
and spying (4%), or taking part in a robbery (4%).
Taking into account the theme and narration
criteria at the same time, S.
N
ICHOLSON
(2015) distin-
guished four possible types of escape room:
– rooms without a leading theme (13%), where
a sequence of puzzles does not have a common
theme or narration;
– themed but not narrative rooms (27%), whose
interiors, props and soundtrack create a special
atmosphere, but the game does not have any
pre-planned storyline (‘a stage set without a
screenplay’); so during each game the players
create their own story;
– narrative rooms (21%), in which the plot is out-
lined and individual players are ascribed specific
roles (an introductory video, the gamemaster’s
story); the puzzles are not always strictly related
to the story and solving them does not necess-
arily have to move the action forward;
– fully narrative rooms (39%), in which the puzzles
do not exist independently, but are an integral
part of a story; it is impossible to leave the room
until the whole scenario has been played out.
Fully narrative rooms are most popular in Asia,
where they make up 52% of all escape rooms.
Immersing the players in the atmosphere of the
game requires well-thought out and meticulous in-
terior design. The room ambience is created not only
by the furniture, but also the colour and texture of the
walls, the floor, carefully assorted objects (historical or
contemporary), appropriate lighting, as well as sounds
and special effects making the game more attractive.
On the other hand, there are also escape rooms with
a highly minimalist, even ascetic décor (e.g. a white
room with only one padlocked chest of drawers).
Mobile escape rooms are becoming more and more
popular; they are organized for company team-build-
ing events. In these cases, the hotel room décor options
are quite limited.
Regardless of the theme and narration, nearly all
escape rooms include several common, almost oblig-
atory, elements
7
:
– the door – a symbolic attribute of the game;
opening them and leaving the room is the main
aim; in reality, however, in 22% of rooms the
door is not really locked for security reasons
(quick evacuation in an emergency);
– the clock – placed in a prominent place, measures
the time to the end of the game; it happens that
in order to raise the level of players’ emotion, the
room operators change the timing, e.g. by pro-
longing the last 10 minutes to 12 minutes, or the
last minute to 90 seconds;
Articles 35
– a desk and stationery (a notebook, ballpoint
pen, pencil, etc.) – needed to make notes, solve
puzzles, do tasks, etc.;
– artefacts – items which are of key importance in
the course of the game; they may be visible
elements of the room’s furnishing (though with
a hidden meaning), or they may be hidden; in
the latter case, the players must find the props
they need (e.g. clues, tools, valuable objects),
following the rule of ‘non-force’ at the same
time, and they must not move the furniture; to
make the game more difficult, there are also
false clues and trails (red herrings) planted in the
room;
– the soundtrack (music, noises, human voices) –
serves the purpose of creating the general atmo-
sphere of the room (e.g. melodies related to the
leading theme), and working on the players’
imagination and emotions (e.g. mysterious,
terrifying sounds, whispers), as well as building
up tension during the game (e.g. the sound of
a ticking clock);
– the ‘gamemaster’ – introducing the players to
the room, explaining the rules of the game,
watching over its course, helping find solutions
to some puzzles (if necessary);
– monitoring (CCTV) – a system which makes it
possible to oversee the players’ actions; in the
case of company events; it also makes it possible
to film/record the game in order to analyse the
psychological profiles of the players and choose
natural team leaders;
– the casket (box) – another symbolical prop;
a series of puzzles to be solved leads to opening
the box and finding the key which unlocks the
door; the average success rate for escape rooms
all over the world is 41%, but differs consider-
ably in the case of individual rooms (the most
difficult SCRAP room in the USA, called ‘Escape
from the Mysterious Room’ is actually left by
only 2% of players).
Room organization is fundamental for the whole
undertaking. From the players’ point of view, it is
important that the game is exciting, original and chall-
enging to the very end. Therefore, it is essential that
the difficulty level should be defined appropriately,
i.e. in such a way that the puzzles are not solved too
rapidly but are not too difficult either. As a rule, two-
thirds of the players need a little help from the staff to
leave the room within the time set. Another necessary
feature of a good escape room is the ability to evoke
real emotions – both the arrangement of the room and
the storyline together with the game scenario should
involve the players; they should be putting them-
selves in the shoes of the characters they play to the
maximum and forget about everything except the
room. Escape scenarios are constantly being improved
and changed in order to match the clients’ require-
ments and to complicate the game even more (many
rooms have more than one exit), or simply to refresh
the original conception.
