Game On 2025
ESCAPE ROOM CONFERENCE
April 29-30 // Canterbury
The escape room industry is evolving, and staying ahead of the game has never been more crucial. Game On’s talks and interactive workshops will focus on how you can stay ahead of the curve and remain relevant in today’s competitive market.
GAME ON TOPICS
FUTURE PROOFING
Setting up and maintaining escape room companies that are future proof and sustainable in the long run.
DIVERSIFICATION
Diversifying game portfolios and product offerings so you stay relevant on a saturated immersive market.
INSPIRATION
Current and future developments on the market that will inspire the escape room businesses of the future.
HOW IT WORKS
INTERACTIVE WORKSHOPS
All the workshops at Game On will be led by industry experts who mastered their field. Sessions will be tailored to address your unique business needs, helping you develop a personalised, actionable plan to enhance and grow your escape room.
ENGAGING PRESENTATIONS
The talks at Game On set the stage for the conference, providing a big-picture overview of the current escape room market. They offer valuable insights and practical strategies to help you navigate your challenges with confidence.
THE AGENDA
The Game On 2025 agenda is built to inspire change and provide practical insights on turning current market trends to your advantage. Across two days, you'll gain valuable knowledge from industry experts and have plenty of opportunities to connect with fellow owners and exhibitors.
DAY 0 - APRIL 28
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On the evening before the conference starts on the 29th of April we will gather for a few drinks, light hearted chats and to hang out.
Most of the exhibitors and speakers will arrive on this day so it’s a great chance for you to meet them in a casual setting.
DAY 1 - APRIL 29
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🛒 Located in the main hall of the Sibson building - this is where the conference will take place at the University of Kent - you’ll find all the exhibitors for you to explore.
Highlight Sponsors
🔒 Quiz Boxing: A new concept from France and a great option if you are looking to diversify your game portfolio.
🔒 Questy: A new game building platform for outdoor and play at home games. The best part, it requires zero coding skills.
🔒 Buzzshot: Escape Room Software powering business growth, player marketing and customer experience.
🔒 RiskBox: An insurance provider with packages specifically made for escape room needs.
🔒 Immersif: One-stop shop for escape room finances: Bookkeeping, Payroll, VAT, Annual Accounts, Self-Assessment, ER Insights, and more!
🔒 Massive Impact: Marketing agency looking after your website, SEO and PPC management needs. They also specialise in escape rooms.
Sponsors
🗝️ Escape Puzzles: Complete escape room plans and assets you need to start building an escape room.
🗝️ Escape Workshop: Creating full builds from the minds behind the highly praised Pier Pressure games in Brighton.
🗝️ COGS: Show control built for live interactive experiences such as Phantom Peak, Bridge Command and many more around the globe.
🗝️ Indestroom: One of the largest escape room supplier with dozens of different themes and game formats in their library.
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🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Future Proofing
🎤 Speaker: Zoli Papp
🎯 Bio Highlights: Zoli is the co-founder of the UK’s longest running escape room clueQuest. He also consults escape room owners on business development and marketing.
📈 Talk Summary
Although the global escape room market is valued at 9 Billion USD and is predicted to grow yearly by 15% in the next 5 years, developed markets such as the UK, US and Europe are experiencing bearish markets.
This new situation can only be survived by escape rooms that are well structured and keep innovating.
Zoli will share his insights on how you too can set up an agile organisational structure that offers career paths and is capable of navigating this new landscape.
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🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Future Proofing
🎤 Speaker: David Goodman
🎯 Bio Highlights: David - the owners of Hounds - writes, designs and builds all sorts of immersive productions. He is not only committed to evolve his own immersive business but he’s also eager to help the industry as a whole.
📈 Talk Summary
A thought provoking talk about the need to change our perspective on how we view escape rooms.
David will share insights on why and how he and his team almost entirely dropped the use of the words ‘escape rooms’ in order to fight negative connotation in potential customers’ minds attached to these words
This change helped them to reach a wide range of potential customers who might have thought: ‘Escape rooms are not for me.’
