Buzzshot Blog

This article is written for Escape Rooms in England, but it may be useful for anywhere else where the government starts asking businesses to keep track of their customers for contact tracing purposes. Guidance for re-opening safely and advice for publishing a Covid-19 risk assessment on your website …

It's been a crazy few weeks hasn't it? Many of you have had to shut down operations temporarily which is an absolutely huge thing. More broadly much of the world is in lockdown which is isolating, stressful, busy, depressing scary and sometimes very boring. I've certainly been feeling …

Does your escape room produce good quality player photos?

For some businesses, the photo is almost an afterthought - a quick snap and maybe a post to Facebook - but photos can be so much more.

One thing we’ve observed is that players really like having photos taken! …

Introduction

Ask somebody who is just starting up an Escape room what they do in their spare time and you’ll likely get a very quizzical look - that is if they have time to turn around and consider the question. So when I asked a question like this …

When you think about marketing your escape room, what usually comes to mind?

Many people think of online marketing or advertising via local publications, but probably one of the most under-utilised methods is direct mail marketing.

As it sounds, this is where you send advertising materials in the …

It’s always worth making your Escape Room group photos stand out from the crowd. One way to that is through the easily created but interesting modification, called the vignette effect. Users of Buzzshot can have this effect applied automatically of course, but here we'll look at how you …

Every escape room needs a reliable online booking solution.

There are a number of different options you might choose. Some have been specially built with escape rooms in mind, whereas others are more generic booking systems.

Here, we’re looking at four different systems that are each frequently used …

How well do you rate your escape room website?

Good? Poor? Could be better?

The important thing about your website is that it should be meeting the goals you have for it - promoting your escape room and ultimately, getting those bookings!

Some websites do a better job …

Attracting corporate clients can bring many benefits to escape rooms.

For example, most corporate groups will tend to want rooms during weekdays, which are often slower times for escape rooms. Corporate groups are also often larger than your average booking and typically have bigger budgets.

We know from …

Virtual Reality (VR) for escape rooms is where electronic gaming and escape room puzzles meet.

This is a growing area of business for escape rooms, incorporating virtual worlds that can be comprised of basically anything within the limits of the game designer’s imagination.

Players are immersed in the …

The key to a successful escape room is to offer an amazing customer experience. The key to that customer experience? Hiring great staff.

If this is your first time hiring staff, or if you haven’t hired for an escape room before, you may be wondering, who do I …

Do you collect email addresses from your escape room guests?

Collecting them and building a list is a great way to keep in contact with customers and market your business. The trick is that you have to know a thing or two about email marketing to do so …

How well do your escape room players rate their check-in experience with you? Have you ever asked?

If not, gathering some survey data from your players can be a very helpful place to start when examining your systems and processes. As a general rule, people appreciate efficiency and …

How did you find the last new restaurant or leisure activity you tried?

Maybe a friend told you about the place, maybe you saw an advertisement, or perhaps, like around 86% of consumers, you read reviews of the place first.

This makes getting reviews very important. According …

So, you’ve set up your escape room, you have your great reviews, you’ve even managed to work out how to get repeat visitors – but how can you find that extra source of revenue without the additional outlay? This is not a George Lucas production, your games master …

Escape rooms belong to a relatively new game genre that game theorist, Dr Scott Nicholson, considers to be ‘at the intersection of games and themed entertainment’ (from his 2016 paper). The industry is only a decade or so old, yet escape rooms seem to have …

Yep, those heavy handed over-enthusiastic “over-stimulated” players that smash and crash and clatter around. Until surprise, surprise, something breaks. So what do you do? Here’s my take on it - it is something that every escape room owner should plan for. Right from the design of the room …

I wanted you to be the first to know, the rumours are true! Buzzshot was the platform chosen to support the player admin for the groundbreaking new London Escape Room, ‘Sherlock: The Game is Now’. We’ve been secretly working with genius developers Time Run and while I won’t …

I'm pleased to announce that Buzzshot supports Xola's just-released waiver software support and we're in their new App Store. Buzzshot has supported integration with Xola for some time but with this new support from Xola it's even better than before.

Buzzshot is the Escape Room software that …

We're constantly adding new things to Buzzshot to make it the best way to manage check-ins, waivers and photos for your Escape Room and to give you happier players and more reviews.

But there's so much more software out there that does different and complementary things. That's why …

Nothing in this article or on this site is legal advice. Specialist legal advice should be taken in relation to specific circumstances.

The GDPR is creeping up on you…

It’s not a monster though- in fact it’s a fairly sensible bit of Data Protection law designed to ensure …

I'm pleased to announce that Buzzshot version 2.3 is now available in the App Store and the Play Store.

