New escape room to be opened in Leamington

A second escape room is set to be opening on the Parade in Leamington Spa, after plans were approved by Warwick District Council in November 2017.

The escape room, to be located next to the Premier Inn on the Parade, will be part of the Escape Live franchise, which already has branches in Birmingham, Coventry, Stratford upon Avon and Essex. The general premise is that participants are locked in a room in teams of two to six people, and aim to complete a challenge within 60 minutes in order to be released before time is up.

There are a range of themed games or challenges involving problem solving, with names such as ‘Prison Break’, the horror-themed ‘Room 13’, ‘Time Machine’ and ‘The Lab’. Participants must work like detectives to find clues or as scientists in order to solve the difficulty at hand.

The plans are currently for two escape rooms in the premises, on the second and third floor above Fine and Country Estate Agents. The franchise has claimed they intend to run the escape room themselves, but will employ two part-time staff members during busier periods.

This will be the second escape room in Leamington, after a similar franchise named Experimental Escape was opened on Warwick Street in December 2017. There is currently one room open, called ‘The Machine’ in which players must restore communications on a piece of dormant Artificial Intelligence equipment. The facility has the capacity for two more rooms to be opened in the future.

Escape Live believe that their new branch on the Parade will “increase visitors to the area and will create jobs. It is a fun and exciting new leisure activity for people to do in Leamington”, and will likely be popular with University of Warwick students living in the area.