1. Where did the inspiration for The Great Big Escape come from?

I’ve always loved escape rooms because they help me completely switch off. It’s something I struggle with doing generally, so need things which stop me from picking up my phone or getting distracted with the busyness of modern-day life.

I found escape rooms to be a great solution as they almost force you to take yourself out of the ‘real world’ and switch off time. I find they help me wind down and focus my thoughts.

My partner, Amie and I chose to create The Great Big Escape after lockdown, with the idea of helping people get out and about, and experience a whole new environment. We were able to let creativity run wild and develop some unique concepts to really engage people.

We started building the business in November 2021, with our grand opening on February 2022. Since then, we’ve had more than 500 teams take on our rooms so it’s been a fantastic success so far.”

2 What does your role involve?

I mainly deal with the day-to-day management and back-end operations, while Amie leads on designing the rooms.

We really love what we do and believe our staff are the cornerstone of our business. There’s a huge amount of respect, care, and trust among the team. It’s always been important for Amie and me to build our team culture using learnings from our past career experiences. We like to be involved and have face time with our team, but avoid being overbearing and on people’s cases all the time. We want to allow people to shape their own roles and truly enjoy what they do.

We’ve had a baby since launching the business so naturally our time has been a bit more divided, but our team has continued to do an incredible job and we couldn’t be prouder of what’s been achieved.

3. What’s your favourite part of your job?

Simply put, I love seeing people enjoy themselves. It’s always uplifting to see people work well together, crack different clues, and feel a real sense of achievement.

I remember one day where we had 23 people in the building at one time – everyone was having a laugh between the teams and staff, and the atmosphere was buzzing.

4. What do you enjoy most about being based at Brewery Square?

We’re surrounded by a great mix of businesses at Brewery Square and having everything in one place means we can offer visitors the full package. For instance, they may come to us for an hour, do a bit of shopping, then move onto one of the many delicious food and drink outlets right on our doorstep.

It’s great to have made lots of connections with other businesses at Brewery Square, hosting their own friends and family and even collaborating with them on room concepts. Our most recent partnership with Seventh Seal has gone down a storm already, and we can’t wait to explore new collaborative concepts in the future. Watch this space!