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✍️ Format Overview
There will be three interactive workshops happening simultaneously that you can choose from.
The goal of these workshops is to engage you in excercises so you can walk away with a to-do list.
These workshops will repeat at 3pm so you’ll be able to attend two of the three options.
📝 Option #1 - Adjusting Difficulty On The Fly
🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Future Proofing
🎤 Workshop Leader: Philly Harris
🎯 Bio Highlights: Philly’s academic career in psychology was cut short when she and her husband started Pier Pressure, a TERPECA winning spot. Since then she not only designed games for themselves but various clients around Europe.
📈 Workshop details
Learn about adjusting game difficulty on the fly and why this will benefit both the players and your operational team.
During the workshop you’ll turn a couple of your own puzzles into ones that have different difficulty levels. This will give you a framework to update all your rooms after the conference.
📝 Option #2 - Data Driven Decision Making
🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Future Proofing
🎤 Workshop Leader: Chi Yun Wai (Sam)
🎯 Bio Highlights: Chi not only owned an escape room in Central London but he is a master of numbers and a certified bookkeeper. Since he sold his escape room, he’s supporting owners in making financially viable decisions.
📈 Workshop details
This workshop will dive deep into escape room business numbers and how you can back up your decisions with them.
If you ever wondered for example if one of your rooms is still making enough profit or it should be replaced, this workshop has your name written all over it.
📝 Option #3 - Memorable Branding
🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Future Proofing
🎤 Workshop Leader: Zoli Papp
🎯 Bio Highlights: Zoli not only co-founded clueQuest with it’s widely recognised yellow mouse, Mr Q, but through his consulting work he also helped owners refresh their businesses around the globe.
📈 Workshop details
If you feel like your brand could use a refresh or just want to help your customers to recall your business more easily, this workshop is the one for you.
During the workshop you will work on your brand’s personality and will be shown practical techniques that will help you to differentiate your business from the competition.
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🍔 Enjoy a delicious selection of sandwiches and finger food in the main hall.
🛒 This lunch break is two hours long so you’ll also have plenty of time to explore the sponsors exhibiting in the main hall.
Highlight Sponsors
🔒 Quiz Boxing: A new concept from France and a great option if you are looking to diversify your game portfolio.
🔒 Questy: A new game building platform for outdoor and play at home games. The best part, it requires zero coding skills.
🔒 Buzzshot: Escape Room Software powering business growth, player marketing and customer experience.
🔒 RiskBox: An insurance provider with packages specifically made for escape room needs.
🔒 Immersif: One-stop shop for escape room finances: Bookkeeping, Payroll, VAT, Annual Accounts, Self-Assessment, ER Insights, and more!
🔒 Massive Impact: Marketing agency looking after your website, SEO and PPC management needs. They also specialise in escape rooms.
Sponsors
🗝️ Escape Puzzles: Complete escape room plans and assets you need to start building an escape room.
🗝️ Escape Workshop: Creating full builds from the minds behind the highly praised Pier Pressure games in Brighton.
🗝️ COGS: Show control built for live interactive experiences such as Phantom Peak, Bridge Command and many more around the globe.
🗝️ Indestroom: One of the largest escape room supplier with dozens of different themes and game formats in their library.
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🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Diversification
🎤 Speaker: Phil Harris
🎯 Bio Highlights: Phil not only co-own Pier Pressure - a UK’s top 100 winner - but also successfully diversified their business into room and prop building.
📈 Talk Summary
Every owner brushes up to the idea at least once in their career to become a supplier for other escape rooms for their props, booking software, marketing needs, just to name a few.
Phil and his team not only played around with this idea but actually did it. During his talk he will share the pitfalls and learning points of their journey.
This talk will equip you with knowledge on how you too could take one of your expertise and become an industry supplier.
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♻️ 11:00 AM Workshops Repeating
All three interactive workshops from the 11:00 am slots are repeating to give you the opportunity to attend two of the three available workshops on day 1.
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Once the 3pm workshops wrap at 3:45pm you’ll have another hour to explore the exhibitors.