S. N
ICHOLSON
(2015) identified three basic ways of
organizing escape rooms:
– path-based structure (45%) – the most popular,
consisting of several paths through puzzles which
the players may solve; they need to have all the
answers to solve the meta-puzzle, which signi-
fies victory;
– sequential structure (37%), where the puzzles
are presented linearly; solving one puzzle un-
locks the next, solving the last puzzle ends the
game;
– open structure (13%) – the players can solve
different puzzles at the same time and their
results lead them to final success (cf. Fig. 3a).
Fig. 3. Puzzle structures in escape rooms:
a) basic structures: open, sequential (linear), path-based;
b) complex structure: pyramids
Source: S. N
ICHOLSON
(2015)
36 Tourism 2016, 26/1
Fig. 4. The puzzle structure in Bewilder Box Brighton
Source: www.bewilderbox.co.uk, after S. N
ICHOLSON
(2015)
Combining two or three simple structures produces
a complex (hybrid) structure, which may take the form
of a pyramid (Fig. 3b). On the market, even more
complicated puzzle structures are created which in-
clude variants of the paths leading to the ‘escape’, or
even enabling the players to go from one room to
another (Fig. 4).
4. ESCAPE ROOMS IN POLAND
The first Polish escape room was created in Wrocław
in 2013. Three friends gave up their jobs and set up
a company called ‘Let Me Out’, which originally
managed two rooms in the city centre. The company
quickly became the pioneer, setting the standards of
this form of entertainment (number of players, game
time limit, price, etc.).
The new form of recreation instantaneously gained
an army of fervent fans, and companies opening escape
rooms started to spring up all over Poland. Their
number rose dramatically – in three years, over 600
escape rooms offering various themes were opened.
Apart from typical themed rooms, special rooms for
children or only for adults (18+) appeared. In 2015, in
Łódź, the first room of fury was created, and in
Szczecin, the first underwater escape room is being
built. Commissioned by large international corpora-
tions, mobile rooms are created in hotels, and open-air
events involving mass escape games are becoming
increasingly popular. The internet offers special web-
sites describing and evaluating escape rooms where
you can directly book tickets (e.g. http://lockme.pl),
and the fans of real escape rooms run blogs in which
they describe the facilities they have visited (cf. S
A
-
KOSIK
2015 and http://room-busters.blogspot.com).
The escape room market is growing not only
because new companies appear, but also as a result of
franchising – franchise suppliers offer their recogniz-
able brands, experience and know-how (a conception
of the room décor, puzzles and tests). This is how (e.g.
Let Me Out) the largest company on the Polish escape
room market is growing – in April 2016, it operated in
nine cities, offering a total of 24 rooms (four in Wro-
cław, three in Gdańsk, Katowice, Kraków and Lublin,
two in Bydgoszcz, Poznań, Sosnowiec and Warsaw).
They are planning to go international, with a first
room opening in Brussels (K
OWALIK
2015). Other
leaders include Tkalnia Zagadek (Puzzle Weaving Plant)
with 20 rooms (Łódź – 4, Kalisz, Płock, Poznań, Ra-
dom – 3 each, Wrocław, Zielona Góra – 2 each), Esca-
perooms.pl with 14 rooms (Gdańsk – 6, Bydgoszcz,
Warsaw – 4 each), ‘Exit Room’
with 8
rooms (Wrocław
– 6, Poznań – 2) and ‘Sir Lock’ with 7 rooms (Warsaw
– 5, Łódź – 2)
8
.
Most escape rooms in Poland are arranged in
rented rooms which need renovation and complete
refurnishing. The ‘Let Me Out’ company, as a part of
the franchising system, set the medium level of
investment in a flat at about 80,000 PLN, and ‘Sir Lock’
estimated the value of equipment in one of their
rooms at 30,000 PLN (K
OWALIK
2015). The majority of
Polish escape rooms, however, are arranged at a much
lower price.
Initial costs additionally include the rent (to a few
thousand PLN monthly), and advertising in the media
and marketing
9
. Despite that, running escape rooms is
a very profitable business and with 200 visits, one flat
can generate 20,000 PLN a month (K
OWALIK
2015).
Also in other countries, running escape rooms is
considered to be a very lucrative undertaking. In the
USA, in 2013, the cost of preparing a modest room
(7,000 USD) was returned after one month, and the
annual income rate reached 800%. In 2015, the profit
brought by one room could reach 70,000 USD monthly
(F
RENCH
&
S
HAW
2015).
5. LOCATION
According to lockme.pl, in 2016, there were 594 escape
rooms at 67 destinations in Poland. Their distribution,
however, is very uneven, with the majority found in
the largest agglomerations: Warsaw, Trójmiasto, Łódź,
Poznań, Kraków, Wrocław and the Upper Silesia co-
nurbation. The smallest number is found in the eastern
and north-eastern provinces (Fig. 5 and 6).
