The Journal
Ideas for your social gaming room
Guides, real cases and numbers for venue owners: what the format is, what it costs, how it pays back, and how to launch.
Story-Driven Escape Room Instead of Expensive Sets: How the Castle Was Built
Clients told us it felt “like watching a movie.” Why we built the Castle around a story rather than around a puzzle count: 14 characters, 15 rooms, story density instead of square footage.
Entertainment Trends 2026: Where the Real Money Is (and Where It’s Just Noise)
IAAPA Expo data and 2025-2026 industry reports: what actually makes money for a multi-attraction venue, and what’s just a flashy…
The Portable Format: Inside Wizard’s Chest and Dead Man’s Chest
The chest rides to a school fair in the trunk of an ordinary car, and rides home again that evening. Here’s why portability was…
Escape Rooms in Bars: Pairing Games with Drinks
The “bar plus games” format is growing faster than the entire entertainment industry. A live case from Montreal: a chest played…
When an Escape Room Gets Stale: Refresh or Replace It
An escape room has a working life of about four years. How to tell it has stopped bringing guests back, what ages first, and what…
Escape Room in a Mall: How to Get In and What It Costs
Malls are hunting for entertainment tenants: occupancy is climbing on the back of experiential anchors. Three entry formats for…
Escape Room for Corporate Events: How a Venue Fills Its Weekdays
Weekday utilization at entertainment venues sits at 15-20% while corporate team-building budgets grow by double digits. A…
All articles
Format & TrendsPortable Escape Room: What It Is and Where It FitsA portable escape room is a full, voice-acted story built into a chest: an hour of play on a small footprint…July 4, 2026
Format & TrendsWhat Is a Social Gaming Room?A social gaming room is a space built around interactive, story-driven attractions small groups play…June 28, 2026
Format & TrendsAdding an Escape Attraction to a Family Entertainment CenterWhat really happens when you add a small-footprint, voice-acted attraction to an FEC: throughput, space,…June 28, 2026
Format & TrendsAutomated Escape Rooms: How They Run With No Game MasterHow voice-acted, self-guiding attractions run with almost no staff: how automation works, what it saves, and…June 28, 2026