Buzzshot is software for Escape Rooms that handles waivers, team photos, Facebook upload and automatically contacts your players after their games to help you get those great reviews!

Buzzshot …

Things usually heat up at Xmas in the entertainment business and escape rooms are no exception. Sometimes you’ll have resets that are full of glitter and sparkles - oh what joy! In the more adult end of the spectrum the groups are drunker, noisier and just have that …

A few weeks, or was it months ago I wrote a piece on training GMs - and I said (sorry to repeat myself)

Obviously when you recruit a GM you’re looking for someone personable, adaptable, able to think in the moment and improvise and so on - essentially …

It's finally here! I'm excited to announce the latest and greatest version of Buzzshot is available for all customers now. This new update features a bold new design by the talented Megan Sayers and numerous UI improvements.

Buzzshot 2.0 is:

• Easier to use


• Much more flexible and customizable …

Customers - Why?
The customers - what keeps them entertained. It’s always a mystery to me why some people come to Escape Rooms. I guess there is a certain amount of excitement in trying to solve the puzzles. There are those eureka moments when you get the answer. …

I’ve not posted anything for a while for two reasons. One was a holiday in Croatia, the highlight of which, in this strange twisted mind set that the ancient walled city of Dubrovnik instills in a certain kind of person like me, was a day kayaking around and …

I’m sure that every GM gets tired and fed-up of people who come late. People who cannot follow the simplest of instructions, who cannot tell the time. One of the saddest texts I ever had, on a busy Saturday afternoon, four weeks before Christmas, arrived only ten minutes …

Speaking as a GM who occasionally (ahem) misses something on a reset I have to say that it does happen. I've made checklists (which were helpful for new GMs), but the main thing is going round and re-checking everything as you go round the room. Also when I …

There’s been a bit of discussion in one of the escape room Facebook groups recently about troubles that people have had with putting strangers together despite the fact that “the small print clearly states that others may join you.” !

“Despite the fact” ? - there lies the …

“Freshness!” It’s far more than air fresheners and holding a lot of people in a confined space and whether you go for the fresh scented bouquet of a just washed urinal or let the natural odours of all mingle and ferment together. Room hygiene? Well yes that’s certainly …

The Bad Day

Lady Chastity’s Reserve, variously and colourfully described with gratuitous reference to psychedelic drugs, as “Crystal Maze on Crystal Meth” is a rather naughty, very atmospheric and very immersive experience currently available in Brighton and London. I talked to founder and owner Ben Tucker about starting up an …

At some time most escape rooms will get a less than favourable review - maybe it’s because something went wrong like the A/C failed or maybe it was a slightly off day for your GM.

There it is sitting at the top of all your five star reviews, …

This story of my trousers is slightly off topic for an Escape Room GM, but bang on for customer care ( but don't forget this post!.) Three months ago I bought some quite expensive trousers from Spoke - ones that I can wear for smart but still …

First of all you should be quite clear that you will not accept people arriving in a dysfunctional level of inebriation - it should be clearly laid out in your terms and conditions. It is a sad fact, especially since Escape Rooms are becoming more and more popular …

Everybody knows that Customer Care is vital in any Escape Room - we all know that you have to be nice to your customers, it’s just a business truism nowadays. The thing about real customer care - the care that benefits your business properly is that it goes …

I am a GM in a very Gothic, atmospheric room - it’s eerie decor, weird soundscape and little scares (Nervous Player “ Is there anything scary in there?” Me: “Madam, I will have to refer you to my lawyers to answer that”) are part and parcel of the …

Of course no one would be a Escape Room host if it wasn’t for the huge number of entertaining and just downright nice people that you meet and interact with. And interact with is the key word.

Glancing through escape room reviews there is a common theme - …

There comes a time, for every game master when it isn’t that the group you have in are desperately rude or drunk or unpleasant, but there is something about them, something about them that you just don’t like. Now it could be said, and probably quite rightly so, …

While obsessionally looking at other Escape Room feedback and pictures I did find some real beauts. I particularly laughed in a knowingly, unkindly way, at the bearded winners of one Escape Room as they stared glumly out from their winner’s sofa, their mouths set firm against the ordeal …

I touched on the GM manual in my last post. Many escape rooms have them but, and this is something I mentioned last time, they are so seldom up to date. We’re all busy people, and escape rooms change all the time - things get broken, new …

Obviously when you recruit a GM you’re looking for someone personable, adaptable, able to think in the moment and improvise and so on - essentially the qualities needed to run a large company with the acting and improvisational skills of the combined cast of Who’s Line Is It …

We all want feedback from the games we’ve run, of course we do. Except. Except for those groups that turn up every once in awhile that are really just mouths and lungs with legs to move them around, mostly at random.

These are the groups that make knowing …