Facilities of this type are in principle opened in
cities big enough to guarantee adequate attendance
and it is assumed than an escape room may function
well in a city inhabited by at least 100,000 people
(K
OWALIK
2015). And indeed, among the 25 Polish
cities with the largest number of escape rooms, there
Articles 37
was only one with a smaller number of inhabitants,
Sopot, one of the most popular seaside holiday resorts
and at the same time a part of the Trójmiasto agglo-
meration inhabited by 750,000 people.
Fig. 6. Number of escape rooms in Polish destinations
The largest number of escape rooms can obviously
be found in the largest city – Warsaw, where 38 com-
panies run 97 escape rooms. Warsaw is followed by
Poznań (49 rooms, 24 companies) and Łódź (42 rooms,
16 companies). What may be surprising is the relat-
ively low position of Wrocław, where escape rooms in
Poland began. At present, there are 33 there, managed
by 14 companies, including some large ones operating
nationally. Perhaps it is the strong competition among
the biggest players on the market that prevents new
facilities from opening. Although Wrocław is outrun
only by Katowice with its 300,000 inhabitants, we
must remember the surroundings of the latter. After
all, it is the capital of an Upper Silesian conurbation
inhabited by 2.2 to 3.5 million people
10
, depending on
how we delimit the area.
In the largest Polish cities, a single company runs
an average of over two rooms (2.34). However, there
are significant differences between individual centres:
e.g. in Gdańsk, there are three rooms per company
and in Bydgoszcz – only 1.8 (we must remember here
that there some companies operate in several cities).
As regards escape rooms, saturation rates look
interesting (Table 1). In most cities, there are 5-6 rooms
per 100,000 inhabitants, with the exception of Poznań
(nearly 9) and Katowice (over 12). The number of com-
panies running escape rooms usually varies between
2 and 3 per 100,000 inhabitants. Only in three cities is
Fig. 5. Distribution of escape rooms in Poland (30/04/2016)
Source Figs 5-12: author, based on https://lockme.pl
38 Tourism 2016, 26/1
Fig. 7. Location of escape rooms in Warsaw
Articles 39
this rate higher (Katowice – 5.3, Poznań – 4.4; Wrocław
– 4.3). It can be assumed then that in Polish conditions,
there are on average 2-3 companies managing 5-6
rooms which operate among 100,000 inhabitants. In
huge cities, the market seems to be already saturated,
but there are still medium-sized cities, inhabited by
100-200,000 to consider.
The study of the exact location of escape rooms in
the ten large cities led to several interesting con-
clusions. In nearly all the cities, the escape rooms are
Fig. 8. Location of escape rooms in Krakow
Table 1. Cities in Poland with the largest number of escape rooms
Number
No. City rooms companies
No of rooms/
companies
No of
inhabitants
(31.12.2014)
No of rooms/
100 000
inhabitants
No of companies/
100 000 inhabitants
1.
Warsaw 97 38 2.55 1, 735,442 5.59 2.19
2.
Poznań 49 24 2.04 545,680 8.98 4.40
3.
Łódź 42 16 2.63 706,004 5.95 2.27
4.
Kraków 39 18 2.17 761,873 5.12 2.36
5.
Katowice 37 16 2.31 301,834 12.26 5.30
6.
Wrocław 33 14 2.36 634,487 5.20 4.31
7.
Gdańsk 27 9 3.00 461,489 5.85 2.21
8.
Szczecin 21 11 1.91 407,180 5.16 1.95
9.
Bydgoszcz 18 10 1.80 357,652 5.03 2.37
10. Białystok 18 7 2.57 295,459 6.09 2.70
Source: author, based on https://lockme.pl.
40 Tourism 2016, 26/1
Fig. 9. Location of escape rooms in Łódź
Fig. 10. Location of escape rooms in Poznań
Articles 41
situated in the strict centre, usually in the immediate
neighbourhood of the Old Town market square
(cf. Fig. 7-12). At least 80% of all escape rooms are
found within a distance of 2-2.5 km from the central
point, with the exception of Warsaw where the escape
room concentration zone has a wider radius – up to
5 km, due to the much larger scale of the city. It partly
comes from the fact that the Old Town in the capital
lies on the side of the present city centre, which is the
Dmowski Roundabout (the junction of Marszałkow-
ska St and Jerozolimskie Av). It is in the northern and
southern city centres where the largest number of
Warsaw escape rooms can be found. Another special
case is Łódź, where the escape rooms are situated
mostly on Piotrkowska St and nearby. As a result, we
are dealing with a concentration zone from north to
south. Escape rooms situated further from the city
centre are rare.