The main hall closes at 5pm and it will be time to get ready for the Murder Mystery at Canterbury Tales in downtown Canterbury.
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🕵️ We will head to downtown Canterbury - about 20 minutes by bus or 40 minutes walking - to play a murder mystery specifically made for Game On 2025 by the Escapement team.
📍The game will take place in the brand new Canterbury Tales Immersive Experience. We will have exclusive use of the venue so you can explore and roam freely.
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We will stay at the Canterbury Tales venue to enjoy drinks and hangout after a long but productive first day of the Game On 2025 conference.
“The first Game On conference was invaluable for me as an escape room owner. I found the speakers to be informative and inspiring, but my favorite part of the conference was the networking.”
DAY 2 - APRIL 30
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📍 We will start the day in downtown to play a brand new game, Glitch Hunters: Canterbury.
🕵️ The game will take 60-90 minutes to play. This experience is a follow up to clueQuest’s successful Glitch Hunters: London outdoor game and will make its debut at Game On 2025.
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🛒 Located in the main hall of the Sibson building - this is where the conference will take place at the University of Kent - you’ll find all the exhibitors for you to explore.
Highlight Sponsors
🔒 Quiz Boxing: A new concept from France and a great option if you are looking to diversify your game portfolio.
🔒 Questy: A new game building platform for outdoor and play at home games. The best part, it requires zero coding skills.
🔒 Buzzshot: Escape Room Software powering business growth, player marketing and customer experience.
🔒 RiskBox: An insurance provider with packages specifically made for escape room needs.
🔒 Immersif: One-stop shop for escape room finances: Bookkeeping, Payroll, VAT, Annual Accounts, Self-Assessment, ER Insights, and more!
🔒 Massive Impact: Marketing agency looking after your website, SEO and PPC management needs. They also specialise in escape rooms.
Sponsors
🗝️ Escape Puzzles: Complete escape room plans and assets you need to start building an escape room.
🗝️ Escape Workshop: Creating full builds from the minds behind the highly praised Pier Pressure games in Brighton.
🗝️ COGS: Show control built for live interactive experiences such as Phantom Peak, Bridge Command and many more around the globe.
🗝️ Indestroom: One of the largest escape room supplier with dozens of different themes and game formats in their library.
-
✍️ Format Overview
There will be three interactive workshops happening simultaneously that you can choose from.
The goal of these workshops is to engage you in excercises so you can walk away with a to-do list.
These workshops will repeat at 3pm so you’ll be able to attend two of the three options.
📝 Option #1 - Minimum Investment, Maximum Payoff
🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Diversification
🎤 Workshop Leader: Brent Girhalva and Alex Field
🎯 Bio Highlights: Brent and Alex form a tightly knit team at clueQuest. While Alex looks after the operational team, Brent as the sales manager takes care of their corporate clients.
📈 Workshop details
They will share their best practices on how you can create add-on experiences for corporate clients from your existing puzzle portfolio.
The excercises of this workshop will help you identify add-on items in your business that will help you raise the bottom line and attract more corporate teams.
📝 Option #2 - How To Diversify Your Game Portfolio
🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Diversification
🎤 Workshop Leader: Alex Girschfeld
🎯 Bio Highlights: Alex is the owner of Indestrom which is not only one of the largest turnkey providers in the industry but he and his team also created unique concepts such as self restraining rooms and escape cubes.
📈 Workshop details
If you are looking to expand your escape empire with new and unique concepts to attract a more diverse customer base, this workshop is a perfect choice for you.
The excercises of this workshop will walk you through the process of identifying market gaps, the strengths of your business and what new experiences will fit your specific needs the best.
📝 Option #3 - Unlocking New Demographics With Digital Ads
🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Diversification
🎤 Workshop Leader: Piyush Agrawal
🎯 Bio Highlights: Piyush, the founder of Massive Impact, experts in escape room marketing, increasing bookings with data-driven ads and AI-powered automation.
📈 Workshop details
This workshop is designed to identify new demographics that are not part of your core audience.
