History
Our team has been designing, building, testing, training, supporting, and installing everything to do with Escape Rooms since 2017.
Here is a timeline of our activities and growth:
The Last Testament game launches in a former offer space as Chelmsford Escape Rooms in Essex, UK.
Over the next couple of years, more games are added, including The Governor, The Crazy Cat Lady and the seasonal game Elf Isolation.
The Know Escape writing team writes all games.
Bishop's Stortford Escape Rooms opens at the Peek Business Park on the M11 junction of Bishop's Stortford in Hertfordshire.
The venue opens with 'Eerie Motel California', one of the giant escape room games in the UK.
The venue hosts the first versions of An Hour to Kill Hollywood, Patient Zero, Christmas Chaos, Rob the Bank and Christmas Candy Chaos.
Other games were built and tested here until the venue was moved during the Covid 19 pandemic in 2021.
Know Escape negotiated most of the upper level of Edward's Walk Shopping Arcade in Maldon, Essex and started work on building the largest escape room facility in Essex.
Maldon Escape Rooms opens with Rob the Bank; teams start in the back of a transit van and reverse through the bank wall on an epic adventure to get back 100 gold bars; the game has since been launched in Kingston, Bishop's Stortford, Gatwick and Chesterfield venues.
Maldon also hosts The Cage, Deep Trouble and the seasonal game When Santa got Stuck up the Chimney! All these games have since been launched around the UK.
Know Escape purchase Bust-Out, a mobile escape room company.
The vehicle attends weddings, festivals and events and operated well up to and before Covid-19. Know Escape seeks a permanent home to work the vehicle from a fixed location.
Know Escape Franchise Ltd sells the first Know Escape franchise to Frank and Sasha in Kingston West London, the venue is Kingston Escape Rooms.
The franchise opens with An Hour to Kill Hollywood and two clones of The Crazy Cat Lady.
The team work through the pandemic, building and launching a version of Rob the Bank.
During Covid-19, the team moved online to run a game called 'Angie's Flower Shop' written by Frank and operated via the Telescape platform.
The venue is a tremendous success, heading to the top of TripAdvisor for fun and games in Kingston.
On March 21, 2020, UK Government required all leisure and entertainment businesses to close.
On March 24th, Know Escape launched Know Escape Online and hosted over 6000 games run by live Games Masters.
Online escape room games are hosted for families, friends and corporations worldwide.
Know Escape Online continues to operate post-pandemic and has its management team and writers.
Opened in a former bookshop Gatwick Escape Rooms begins as the second franchise of Know Escape.
The venue is located on the High Street in Horley, Surrey and is within a very short drive of London Gatwick Airport.
Dan and Becky have worked hard to turn the attraction into the number one leisure destination in the area.
The venue opened with The Crazy Cat Lady, The Governor, An Hour to Kill Hollywood, Rob the Bank and Patient Zero.
Gatwick have recently installed Deep Trouble, Elf Isolation and written two games for the franchise network called Exposed and All of the other Reindeer.
Exposed operates within the Gatwick Mobile Escape Room unit; Know Escape have since installed the game in a physical room in Witham venue.
Chesterfield Escape Rooms was the third franchise signed for Know Escape.
Nick and Annie opened the venue in former hairdressers, converting the vast space into the UK's Number 1 Escape Room company (out of 806 companies), ranked by Tripadvisor players.
To say we are enormously proud of the achievements made by the Chesterfield team is an understatement.
The venue opened with the core Know Escape popular games (including Rob the Bank and The Governor) and has developed newer formats.
Know Escape signed a lease on a former gym in Witham (Essex) town centre; at one end of the vast space, we built a PC Gaming Centre (Games Arena) and a Laser Tag arena (Laserscape).
The venue is a pilot; it hosts birthday parties and events for families, friends and corporate away days.
We have learned a lot about venue locations and game installations; during the pandemic, we took the tough decision (and cost) to move our Bishop's Stortford venue from the industrial park into the town centre.
We moved most of the existing games to the new venue and built a clone of Chelmsford's 'The Governor'.
The venue immediately benefited from an increase in trade due to improved footfall.
Sharing the building with the new Laserscape and Games Arena, Know Escape established and launched the new corporately owned Witham Escape Rooms.
The venue plays host to a brand new game (Sausage Surprise), one classic format game (An Hour to Kill Hollywood), a game written for the High Wycombe Franchise (The Big Hangover) and a clone of a play written by the Gatwick team (Exposed).
Witham Escape Rooms is a large venue above the Newlands Shopping Centre in the middle of the High Street.
Escape the Night is our first adventure in Overnight Escape Room Experiences.
The luxury apartment is adjacent to the Bishop's Stortford Escape Rooms venue.
Teams have 20 hours in the apartment to solve the puzzle, unlock the riddles and leave as champions.
After months of negotiations on a building in Sudbury (Suffolk), Know Escape was pleased to form a partnership with a preferred contractor to build a giant escape room facility; Sudbury Escape Rooms is tall and vast.
Eerie Motel California was the first game to open at the venue after being disassembled and relocated from Bishop's Stortford.
During Christmas 2022, the hugely popular seasonal game When Santa got Stuck up the Chimney! Operated by hundreds of players.
Rob the Bank 2 is under construction; it will probably be the largest escape room (probably) in the UK; the team is building an entire high street with explorable shops and houses.
The team at 'Escape at the Works' in High Wycombe contacted Know Escape Franchise about converting to becoming a Know Escape venue and reverting away from their existing franchise partner.
In February 2022, the transformation was complete, and the three previous escape rooms were removed and replaced with Know Escape games.
The venue opened with The Crazy Cat Lady, The Last Testament and a new game were commissioned, which we called The Big Hangover.
In Christmas 2022, The Last Testament set was adapted to run Elf Isolation.
Since converting to our format, the venue has enjoyed a more than 50% increase in customers and turnover.
The venue operates as High Wycombe Escape Rooms.
The Escape Network was originally setup as a popup escape room company in 2016; it travelled around museums, town halls and event venues running mobile escape room games.
It was sold to Cowen Edutainment in 2020, just before the pandemic. During Covid-19, some mobile games were adapted for online delivery without a games master enabling instant game sales.
Know Escape purchased the brand and game archive and has since reinvented 'Black Knight' to become 'Beneath the Dark Dark Wood'; it has been completely reimagined around the original puzzles and operates as a division of Know Escape Online.
The Know Escape team are working through the archive to explore what games could be reengineered either as virtual online escape games or repurposed as physical escape rooms.
Coventry Escape Rooms
Clue HQ Coventry franchise closes down and switches to the Know Escape model.
The Clue HQ location had been open in Coventry since 2015 but was experiencing a decline in visitor numbers as new escape rooms opened in the area; the owners took the decision to switch to a different franchise and picked Know Escape. Under Clue HQ (we respect them) the site did very well, so the challenge for us is a big one, but also a nice one. The site opened with two clones of The Crazy Cat Lady, An Hour to Kill Hollywood and Deep Trouble.
The venue operates as Coventry Escape Rooms.