The tendency to locate escape rooms in the city
centre is not surprising and results from several basic
factors. The city centre is a district focusing the activity
of inhabitants and tourists which creates potential
demand for different kinds of entertainment. In effect,
it is easier for a facility to achieve a high attendance
rate. Convenient accessibility by transport is also quite
important. What is more, the historical centre of the
city features representative buildings with interiors
capable of creating a special atmosphere (tenement
houses, villas, etc.) and providing appropriate settings
for escape rooms, without making major investments.
High rent is not a problem as escape rooms are highly
profitable.
6. OFFER DESCRIPTION
Over the few years that escape rooms have been func-
tioning in Poland, certain standards of this form of
recreation have been established, sometimes different
from those set in other countries. A game in an escape
room is a team game. In most Polish cities, an offer of
Fig. 11. Location of escape rooms in Wrocław
42 Tourism 2016, 26/1
this type is designed for groups of 2-5 people, more
rarely for teams of 2-4 players. The possibility of play-
ing alone or in a team consisting of 6-7 people is really
rare.
Small groups of players are typical for Australia
and Europe (2-7 people, 3.98 on average). In Asia and
North and South America, the teams are definitely
larger, sometimes consisting of more than 10 people
(6.07 on average). While in the first case the players
arrange to play the game together earlier, in other
situations the teams are made up from volunteers on
the spot (so the team consists of players who do not
know one another, which may have a negative effect
on their comfort and satisfaction with the game). Glob-
ally, the average capacity of the rooms is 4.58 persons
(N
ICHOLSON
2015).
In Poland, games usually last 60 minutes due to
their graphics. One-hour modules dominate in eight
cities (Wrocław – 64%, Kraków – 67%, Białystok – 78%,
Bydgoszcz, Gdańsk, Poznań, Szczecin, Warsaw – over
80%). Only in two cities is the offer more varied as
regards timing. In Łódź, one third of the games take
60 minutes, one third – 50 minutes, and 28.6% – 45
minutes. In Katowice, one-hour games make up 43.2%
and 45-minute games – 37.8%. The latter game format
is standard in escape rooms run in different cities
of the country by the largest firms: ‘Let Me Out’ and
Tkalnia Zagadek (Puzzle Weaving Plant). Games lasting
longer than one hour (70, 80 or 90 minutes) are
relatively rare. The longest game offered in Polish
escape rooms is the 120-minute ‘Ocean’s 2’, offered
by Show Escape in Warsaw, and the shortest – the 30-
Fig. 12. Location of escape rooms in Gdańsk
Articles 43
minute ‘Golden Train’ in the NIEpokój Escape Room in
Szczecin
11
.
Due to the considerable unification of the length of
visits in escape rooms, the total time of games avail-
able in individual cities is tightly correlated with the
number of the existing rooms. In order to visit all the
rooms in the capital, one would need 5,730 minutes
(95.5 hours), in Poznań – nearly 2,940 minutes (49
hours), and in Wrocław, Katowice, Łódź and Kraków
– 2,000–2,200 minutes. The ‘shortest’ offer is that in
Białystok and Bydgoszcz – slightly over 1,000 minutes.
In total, we can spend nearly 370 hours in the escape
rooms in the studied cities.
The average distance from the city centre to escape
rooms ranges between 1 and 2 km (Kraków, Poznań,
Łódź). It is shorter only in Wrocław (0.6 km). The most
distant from the city centre (3.5-4 km, on average) are
the escape rooms in Warsaw and Gdańsk (Fig. 13).
Fig. 13. Average distance between escape rooms and
addresses and the centres of the studied cities
Source: author, based on https://lockme.pl
The descriptions of escape rooms found on https://
lockme.pl show that their themes are not much
different from the themes of escape rooms all over the
world. The majority are thriller-crime rooms (28.1%)
12
,
where the players play the roles of the police or
detectives identify the murderer, find stolen treasure
or an ab-ducted person or, as criminals, rob a bank or
steal money from a safe. A popular theme is horror
(14.2%) – these games are to give players a shiver of
emotion, e.g. during a meeting with a ghost, sadistic
murderer or just… a dentist. Every tenth room refers
to literature and film (11%) or history (10.5%). In the
first group, inspirations are above all world-known
crime stories (Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Arsene Lupin,
Pink Panther), thrillers and horror films (Saw, The
Shining), science-fiction and fantasy films (Alice in
Wonderland, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Matrix,
Jumanji, Game of Thrones), or adventure stories (Indiana
Jones). Polish films as leading themes of escape rooms
are used extremely rarely (Seksmisja, Stawka większa niz
życie), in contrast to historical rooms which are often
based on various events from the history of Poland.