Then the excercises of this workshop will walk you through the process of creating ads for these new audiences and how to convert them into paying customers.
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🍔 Enjoy a delicious selection of sandwiches and finger food in the main hall.
🛒 The lunchbreak will also be a great opportunity for you to further explore the sponsors exhibiting in the main hall.
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🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Inspiration
🎤 Panelist: Lewis Hunt
🎯 Bio Highlights: Lewis and his team created and collaborated on several TERPECA top 100 games. He is also the mind behind the brand new Canterbury Tales immersive experience that we’ll be visiting on day 1.
🎤 Panelist: Mairi Nolan
🎯 Bio Highlights: Mairi is the UK ambassador for TERPECA and editor in chief of the Escape Industry Newsletter that’s read every month by hundreds of owners.
🎤 Panelist: Tom Dixon
🎯 Bio Highlights: Tom co-founded Clockwork Dog (COGS) in 2016, just as the escape room industry was finding its feet. COGS now powers world-renowned experiences like Phantom Peak.
🎤 Panelist: TBC
🎯 Bio Highlights: TBC
🎤 Moderator: Zoli Papp
🎯 Bio Highlights: Zoli consults escape room owners around the globe, organises roundtable discussions and attends several ER conferences every year.
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♻️ 11:00 AM Workshops Repeating
All three interactive workshops from the 11:00 am slots are reapeating to give you the opportunity to attend two of the three available workshops on day 2.
-
🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Inspiration
🎤 Speaker: Bartosz Idzikowski & Natasa Potocnik
🎯 Bio Highlights:
Nataša Potočnik is the co-founder and creative director of Enigmarium®, and president of the Association of Escape Room Activities of Slovenia (GIZ ER.SI), she champions industry collaboration— from ER CHAMP to escape room associations.
Bartosz is the co-founder of the international escape room marketplace Lock.me and the world escape room championship ER Champ. He also designed escape room board games, like Escape Tales and Side Quest.
📈 Talk Summary
The best escape rooms don’t just compete – they collaborate. Using Google Trends, Terpeca rankings and case studies, we’ll reveal why the most searched-for and highest-rated escape rooms are those that share ideas, cross-promote and build alliances.
From in-game Easter eggs and escape room associations to ER championships and aggregator portals, we’ll explore why collaboration and teamwork are key to not just player success but business success.
Escape the limits of competition. Let’s unlock the future – together. -
🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Inspiration
🎤 Speaker: Stephen Davies
🎯 Bio Highlights: Stephen is the Senior Vice President of Global Licensing at BBC Studios. He has overseen licensing for iconic brands such as Doctor Who and BBC Earth.
📈 Talk Summary
More and more iconic IP’s are adding immersive experiences to their product lineup with a budget usually far superior to traditional escape rooms. Their innovation however eventually trickles down to the SME sector.
Stephen will go through examples of what big brands are working on right now and how that could affect the escape room industry in the near future.
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Zoli - the main organiser of Game On 2025 - will wrap up the conference with a few words before we open the bar for the third and final networking night.
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We will gather at the bar on-site to enjoy a few drinks and hang out with our fellow owners.
TICKETS - £360 PER PERSON
The Game On escape room conference will take place in Canterbury, just an hour from London, making it an easy trip for escape room professionals.
WHAT’S INCLUDED IN YOUR TICKET
TALKS & WORKSHOPS
A dozen talks and workshops crafted to help you improve your escape room business.
EXHIBITORS
Explore 10 exhibitors, carefully selected to complement the key topics of Game On 2025.
EXPERIENCES
A murder mystery at Canterbury Tales, made by UK TERPECA winners. And an outdoor adventure.
NETWORKING
Three networking nights to create many opportunities for you to connect with fellow escape room owners.
FOOD AND DRINKS
Lunch is included on both days of the conference and you’ll get free drinks during the networking nights.
ACCOMMODATION
Access to discounted on-site accommodation starting at £45pp / night including breakfast.
Got a question before you commit? Check out the FAQ or get in touch.
