Up The Game 2019 – the only way is up!

This year the conference was held in Amsterdam and it is incomparably more convenient than Breda in the previous 2 years, because we had to drive 120 km to get there.

We brought a fully equipped escape cube with decorated walls, floor and all puzzles. Despite that it took only 30 minutes to unload our large crates without any issues. Everything was neat and professional: loaders, convenient unloading zone and responsive management.

Apart from us, as the last time, nobody decided to bring a complete escape room, but there were a lot of props manufacturers and VR industry workers. I was doing a livestream on Day 1. You can watch it here: click here

It was my second time as a speaker this year. A month earlier I was performing at HAAShow in US. But imagine my reaction when already on site I found out that the managers simply had forgotten about me. It was odd to hear from them that we had not provided the info when we were actually communicating with them all 3 months prior to the show. But this post is not about them.

Upthegame in its turn pulled it off just great this year. Every performance was top level and planned to the details. I want to mention that the audience was exclusively professional. There were a lot of enthusiasts from countries that are new to the industry, but the veterans were also present. Spain, England, France, the Netherlands, Israel, Germany, USA, Poland, Belgium, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Lithuania and Russia are the countries where most of the visitors were from.

My presentation (5 key factors to make your escape room a success) turned out to be very interesting for many. People were listening and relating to their own situations. They wanted to become better and make more money. You can download it here: https://erworkshop.com/home/education.html

After visiting the events in the US and Europe I can definitely tell you that the world escape room industry is only starting to grow if speak about the concept of conventional industry development stages. There is an ongoing process of establishing professional players. All amateur escape rooms will soon be nonexistent and we will not be suffering from disaster games with 1000 locks at the price of the latest gen game.

A pleasant surprise for me was that almost all escape room business owners agree on what makes a good escape room. The market needs quality decorations, story, technology and a lasting impression overall, not just a collection of keys and locks in the basements.

I am not even going to tell you about Afterparty or Dinner – you already know!

Thanks to all the visitors, big thank you to the organizers and fellow industry workers. It was amazing!

Alexandr Girshfeld
Co-owner of Indestroom