You can look for the treasure of Gdańsk pirates, the
Amber Room, or the Golden Train, try to break the
Enigma code or steal the secrets of the Riese project,
help Warsaw insurgents or deal with the absurdities
of socialist times in Poland.
A much less popular kind of escape room are
scientific (laboratory) rooms – 6.3%, adventure rooms
(desert island, looking for treasure) – 5.3%, futuristic
and science fiction rooms – 4.2%, military and medical
rooms (hospital, dentist’s office) – 3.2% each, as well
as logical/abstract rooms – 2.1%. Over 20% of escape
rooms represent still other themes demonstrating their
broad thematic spectrum.
The difficulty level in escape rooms is extremely
important for player satisfaction. The game should
be neither too easy, because then it ends too fast, nor
too difficult, because despite hints the players may
become discouraged. The escape rooms described on
lockme.pl were ascribed four levels of difficulty (first
timers, beginners, advanced players and experts).
Generally, the majority of escape rooms in Poland are
suitable for beginners, which obviously comes from
the fact that it is a relatively new form of entertain-
ment and there are still few experienced players. It can
be assumed, however, that with time the number of
more difficult rooms will increase. In the 10 cities under
study, rooms for beginners make up around two
thirds, while the remaining one third is an offer for
more advanced players (‘first time’ rooms are rare).
The largest number of ‘difficult’ escape rooms can
be found in Białystok (61.1%), Szczecin (54.6%) and
Warsaw (50.5%), while the smallest number – in Poz-
nań (20.4%), Kraków (15.4%, no rooms for experts)
and Bydgoszcz (16.7%). Due to a lack of information
about the evaluation criteria concerning the difficulty
level of puzzles, we cannot draw far-reaching conclus-
ions from the room structure (e.g. regarding the grow-
ing popularity of escape rooms in a given city or the
number of advanced players)
13
.
There are two basic ways of charging people for
using an escape room: the price is calculated either per
player (one person) or per game (all participants);
44 Tourism 2016, 26/1
globally, the first option is more popular. The average
cost of play in the escape rooms examined by
S. N
ICHOLSON
(2015) was 23.68 USD per person or
74.42 USD per team (after recalculating local currencies
into American dollars). However, prices on individual
continents are greatly diversified. S.
F
RENCH
&
J.M.
S
HAW
(2015) estimate the cost of a game for one per-
son in an American escape room at 25-30 USD. Europ-
eans pay definitely less (12 USD), not to mention
Asians (only 5 USD), though if we refer these prices
to the GDP per capita in individual countries, it will
turn out that they are the highest ticket prices anyway
(N
ICHOLSON
2015).
From the Polish user’s point of view, the prices
charged in other countries may seem shocking and in
this respect, the escape room market is quite different.
Firstly, charging per game is common practice, regard-
less of the number of players (within an accept-
able limit, of course). Secondly, due to the fact that
Polish society is not as well-off as for citizens of most
developed countries, the prices are established at
a much lower level. It is assumed that escape rooms
were to become competition for the cinema, so the
price for a game should be around the same as the
price of 4-5 cinema tickets, i.e. ca. 100 PLN (K
OWALIK
2015).
The average price for one game in the ten Polish
cities under study was slightly below 94 PLN (Table 2).
Naturally, Warsaw is most expensive (over 120 PLN
per game), followed by Łódź (over 110 PLN per
room), which is surprising, both because the city is
perceived as ‘poor’ and because escape rooms in Łódź
offer the shortest game times. Another city where we
will pay over 100 PLN for an escape room is Wro-
cław (over 105 PLN, on average). Prices in Poznań are
closest to the average price in Poland. The cheapest
escape rooms are offered in Katowice (slightly below
81 PLN) and Białystok (slightly below 79 PLN).
The lockme.pl portal makes it possible to evaluate
the visited escape rooms (on a scale 0-5) and post
a descriptive justification. The overall assessment
encompasses three components: service, difficulty
level and atmosphere. By 20
th
April 2016, over 14,500
opinions had been posted on the website, concerning
the escape rooms in the cities under study, their
spatial distribution being highly diversified (Table 2).
The largest number of opinions (27% – nearly 4,000)
regarded rooms in Warsaw, the smallest (only 225) –
in Białystok. The number of opinions is obviously
related to the size of the city and the number of escape
rooms, although the largest number per room (over
53) was recorded in Wrocław
14
. With the exception of
Białystok, the rooms in the remaining cities were
evaluated at least 30-40 times, on average. It is certainly
not a representative sample, but it allows us to draw,
with caution, some conclusions.