MEET THE SPEAKERS
Game On brings together industry innovators and experts to share proven strategies and insights. From business growth to immersive trends, our speakers will deliver presentations and interactive workshops to equip you with the tools to thrive in today’s market.
Stephen Davies
SPEAKER
Stephen is SVP of Global Licensing at BBC Studios, overseeing licensing for iconic brands like Bluey, Doctor Who, and BBC Earth across entertainment, publishing, gaming, and live events. With a finance and strategy background, Stephen has held leadership roles at the BBC since 1998, following earlier work in business development and supply chain strategy for Sainsbury’s and TJX.
David Goodman
SPEAKER
Dubbed the UK’s “Master of Immersive Experiences,” David is the Owner/Creative Director of Hounds, Sussex. David is committed to constantly evolving out-dated entertainment formats, looking to diversify the immersive entertainment sector and carve out a position for small-medium scale attractions in the future. He writes, designs, builds and directs all-manner of Immersive productions
Alex Field
WORKSHOP LEADER
Alex has been the Operations Manager at clueQuest, the UK’s longest-running escape room, since 2022. He started as a host in 2018 and transitioned through various back-office and operations roles, gaining extensive experience in operations and logistics. Alex now oversees a team of 40+ people, including Games Hosts, Assistant Managers, and members of the Sales and Customer Service teams.
Mairi Nolan
PANELIST
Mairi Nolan is a puzzle game designer and journalist. When not trying to escape from every escape room in the world, she writes about them as the editor in chief of the Escape Industry Newsletter - a global newsletter about escape rooms, and The Escape Roomer - a news and reviews site covering the UK. Additionally, she is the UK Ambassador for the Escape Room Championships, and TERPECA.
Brent Girhalva
WORKSHOP LEADER
Brent has over a decade of experience in youth empowerment, immersive entertainment, and applied theatre. At clueQuest, he combines creative sales outreach with a deep understanding of immersive experiences, focusing on corporate client retention and new customer engagement. He is also completing a Master’s in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy.
Zoli Papp
SPEAKER
Zoli is the founder of Zolitopia, the organizer of Game On, and co-founder of clueQuest. With over a decade of experience in the escape room industry, he has consulted numerous business owners on organizational structure, marketing strategies, and business development. Zoli has also been a featured speaker at major industry events, including Transworld, ERIC, and Up the Game.
Chi Yun Wai (Sam)
WORKSHOP LEADER
Chi, founder of Immersif, has over a decade of experience in the escape room industry, designing, building, and successfully selling multiple escape rooms. Drawing on his deep industry knowledge, he now specializes in providing tailored financial services, including bookkeeping, payroll, tax compliance, and data-driven insights. Chi is passionate about helping escape room businesses to achieve stability and growth in a competitive market.
Phil Harris
SPEAKER
Phil is co-owner of Pier Pressure escape rooms in Brighton and MD of Escape Workshop – the UK’s top dedicated puzzle and prop builders. Pier Pressure are currently the only UK company with a game that has spent three years at the top of the UK TERPECA rankings and Escape Workshop have designed games and built props for some big companies both inside and outside of the escape room industry.
Alex Girschfeld
WORKSHOP LEADER
Alex Girshfeld - the owner of Indestroom, one of the largest escape room manufacturer in the world. During his 10+ years in the industry, Alex has overseen the build of over 1,000 escape rooms across the globe. Indestroom also created unique concepts like interactive museum exhibits, self-restarting rooms, escape cubes and quiz game shows.
Philly Harris
WORKSHOP LEADER
Philly's career in academia as a psychology researcher and lecturer took a turn when she and her husband Phil discovered their love for escape rooms and founded Pier Pressure. Her PhD on positive psychology’s cognitive effects informs both game design and business decisions—though she rarely mentions it, unless she’s asked to write a bio about herself.
Piyush Agrawal
WORKSHOP LEADER
Piyush Agrawal is the owner of Massive Impact, a marketing agency specializing in escape room promotion, data-driven advertising, and AI-powered automation. With nearly a decade of experience, he has helped escape rooms worldwide enhance their brand visibility through expert SEO strategies and PPC ad management.
