Summer Team Building Ideas

by James Bond | Jun 24, 2022 | Outdoor Escape Room

The summer is the most dreaded time of the year for many people. To make matters worse, there are also fewer escape rooms this season. It means that it’s harder to get an appointment or slot during this time, and you have fewer options if you want to try something new.

But don’t worry! We’ve got a solution to your problem. You can still enjoy fun adventures like these even in the middle of summer! All you need is a little planning (and some help from us!).

With our guide, we’ll show you how to turn your boring office into one exceptional team-building exercise without having to go too far away from home or breaking the bank. Let’s do it!

Considerations to Ponder in Planning a Summer Team Bonding with Colleagues

1. Consider the size and age of your team

The most crucial factor to consider when planning a team-building event is who will participate. Organizing an inappropriate activity for your employees’ age or fitness level can lead to embarrassment and injury and prevent them from enjoying themselves.

2. Decide on a fun activity that will be accessible to everyone (i.e., not golfing or kayaking)

Find something that everyone in your group likes to do or at least has the potential to appreciate. Bowling is a great activity because it’s fun for all ages and skill levels. If you’d like something that will test your team’s skills and mental capability, an escape game is the most recommended activity for team bonding.

3. Food plan – don’t just rely on fast food options. Pack a lunch or order in advance.

It’s important to consider everyone’s preferences while planning for food. Some people may be vegetarian, allergic to certain foods, or simply don’t like what you want to serve.

4. Consider transportation needs – do you need buses, vans, etc.?

Transportation is essential when planning a company team-building activity. When choosing the perfect event, consider activities that are easily accessible by public transit or are close to hotels and airports for easy group travel.

5. Keep it short and sweet!

A day-long team event is too much for most people to handle. Plan a fun team building for about 4 hours max with breaks between activities. It’s important to remember that you don’t have to spend too much money. However, organizing team bonding is an excellent investment to promote productivity and harmony in the company.

Games, music, or even just a trip out can be fun and entertaining for everyone! You can also try escape rooms or scavenger hunts which can be played simultaneously for as short as 1 hour, depending on how long you want the game to keep going.

Summer Team Bonding Ideas for the Company

1. Have a potluck lunch.

Potlucks are a great way to socialize with friends and coworkers. If you’re new at the office or have just started working, potluck lunches can be a great way to get to know everyone. It also encourages creativity in the kitchen.

2. Take a company-wide walk to get some fresh air.

Taking regular walks helps employees be more productive because it clears the mind and makes people less stressed. Plus, walking is fun! Did you know that taking a 10–15 minute walk outside three times a week can help reduce stress and improve your mood?

3. Organize an office Olympics event with different games for all departments

Office Olympics is an exercise in team building. It reflects the importance of having people work together smoothly and effectively. When people are involved in severe teamwork, they develop a sense of shared experience, which means they will trust each other more easily and feel closer.

You can organize a corporate event that mixes games and sports competitions to bring people together in a suitable environment. You can also customize games based on the different departments to feel included, no matter their role in the business.

The best thing about an office Olympics event is that it’s fun for everyone. And don’t forget to celebrate even the most minor achievements, like winning a raffle or something else.

4. Host a movie night and watch the newest blockbuster together.

Movie night is a perfect idea for those seeking to encourage a sense of community and bring people closer together. People are generally in higher spirits during the summer months, so it’s an ideal time to foster this type of interaction.

Ideally, you should schedule outdoor movies in a large area for such an event so everyone can be involved and have room on either side. Cleanup is relatively easy afterward by distributing garbage bags before the event begins.

5. Go on an outdoor adventure – take your big or small team to experience Escape games.

One of the best examples that come to mind is an escape room — these activities involve teamwork and give people a chance to have great fun together. Some companies choose this as their team-building activity, allowing employees who might be introverted or don’t fit into social groups to integrate into the office by participating in this event entirely. It also helps them build emotional intelligence too since it encourages empathy and improves understanding of how other people feel when we interact with them.

There are many different types of escape rooms worldwide today because this idea has become such a popular one. You shouldn’t have any problem finding some inspiration if you’re looking for something new.

In Conclusion

With these ideas, you can make your company’s summer unforgettable. These team bonding activities encourage harmony and productivity without breaking the bank. And if you’re looking for the most innovative and interactive idea for an office summer team-bonding event that will have everyone talking about it in years to come, nothing beats escape games!

So what are you waiting for? Let’s get started today. Before beginning this project, contact our Cluetivity experts to assist with any questions or concerns.

