Columnist

Time to get the team back together

The inconspicuous door to The Escape Key in central Newcastle, gives no clue to the incredible experiences to be had inside.

Overlooking the city’s oldest graveyard, home to witches’ graves and the city’s busiest plague pit, The Escape Key uniquely uses Newcastle’s rich heritage to inspire its escape experiences.

For those unfamiliar with escape rooms, they are games which challenge teams of around six people to work together against the clock to solve a variety of tasks and puzzles leading them to complete their mission and escape.

Listed in the world’s top 100 escape rooms and awarded Escape room of the Year for the North of England for the last two years as well as winning Trip Advisor’s Travellers’ Choice for 2020 and 2021, The Escape Key has established itself as the best escape room centre in the North East and one of the top ones in the United Kingdom.

So what makes The Escape Key so special?

The Escape Key is a true family business where everyone is passionate about creating a superb experience for their customers. Their games are immersive multi room environments with movie quality set design, detailed storylines, and technical wizardry behind their fiendish puzzles. These are definitely not claustrophobic single room games with a repetitive series of padlocks to unlock. What they have created is an unforgettable experience that can be enjoyed by friends, families and colleagues.

A perfect fit for teambuilding

What skills are needed in today’s workforce? You need great teamwork - no-one can do it on their own these days. You need good communication - listening to everyone’s ideas, not just the loudest. You need people who can think outside the box, work together efficiently and be cool under pressure.

Owner and designer of the rooms Martin Ashburn explained why The Escape Key is a perfect fit for businesses wanting to strengthen teams and improve workplace relationships.

“You need the same skills to escape from our rooms as you need for today’s successful businesses - teamwork, communication, creative thinking and working to deadlines - but they are so hard to teach from a whiteboard. They really need to be experienced, ideally experienced together with work colleagues in a pressured environment.”

Owner and designer of the rooms Martin Ashburn

At The Escape Key colleagues are locked in rooms for an hour, they have to solve around 20 interlinked problems - some verbal, some numerical and some skill based. The puzzle are tough, the games are set in immersive atmospheres and it’s against the clock!

“When designing the games I deliberately include a variety of tasks. There are tasks that require a logical approach and others that may need more creative solutions. Some will need good hand eye coordination and I always ensure that there are things that cannot be completed by one person and need clear communication to solve. This is because teams are made up of people with different attributes, skills and strengths and the games tap into this allowing everyone to contribute and everyone to have their moment to shine”

With four games at the same venue The Escape Key can accommodate around 25 people playing art the same time. Whether you’re a small business or a large organisation, private or public sector The Escape Key can tailor a package that will give your organisation a fun and rewarding experience. If you are feeling competitive, we can set you off at the same time so all the teams can race each other with room difficulty, time taken and number of hints combining to give an overall score and a winning team!

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