Natasa Potocnik
SPEAKER
Natasa Potocnik is the co-founder and creative director of Enigmarium®, renowned for its award-winning gamified experiences. As president of the Association of Escape Room Activities of Slovenia, she champions industry collaboration— from ER CHAMP to escape room associations—proving that working together leads to real, measurable impact
Bartosz
Idzikowski
SPEAKER
Bartosz is the co-founder of the international escape room marketplace Lock.me and the world escape room championship ER Champ. He also designed escape room board games, like Escape Tales and Side Quest that sold over 200,000 copies worldwide. His work in the escape room industry focuses on uniting the market and promoting the concept of escape rooms to different audiences.
Tom Dixon
PANELIST
Tom co-founded Clockwork Dog in 2016, just as the escape room industry was finding its feet. Tom developed custom electronics and software that helped to push the boundaries of what escape room experiences could be. These early innovations evolved into COGS, now used across the industry in escape rooms, immersive theatre, and many other venues.
More To Come
WATCH THIS SPACE
We have even more exciting speakers lined up to join the event—stay tuned as the list continues to grow!
EXHIBITORS
SPONSORS
Are you interested in exhibiting or becoming a sponsor for Game On 2025? Get in touch here.
STAY IN THE LOOP
If you’re still deciding, subscribe now to stay in the loop and get the latest updates about the conference.
FAQ
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Canterbury was picked because there is an exciting new experience opening in town called Canterbury Tales. It is created by the Escapement team who brought top rated TERPECA games to the community.
The University of Kent, where the event is hosted, is also a great venue for Game On with its modern buildings and beautiful campus.
Canterbury is also very well connected to London, making it easy for international travellerers to get there.
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You can book discounted accommodation which is on-site, so you roll out of bed and you are at the conference in 5 minutes.
Prices for B&B are:
£60 / night - en-suite single room
£90 / night - en-suite double room
You will be sent the booking link once you’ve secured your tickets.
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Game On is for escape room owners and top managers. The talks and interactive workshops will focus on advanced level business challenges.
If you are just starting out or brushing up on the idea of becoming an escape room owner the conference will still be very valuable for you but please note that the agenda was built for seasoned escape room owners.
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Canterbury is very well connected to London with a couple of trains every hour.
If you are flying you can pick any of the five London airports, take a train to the city centre then switch to another train to Canterbury. The full journey will take you about two hours.
If you are arriving by train you should simply catch another train to Canterbury.
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There will be two experiences included with your tickets:
Murder mystery at the brand new Canterbury Tales venue where we will have the whole venue to ourselves.
Glitch Hunters: Canterbury in the historic downtown area. The game is specifically made for the event by Questy.
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We encourage bringing your team and/or teaming up with local escape room owners.
If you are traveling with a group of 3 or more people please message Zoli directly or reach out via this form to claim a group discount.
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The Game On conference aims to address the current bearish market and the challenges that comes with it.
All the talks and interactive workshops will revolve around practical steps and ideas to future proof your escape room company.
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The agenda is designed to address the current market climate, featuring speakers who are either working on projects that keep their businesses relevant in today’s market or have mastered a key aspect of maintaining a successful business.
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You are more than welcome to join but please keep in mind that this is an event for industry professionals with a focus on business.
As an enthusiast you will still very much enjoy these talks, networking wit industry folk and the games included in your ticket.
If you are brushing up to the idea to open an escape room this is not a conference for beginners. On the other hand you’ll make very valuable connections in the industry with people who can help you to succeed.
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We anticipate welcoming approximately 100 attendees to Game On, bringing together escape room owners, industry professionals, and immersive experience creators for two days of insightful discussions, hands-on workshops, and valuable networking opportunities.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM GAME ON 2024
“My experience with the 2024 Game On Escape Room Conference was outstanding! The conference was very informative and having the opportunity to meet other escape room owners from all over the world was a memorable and inspiring experience!”
Read My Blog