We’ll help ensure everything goes smoothly throughout the process, from conception to execution. Want a personalized quote or try our latest escape games? Request a demo play today.

Blackout: All You Need To Know About Our New Cluetivity Outdoor Escape Game [with FAQs]

by James Bond | Jun 17, 2022 | B2B, Business, Outdoor Escape Room, Partner

We are all eager to get out and experience new things, even if it’s in our own city, enjoy the weather, breathe fresh air and have fun with some outdoor activity. Well, it’s about time!

Outdoor Escape Rooms are just what we are looking for and, moreover, presently considered a very popular social entertainment activity. They combine the best elements of escape rooms, scavenger hunts and geocaching with the help of a smartphone or a tablet.

What is an outdoor escape game?

Outdoor escape games are fully immersive adventure games where the team’s main goal is to solve a mission within a time limit. The games are equipped with a complete storyline set in real locations, tricky riddles, fantastic AR avatars and complementary gadgets for a real-like feeling. Usually, these adventures are run on a phone or tablet following a real online map.

Outdoor escape games are among the most famous fully immersive scavenger game experiences for company events, family bonding, and friends getaway. Frankly speaking, it’s a worldwide trend as they add interactivity to the reality surrounding to immerse teams into a whole story.

When it comes to lasting experiences, outdoor games are way better than other team games available. It improves our emotional, mental, and physical health. Outdoor Escape Rooms provide the perfect combination of team-building activities and mind-bending puzzles for groups who enjoy solving problems together while enjoying real scenarios.

How to set up an Escape Game

Creating a good escape room is hard. It’s not enough to just have an interesting premise or some fantastic riddles – it needs the right balance of both. Most escape rooms suffer from one of two problems; either they’re too easy, and players can solve them without any thought, or they’re so complicated that players need to spend hours trying every possible solution before finally getting through.

First and foremost, you need an exciting premise that will grab your players’ attention from the start – make sure they’re invested in solving your riddles before they even walk through the door! Next, consider how complex each riddle should be; not too easy (or people might get bored) and not too hard (so people don’t give up).

Finally, think about what type of customer or demographic you want to attract with your escape room experience. This way, you can design an escape room that’s just right for them! Have you thought about creating one for yourself? Cluetivity experts are here for you.

The Cluetivity Outdoor Escape Games have been created by experienced game designers who know how to make fun scenarios for players with all levels of experience and skillsets. We have decades of combined experience in creating physical games that challenge people in new ways, but we also understand how tricky online gaming can be to make sure your customers have a great time! We cover any audience requirements and understand the niche of your business, giving you the right tools to build unique, exclusive and top-quality escape games for your B2B and B2C business.

For instance, our latest outdoor game experience, Blackout, is fully equipped with top-notch elements such as AR avatars, ultimate gadgets and hidden clues, new multiplayer features and the latest technology.

Blackout, The Latest Outdoor Game Experience

FAQ

1. What is Blackout?

Blackout is a Cyber-Spy-Hacking-Game taking place in the modern universe. An unknown group of hackers hacked a city power plant, causing one of the biggest threats in modern times: a citywide Blackout!

The consequence is the complete collapse of the modern world as we know it. Unknown to the population, players’ city is currently running on emergency power. They have just a limited time to stop the hackers, restore the power supply and avoid the biggest catastrophe in modern history!

2. What is the team’s mission?

Here is the mission:

Three (3) main power nodes and a secret emergency generator can control the city power network. The team must find these power nodes and activate them.

The team has to find the secret emergency generator and restart it to restore the power in their city!

As this is a mission of the utmost importance to the whole world, the city is full of agents from different organizations and stakeholders who are either on the same mission as the team or double agents who want to stop them! To protect the team against possible opponents, Cluetivity has equipped each team with a unique new skill: Hacking!

The teams must use this new skill carefully.

3. Is the Blackout mission complemented with any widgets?

Definitely yes! Each team will be equipped with a unique case called ‘ActionPack.’ This ActionPack is designed to make the story fully immersive and interactive, making it genuine thanks to the great items and hidden clues.

There will be around three (3) pre-defined ActionPack riddles in the game. Additional ActionPack riddles can be created easily with some of the provided items. We are producing a wholly customized case for the ActionPack, which will fit perfectly into the game setting. The new ActionPack will weigh just around 2,2KG.

4. What is the estimated playing time?

The standard playing time is between 2 to 2,5 hours. Yet, the playing time could be reduced to around 1,5 to 2 hours by deleting 2 to 3 riddles.