Generally, escape rooms in Poland are readily
accepted and very highly evaluated. The arithmetic
mean from the 13,500 posts was 4.45. Escape rooms in
Białystok were assessed the highest (4.67), but due to
the small number of opinions, the result may raise
doubts. Marks above the national mean were also al-
located to rooms in five cities, including three with
marks above 4.5 (Poznań – 4.53, Bydgoszcz – 4.52,
Wrocław – 4.51). Gdańsk was definitely the worst
(4.25).
It is difficult to summarize briefly and objectively
the descriptive evaluations posted on lockme.pl. Many
of them contain words of praise concerning the atmo-
sphere (mystery, horror, adventure) and the imagin-
Table 2. Escape room offer in selected cities in Poland
Percentage of ‘difficult’
rooms
City
Percentage
of 60-min.
rooms
Total
game
time
(min.) A AE
Average
price per
game
(PLN)
No of
opinions
No of
opinions
per room
Average
evaluation
Białystok 77.78 1,020 55.56 61.11 78.72 225 12.50 4.67
Poznań 83.67 2,940 18.37 20.42 93.45 2,056 41.96 4.53
Bydgoszcz 83.33 1,065 11.11 16.67 86.78 651 36.17 4.52
Wrocław 63.64 2,040 24.24 30.30 105.64 1,753 53.12 4.51
Warsaw 83.51 5,730 37.11 50.52 120.61 3,934 40.56 4.47
Katowice 43.24 2,070 27.27 33.33 80.83 1,038 28.05 4.46
Szczecin 86.36 1,240 45.46 54.55 86.71 651 31.00 4.41
Łódź 33.33 2,215 38.10 45.24 110.60 1,605 38.21 4.35
Kraków 66.67 2,250 15.38 15.38 86.49 1,454 37.28 4.34
Gdańsk 85.19 1,590 44.44 44.44 89.11 1,169 43.30 4.25
Total 70.67 22,160 31.70 37.20 93.89 14,536 36.22 4.45
Key: A – for advanced players; AE – for advanced players and experts.
Source: author, based on https://lockme.pl.
Articles 45
ativeness of the people designing the rooms and
inventing tasks for players. The authors stress the
exceptional excitement and incredible emotions
accompanying solving the puzzles, as well as the
professionalism and helpfulness of the staff. Occasion-
ally, there are also voices of criticism, pointing to faults
or mistakes in the puzzles, the lack of logic in a story-
line, the visual incoherence of the interior, technical
faults in the equipment or a lack of proper support
from the facility staff.
7. SUMMARY
The beginning of the 21
st
c. brought many dynamic
changes to the world tourism and leisure market (cf.
W
EIERMAIR
&
M
ATHIES
2004,
N
IEZGODA
2014,
M
OKRAS
-
G
RABOWSKA
2015). In the globalization era, these
phenomena spread fast and become popular in other
countries and on other continents. A perfect example
of such instantaneous global diffusion of innovation
may be the birth, development and international
career of a brand new form of recreation – escape
rooms. At present, escape rooms are certainly among
the most interesting phenomena on the leisure market.
Over just a few years, in many countries all over the
world (with totally different traditions and culture),
they have become a real alternative to bowling,
billiards or cinema. The phenomenon of escape rooms
is intriguing, as they require mental effort (rather
avoided by the modern consumer) rather than physical.
Based on the study of the escape room offer in
Poland, as well as available foreign publications, we
may venture to distinguish the most significant causes
of the extraordinary popularity of such rooms. They
include the following:
– transferring the love of computer games into
reality – having the opportunity to experience
adventures known from cyberspace into the real
world, with all senses;
– creating an attractive diversion from the every-
day – having the possibility of relieving stress
by students and yuppies, or escape from the
burdensome condition of living in a metropolis
(cf. Real-life escape games offer…);
– satisfying the desire to experience something
new, original, unique and not the banal so
common in hedonistic consumptive societies, to
experience strong emotions, excitement, etc.;
– making international corporations interested in
organizing unconventional integration and
motivation events (often combined with observa-
tion of behaviours and an analysis of the psycho-
logical predispositions of the game participants).
What supplements (or rather strengthens) the
demand stimuli are an exceptionally favourable
supply factors: lack of the prerequisites to start such
a business, a still unsaturated market (weak competi-
tion), the ease of copying ideas and business concep-
tions, relatively low cost of starting and running
business activity, and first of all, regardless of country,
the high profitability of such undertakings.
It seems that the success of escape rooms depends
on yet another, less obvious factor. Escape rooms are
based on the fundamental assumptions of the ex-
perience economy (P
INE
&
G
ILMORE
1999). This
advanced form of economy is based mainly on
services which provide customers with unique ex-
periences, strongly saturated with emotion. Among its
other significant features, I.
