How to Make Escape Rooms More Accessible
For many people who are looking to book an escape room experience, they want to ensure they have booked the right venue that can meet all their requirements. For someone who has mobility requirements, their requirements need to be checked and treated with respect – so they can ensure there will be no issues when they arrive.
It may be that they need to ensure there is room for their wheelchair, or perhaps ensure you have access available into rooms, and access to clues without worrying about steps or staircases. For many people, they can feel anxious before visiting a new venue, so if you can put them at ease and ensure you’ve made their experience fitting to them – they will really appreciate it.
With any escape room, it’s crucial to ensure that guests feel welcome and comfortable, and that includes any guests with mobility requirements, such as accessibility.
Tips to make an escape room more accessible:
Tip 1: Encourage people to get in touch
Make it clear on your website that you can accommodate guests with mobility requirements, and request that if they fall into this category to get in touch before booking. This lets you manage the booking in person, and ensures you can recommend the best possible experience for their situation. It also means they will be put at ease straight away, and will know their needs are being respected.
Tip 2: Take measurements
If your guest uses a wheelchair, try and get the measurements for the wheelchair from your guests ahead of time. This shouldn’t be difficult to get (most wheelchair users know the measurements of their chair for occasions like this!). Knowing the measurements will let you double and triple check that all aspects of the experience are accessible to them, and means you can even tailor specific parts of the experience to them.
Tip 3: Pay attention to entrance and exits
When your guest arrives, you’ll want to make their experience as smooth as possible, the best way to ensure things start well is to ensure entrances and exits are big enough / wide enough. You’ll also want to ensure you have installed ramps (permanent or temporary) so they can easily make their own way into the venue.
Tip 4: Choose a bigger room
If you have a variety of rooms in your escape facility, it is a good idea to make one of the rooms more spacious for when guests in wheelchairs visit. This way, you can ensure that your guests can fully enjoy the experience how you intended it to be enjoyed, whilst also having full access to the room and all the props inside it. For example, if you have a central table in the room, make sure there is room for the wheelchair to get around the whole way without any issues or obstacles.
Tip 5: Ensure their safety
It’s hard to enjoy an experience if you don’t feel safe, so making sure you have put in the right safety measures, especially for guests with mobility requirements, is really important.
Tip 6: Ask if you can help
Don’t be afraid to offer help, most people will appreciate the offer! Part of being a welcoming host is ensuring you’re helping wherever possible, and we recommend asking these questions right from the beginning. For example, when your guest is booking, ask them if there are any special requirements you can help with related to accessibility, or if there are any changes you can make for accessibility that will make their visit more enjoyable or easier.
Here at Omescape, we do what we can to ensure our escape rooms are accessible for all users.