5. Can Blackout be played as a single-player or in teams?

Our mission is to build teamwork, cooperation and team bonding within each game. Therefore, the game is designed to play in teams. We recommend each team be between 2 to 5 players.

6. Can different teams play against each other?

Yes! Teams can play parallel to each other. Players can also play „against“ each other. Each player’s score can be compared at the end of the game. Besides the high score, our new optional Multiplayer Feature (Versus Mode) will allow players to interact directly against each other.

7. What means the “Versus Mode” in Blackout, and how does it work?

The „Versus Mode” (also called VS-Mode) is an optional and additional new mode in Blackout. It is a multiplayer feature that enables teams to fight against each other. The standard story-based game mode works without the VS-Mode!

The VS-Mode can be activated in the route settings on the iPad. If the VS-Mode is activated, players see an additional Button inside the User Interface of the App. This button enables the players to „Hack“ other teams and steal money from them (in Blackout, the teams collect ENERGY and DOLLARS $).

To use the VS-Mode, the iPad MUST be connected to the internet! For this mode, SIM cards are needed. The data volume for using this function is low, so no big data plans are required.

8. What are the limitations of the “Versus Mode”?

The VS-Mode does not work for single teams. It will work only if multiple teams are playing simultaneously and in the same high score.

9. What outdoor settings and conditions should be considered to set up Blackout?

We recommend using a city location (probably a forest would not fit much to the setting). Any urban area with buildings will be okay. The size of the area needed is very flexible and depends on the length of the game.

10. Is Blackout exclusively an outdoor game?

Not really! We plan to release an indoor version with printed documents and without the need for the ActionPack.

11. Which iPad model is recommended to play the game smoothly?

We recommend an iPad 6th gen Wi-Fi + Cellular (2018) or newer to run Blackout and other Cluetivity games such as Operation Mindfall, Magic Portal or The Last Secret. There might be other iPads like iPad 5 or iPad Air 2+3 and several iPad Pro models which might be supported. A detailed list of all supported devices will be published once the first version is available in the app store soon.

In our upcoming Outdoor Escape Game Blackout, players will be equipped with an exciting new Gadget Case – the Cluetivity ActionPack™ and immersed in a fully new story. Become a Cluetivity Partner now and bring Blackout to your city this summer!

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8 Considerations Before Running an Escape Room Business

by James Bond | Feb 3, 2022 | Business, Outdoor Escape Room, Partner

Fun, challenging, and memorable – these three words describe what escape rooms are all about. If you are thinking about running your own escape game business in your locale, here are some of the considerations to ponder before joining this industry to open your own escape room business.

What is an Escape Room?

Escape Rooms are puzzle rooms or escape games filled with theme-based challenges, where the players form groups to complete tasks by looking for hints and use them to solve various puzzles. The rule of the game is to finish the challenges at a given time.

Contrary to the misconception about escape games, no one is locked in. All the threats and dangers that the players will be going through are all imaginary. It becomes experiential because participants will be taking part in the story designed in the game.

Being a player is not hard because escape games have a Game Master who explains how the game works, what the players need to do, and the one who will provide certain clues if needed. Most escape rooms offer the following settings: castle, ancient pyramids, space stations, and more. Some even offer a customized theme depending on players’ preferences.

If you tried an escape room before, you might experience the classic escape room setup that requires the players to finish the game in under an hour or 45 minutes to solve the puzzles and unlock the door. But now, there are new features added in escape rooms like solving a crime, additional targets, finding treasures, and even rescuing hostages.

Due to this, escape rooms have never been so popular. Many companies avail of their services for celebration and reward purposes. Many also use this for team-building activities, a practical activity for building trust, communication, and strengthening relationships.

For a marketer like you, the vast popularity of escape rooms is a huge opportunity for you to start your very own escape room business. As you begin your escape games business plan, there are certain things you should put into consideration aside from the startup costs. These are:

Experience a lot of Escape Rooms

As a startup tip, you do not need to have a business degree to open your very own escape room. What you need are skills and a lot of experience in playing the game for you to succeed. Well, you can’t expect a great outcome if you, yourself, are not familiar or clueless about how an escape room works.

Aside from experience, you also need creativity, attention to detail, and good customer service skills. In this industry, it is not enough to be wise. You should be creative in developing new concepts, room designs, and clues for your players.

Keen attention to details is a must, from booking escape rooms to placing clues. You, as a future escape room owner, must have a good eye for details.

If you have experience in customer service, that is a great advantage because it is ideal for escape room owners to provide superb customer service to work well with adults, teens, and kids.

Find to talk to other Escape Room owners.