S
KOWRONEK
(2012) also
distinguishes: exceeding the buyers’ expectations,
creating sensory products and services affecting the
customers’ senses, using aesthetics in marketing,
managing the buyers’ perception and emotions, build-
ing relations based on the emotional value. The essence
of the market success is then turning an ordinary
product into an extraordinary experience (L
A
S
ALLE
&
B
RITTO
n 2003), which will stay permanently in the
buyer’s memory.
Escape rooms fit these assumptions perfectly. They
offer sequences of events which engage the players on
the emotional, physical, intellectual and even spiritual
plane. The product, meticulously prepared, guar-
antees a departure from everyday routine, moving to
a different reality, engaging all senses, the so-called
‘emotional story’, dramatization of space, interactivity,
active participation and co-creating one’s own and
others’ experiences. In order to achieve that, it is
necessary to reorient thinking: concentrate on the
product (the process of production, maintaining
quality, management, etc.) must be replaced by con-
centration on experience (planning the desired exper-
ience, creating sensory products, customers’ percep-
tion and emotions management, generating their
emotional involvement, etc.). As a result, the product
is not so much a service package as an experience
package. The Reverse Thinking Model proposed by
the Performance Solution company fully proves itself
in the planning and practical organization of escape
rooms.
All the factors listed above have certainly con-
tributed to the massive increase in the number of
escape rooms in Poland. Over just three years, 600
establishments have appeared, situated mostly in the
centres of the largest cities. The large city market
seems to be almost fully saturated (5-6 rooms per
100,000 inhabitants). The greatest development
potential lies in middle-sized towns whose offer in
this respect is still quite limited. Polish escape rooms
do not differ much from those abroad. They represent
46 Tourism 2016, 26/1
a full spectrum of game themes and storylines, al-
though the predominant themes are the same as those
popular all over the world: thrill and crime (28.1%),
horror (14.2%), literature and film (11%) and history
(10.5%). Local specificity is stressed in escape rooms
which refer to various episodes from the Polish history
(mainly World War II and the socialist era). About two
thirds of the escape rooms are addressed to beginners,
and only one third to more advanced players.
These proportions will probably be reversed in
time. In comparison with escape rooms abroad, the
Polish ones are different above all as regards financial
issues: the commonly accepted charge for a room/
game and low prices – ca. 24 USD per room, which is
equal to the average world price paid for a game by…
one person (N
ICHOLSON
2015). The new form of recrea-
tion has been enthusiastically received by Poles (4.45/
5). The elements which particularly delight the players
are the meticulously prepared interiors and atmo-
sphere of the rooms, surprising storylines of the
games, imaginative puzzles and exceptional emotions
accompanying the ‘escape’. We can be hopeful, than,
that the escape room market in Poland will continue to
develop.
However, regardless of the causes and the scale of
the extraordinary popularity of escape rooms, one
question remains open: will they be a permanent
element of contemporary recreation services or, like
many other attractions before, will they be ephemeral,
enjoying the short-term interest of customers con-
stantly looking for new experiences?
FOOTNOTES
1
The term commonly used in Poland is ‘mystery room’
(pokój zagadek), though it is not a word-for-word translation of
the English ‘escape room’, and neither does it express the idea of
the game (escaping from a room).
2
Lockme.pl is the largest internet website devoted to escape
rooms in Poland. It is a continuously updated and enlarged
source of information. It provides data on e.g. the room location
and theme, the game timing, the level of difficulty, prices,
information how to book a game, and users’ opinions. As the
internet is the main promotion and distribution channel for this
form of entertainment, it can be assumed that it is the fullest
data base concerning escape rooms in Poland. As regards the
analysis of the escape rooms in 10 cities, data was verified on the
basis of the websites of individual companies. The percentage of
rejected addresses was minimal (individual rooms, either not
active any more or about to be opened), which entitles the
author to consider the data source to be reliable and highly
credible. Naturally, there must be escape rooms which have not
been included on lockme.pl. Their number and importance,
however, do not seem statistically significant.
3
In Poland, Fort Boyard was broadcast in the 1990s, on two
cable TV channels, and in 2008-9, TVP2 broadcast two series,
13 episodes each.
4
A role-playing game (RPG) – a game based on narration, in
which the players assume the roles of fictional characters living
in a world which exists only in their imagination. The aim of the
game is to play it according to a pre-planned scenario, following
an established set of rules (so-called game mechanics). Apart
from traditional pen and paper games, there are also computer
games (based on https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gra_fabularna ).
5
One of the most popular games of this type is the MIT
Mystery Hunt (played annually since 1981) – a search for
a symbolical coin on the premises of the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology by even 40 teams (2000 players) at a time, who for
48 hours are solving up to 160 puzzles prepared for them by the
previous year winners.
