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by cc439 2711 days ago
Personally, I see the "Escape Room" boom as something akin to the "Fondue Party" craze in the 70's. It's a fun social outing... once. Eventually there won't be enough new customers to sustain the business model and they will disappear almost as quickly as they arrived.

I'm sure there are better example, particularly ones from the entertainment industry booms of the 1920's and 1950's but I just can't think of any off the top of my head.
5 comments
brownbat 2711 days ago
It might be like karaoke.

I could hear the same concerns against that as OP delivered here. And to be fair that's something that is more successful in some places and much less so in others.

Other places, like casinos or top golf or laser tag or Dave and Buster's... I know some people who love them and others it's kind of a one time experience.

Fad to enduring cultural pastime is a wide spectrum, and we tend to maintain lots of options with niche followings.

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gibolt 2711 days ago
The difference here is that those parties are approximately the same every time, minus different people.

Every room from every provider is different. While you can only go to one once, a metro area could have 100+ rooms. Quality varies, but the most motivated people could go regularly and not run out.

The tiny number of people who can go through a single room at a time limits scalability/profitability, while also ensuring most people in a local area could still be first-time visitors.

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crooked-v 2711 days ago
Well, now you just need 18 other try-it-once fad businesses and then you can rotate through them all, one per year.
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selimthegrim 2711 days ago
Where it’ll go is teaming up with established attractions. In New Orleans for example one already in business is expanding to a shark themed escape room at the aquarium.
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dlhavema 2711 days ago
Of the limited number I've been to ( 2 ) each of them have multiple types of rooms. And they can shuffle the clues around to make it basically anew experience. Different people changes it up a lot and you can also add other elements too. Isn't there one variation that has a "zombie" chained up in the room with you?
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