It might be a surprise, but unlike other industries where the competition is tough, the escape room community has an inviting aura, and the owners are supportive. To grow or develop this industry, escape game owners rely on one another as a support system.

This practice started way back when escape room owners recommended other rooms to try. Although this practice is slowly fading, some owners are still happy to share what they know about running the business with new entrepreneurs to the point that they will even discuss with you the startup cost of running an escape game business.

Be part of the community.

As mentioned above, the escape room industry has a welcoming community. You can easily reach them as they mostly communicate through Facebook and other social groups like Reddit. They have numerous groups.

For example, North America has 25+ groups whose primary purpose is to aid new owners in marketing and sales. Aside from that, you can also gather information from their podcasts and blogs.

Find time to attend seminars and conferences.

Conferences in this industry do not happen regularly. If you stumble a virtual event about starting an escape game business, it’s best to attend. Such an occasion will help you stay updated with the latest trend or technology to apply to your escape room. Your effort is worth it as you follow a conference because a large portion of the seminar is purely dedicated to helping start-up owners.

Market Research is a must.

If you already decided to start your own escape room business, the first thing you should prepare for is the escape room cost and planning the location of the escape rooms. It is a must because aside from your marketing strategy, this is the highlight of your business. To succeed in this industry, you should come up with new themes for your rooms.

Still haven’t come up with a great theme? You can check out other escape rooms and gain some insights from them.

Aside from the business proper, you should keep in mind your target customers. Are you going after the kids, teens, or adults? Make up your mind, but if you want to cater to all age groups, it is advised that you have 1-2 challenging rooms, 1-2 comfortable rooms, and several rooms in between. This way, all age groups can have fun.

If you want to be unique, you can also have those portable escape rooms set up anywhere.

Study competitors.

Learning from the best in the industry can help you gain insight into how you will run your escape room business and create superior rooms like no other. You’re not going to ask your competitors for a lesson directly. You have to study the way they run their business.

Do they offer free versions?

Do they have demo plays?

If they have been in the industry for a while, they must have been doing something right. Also, include their weakness in your study to ensure that their weakness is your success.

Write a Brilliant Business Plan

An escape game business plan is a must if you’re going to start an escape game business. But, do not overwhelm yourself.

You can start with small steps like the designs for your escape room. From there, you should focus on creating a sturdy foundation for your business. So, your business plan must include the following:

The name or brand name of your escape room business
The mission of your business
The market research

These are essential because you’ll know if you’re low on funds and need to attract investors. It will ensure them that you know what you’re doing.

Expenses in starting an Escape Room

Every business has its startup cost. For the escape room, it has too many factors to be considered. But, if we base it on the classic escape room, it could start from $10,000.

Portable escape rooms are much cheaper, ranging from $4,000 to $7,000. Get in touch with Cluetivity for more information. Likewise, transportation is already added to the calculation.

What makes escape room business expensive are the following:

The renovation cost of the rooms
The additional lobby area furniture
The supplies and decors
The technical supplies like video cameras
The vehicle for both classic and portable escape rooms

Conclusion

Starting a business is not a stroll in the park. During your journey, you may experience some bumps, but it’s okay. As long as you stick to your business idea, keep yourself immerse and updated with the escape game industry, you can navigate your business smoothly.

To learn more about escape game business opportunities, contact a Cluetivity specialist today to jumpstart your escape game business this year.

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5 Ways to Expand Your Escape Room Business

by James Bond | Oct 21, 2019 | Business

Escape room owners often reach their limits quickly—limited space, small catchment area, tight budget etc. But let’s not talk about restrictions. Instead, we want to show you five ways you can expand your escape room business.

In recent years, the escape room industry has undergone many changes. Large franchises continue to grow, while smaller, independent operators find it more and more challenging to survive. However, there’s no need to get involved in a discount war against your competitors to stay alive. By following our tips, you can ensure that you’re doing the most to grow your escape room, expand your reach, and discover new audiences!

1. Open up your escape room to corporate clients

Our first tip isn’t a direct expansion of your escape room, but it is a tip that can increase your sales significantly. Consider offering team events for companies! More and more companies are using escape rooms for team-building events, staff development, or as part of recruitment processes.

Michael Meinke from the Association of Live Escape and Adventure Games (FvLEAG) describes in an interview a little more about what is behind the usage of escape rooms in team events. He states:

“The use of escape rooms for an assessment center, as a marketing tool, or as a team building measure is still relatively at the beginning of the possibilities. I think a lot about it myself. For example, you often experience a job applicant very differently in an interview than in an escape room.”