6
The game resembles the Polish podchody (Hare and Hounds)
or the German Schnitzeljagd.
7
Based on: S.F
RENCH
and J.M.Shaw (2015), who provide the
quoted figures.
8
Based on: http://escaperooms.pl, http://exitroom.pl, http:
//sirlock.pl, http://tkalniazagadek.pl, www.letmeout.pl,
https:// lockme.pl (13 May 2016).
9
Escape room proprietors run low cost promotion campaigns,
mostly on the Internet. They have their own websites (of the
room or a network of rooms belonging to a given company) and
Facebook profiles. They offer discounts on popular group shopp-
ing webpages (e.g. Groupon). Mostly, however, advertising is
based on recommendations from satisfied customers.
10
In the whole Upper Silesian conurbation, there were
79 escape rooms, nearly half of which were situated in Katowice.
11
After study materials had been collected, games lasting
10-15 minutes were introduced in Łódź and Szczecin.
12
The rooms could be classified into several theme groups.
13
The difficulty level of rooms is indirectly related to the
percentage of games which end in “escape”. According to
S. N
ICHOLSON
(2015), 41% of all games end successfully (in both
Americas – 26%, in Asia -33%, in Europe – 52%), out of which in
rooms described as easy – 61.7%, medium difficult – 48.5% and
difficult – 36.3%. Studies of this kind as regards Polish escape
rooms have not been conducted yet.
14
This is most probably caused by the fact that Wrocław is
the cradle of Polish escape rooms, and the lockme.pl operator is
based in this city.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
F
RENCH
S.,
S
HAW
J.M., 2015, The unbelievably lucrative business of
escape rooms, Market Watch, http://www.marketwatch.
com/story/the-weird-new-world-of-escape-room-busines
ses-2015-07-20; 21.07.2015.
K
OWALIK
A., 2015, Ucieczka do pieniędzy – escape-roomy podbijają
Polskę, „Pierwszy Milion”, 4, http://pierwszymilion.forbes.
pl/escape-roomy-podbijaja-polske,artykuly,191344,1,4.html.
L
A
S
ALLE
D.,
B
RITTON
T.A., 2003, Priceless. Turning ordinary products
into extraordinary experience, Harvard Business School Press,
Boston, Massachusetts.
M
OKRAS
-G
RABOWSKA
J., 2015, Czas wolny w dobie postmoder-
nizmu, Folia Turistica, 34, pp. 11-30.
N
ICHOLSON
S., 2015, Peeking behind the locked door: A survey
of escape room facilities, White Paper available at http://
scott nicholson.com/pubs/erfacwhite.pdf.
N
IEZGODA
A., 2014, Czas wolny a zmiany na rynku turystycz-
nym, [in:] Przeszłość, teraźniejszość i przyszłość turystyki,
B. Krakowiak, J. Latosińska (eds.), ser. „Warsztaty z Geo-
grafii Turyzmu”, 5, Wyd. Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, Łódź,
pp. 101-112.
Articles 47
P
INE
B.
J.,
G
ILMORE
J.H., 1999, The Experience Economy: Work Is
Theater & Every Business a Stage, Harvard.
Real-life escape games offer respite from daily stresses, South
China Morning Post, http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-
kong/article/1148918/real-life-escape-games-offer-respite-
daily-stresses; 13.02.2013.
S
AKOSIK
K., 2015, Top 6 łódzkich escape roomów. Sprawdź, co
to takiego, Gazeta Łódzka, http://lodz.wyborcza.pl/lodz
/1,35153,19287493,top-6-lodzkich-escape-roomow-sprawdz-
co-to-takiego.html#ixzz45EbBAB6n; 03.12.2015.
S
KOWRONEK
I., 2012, Marketing doświadczeń. Od doświadczenia
klienta do wizerunku firmy, Wyd. Poltext, Warszawa, 286 pp.
W
EIERMAIR
K.,
M
ATHIES
C
H
. (eds.), 2004, The Tourism and Leisure
Industry: Shaping the Future, Haworth Press, London, 357 pp.
http://escaperooms.pl; 13.05.2016.
http://exitroom.pl; 13.05.2016.
http://room-busters.blogspot.com; 13.05.2016.
http://sirlock.pl; 13.05.2016.
http://tkalniazagadek.pl; 13.05.2016.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_room; 13.05.2016.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_Escape; 13.05.2016.
https://lockme.pl; 13.05.2016.
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gra_fabularna.
www.letmeout.pl; 13.05.2016.
Article received:
17 May 2016
Accepted:
14 Juni 2016
48 Tourism 2016, 26/1