Hosting team events means having a lot of players at the same time

As businesses will be more inclined to play between Monday and Friday, you can fill out appointments during quieter hours. They also usually come in much larger groups than your average booking, so ensure you are well prepared!

But how easy is it to connect with companies? The first and easiest step is to set up a landing page for businesses on your website’s homepage. Whenever someone visits your site, one of the first things they’ll see is that you’re now offering corporate events.

Make sure companies get a great experience with you.

Using Google Ads and Facebook Ads, you could also target prospects likely to be responsible for organizing corporate events – for example, HR Managers. Connecting with professionals has never been more accessible with access to networks such as LinkedIn and Xing. If you prefer to meet with people face-to-face, try exhibiting at HR conferences or other B2B events. If you want to expand into corporate events but can’t entirely host over 100 participants, you might want to consider our next tip…

2. Offer outdoor activities

Imagine this: a medium-sized local business is planning a big team event and is keen to book your escape room. However, you don’t have access to a spacious enough area for the players. That’s no problem if you also offer outdoor escape games.

Using state-of-the-art augmented reality technology, games such as Blackout, Magic Portal and Operation Mindfall combine the best of scavenger hunts and live escape games and offer an AR teambuilding experience. What’s the aim? Players explore places in their city, scavenge for clues, and crack tricky riddles to solve their mission.

In Operation Mindfall, players take over the role of secret agents.

Cluetivity’s ready-to-play games are also customizable. You can create puzzles centered around your area or even tailored to your client’s individual booking. To make the experience even more realistic, each of Cluetivity’s games comes with Agent Packs, with high-tech gadgets and tools to help your players complete their mission.

Whether you’re on the client’s premises, in your town center, or even in an open field, Cluetivity can be set up anywhere in less than 30 minutes, making it the perfect additional service for your business. Our existing partners include escape rooms, team building and events companies, tour guides, paintballing businesses and laser tag arenas.

Find out more now!

3. Be number one in marketing

Marketing plays a crucial role in the success of an escape room. Only those who find you on the internet can book with you, and having a website with booking capabilities is now the bare minimum.

It’s essential to be present in search engine results. For example, if someone searches for “Escape Room Buxtehude,” you ideally want to be the first search result.

If there are a lot of competitive results above your website on Google, it’s time to invest in ranking high with a 1-keyword ad. This is called Search Engine Advertising (SEA). The amount it costs varies from case to case, but this is something that we will discuss in a later post.

The online marketing for escape rooms doesn’t differ much from marketing for other small businesses. But since many people gather information online before they book a game, you should definitely optimize your efforts as much as possible.

4. Build innovative, forward-thinking new rooms

One crucial thing to remember is that people don’t want to play in the same escape room twice. So, if you want your customers to come back, you’ll need several rooms with different scenarios.

The storyline possibilities are endless. Whether you are robbing a bank, escaping from another dimension, or regaining control of a driverless train, you can simply purchase ready-to-assemble rooms and have them installed by your vendor. The advantage is obvious – the effort required from you is minimal.

Building stable props and creating well-balanced puzzles are the biggest challenges when setting up an escape room.

Alternatively, you can conceptualize your own stories and create a niche in your market. However, this can be quite a time-consuming task. Among other aspects, you must write a compelling narrative, develop challenging puzzles that are neither too difficult nor too simple, and visual design elements to make your storyline come to life.

Even though it requires a lot of effort, more than 80 percent of surveyed escape room operators say that they develop their concepts independently or with their business partners. How creative!

5. Think big and create a second location

If one escape room isn’t enough for you, or you’ve just exhausted all the space in your current location, consider opening a new branch. The expansion also, of course, comes with a great deal of effort and risks. But, as we discussed earlier, small companies are becoming increasingly difficult to assert themselves. Therefore, you will have to make some big business decisions sooner or later.

Before deciding on an additional branch for your company, you should ask yourself a few questions:

What are my competitors doing?
Should I stay in my location or expand to a new area?
What revenue can I realistically expect at the new location?
What are the requirements for a new property?
Are additional investments necessary? For example, fire protection.
How do I announce my new escape room?

The amount of risk involved in expanding is almost comparable to the amount of risk involved in finding your first business. Whether or not you want to take this step, you can only decide for yourself. However, there are already around 400 providers with more than 1,000 rooms in Germany alone.

Is the investment in another location too risky for you? Outdoor games and city rallies can be a far cheaper alternative. The setup costs are low, no additional team members are required, and the possibilities are endless. Feel free to get in touch with us, and we will be more than happy to advise you on how to integrate AR gaming into your business!