Days Out With The Family

If you have ever seen The Crystal Maze, a British game show that aired in the 90s and attracted a cult following, then you could not fail to be intrigued by the Crystal Maze LIVE. Even if you have never heard of the TV show, the concept is both exciting and appealing, as it provides a truly immersive ‘team’ experience - something completely different from the usual tourist attractions.

The Crystal Maze LIVE first opened to the public in Islington in March 2016. Due to its success, a second Crystal Maze was opened in March 2017 in Manchester. With continuing high levels of demand for tickets, the parent company Little Lion Entertainment set out to source a larger London venue. After an extensive search, the Trocadero, which has seen almost three centuries of history dating back to 1744, was selected as the maze’s new London home. The building, which began life as a tennis court and vaults and later became a theatre, boxing hall and finally ‘Segaworld’, is located on Shaftesbury Avenue, Piccadilly, and features 32 games housed in 4 themed zones, the final iconic ‘Crystal Dome’, as well as a large bar area to relax before and after your experience.

Just like the TV show, the experience is hosted by a ‘Maze Master’ whose role is to guide teams through the adventure zones; comprising the Medieval Zone, Futuristic Zone, Industrial Zone and Aztec Zone. The aim is to win as many crystals as possible by completing various challenges: skill, physical, mental and mystery. Each crystal that is won, represents 5 seconds of time in the final stage of the game - The Crystal Dome; where the whole team must work against the clock to collect as many gold tokens as possible from the air. The memorable words “Start the fans please!” indicate the beginning of this final frenzied climax of the entire experience. The more crystals your team have won, the more chance you have of amassing enough gold tokens to make it onto the leader board … but if only it was as simple as it sounds.

We arrived as a slightly nervous, but excited team of 5 - made up of 3 teens, and middle-aged (but young at heart!) parents. We were introduced to another group of 3, making a combined team of 8.

Our new team mates were die-hard fans of the 90s TV show and revealed it was their childhood dream to tackle the maze, so no pressure there at all! However, their contagious enthusiasm and friendly banter soon bonded us together like long lost friends. We quickly appointed our team captain whose job it would be to delegate team members to the various games, and made our way into the maze to meet our Maze Master. True to the ‘Crystal Maze’ tradition, our hostess was suitably eccentric and charismatic. One of among 100 maze masters selected from an enormous pool of hopeful actors; “Mumsie” was a cutesy girl with American accent who used her sarcastic wit and dry humour to lighten the mood when things got intense, and things do get very intense as we were about to discover.

Stumbling down dark narrow corridors and crawling through tunnels, Mumsie whisked us off to the Medieval Zone. I felt like I had stumbled onto a film set as I took in the surroundings; cold brick walls, candelabra and the odd skull were visible in the dim-lit corridor where we were to encounter our first challenge. Everything was fast-paced, and adrenaline quickly kicked in as the first team member, my husband, was thrust into a small room to tackle a 2 minute ‘skill’ challenge, with nothing more than a few explanatory lines on the wall to read. The rest of the team members are encouraged to look through hatches in the wall and shout advice, which turns out to be both a help and hindrance in equal measures! His challenge was to follow coded musical notes on the wall to play tunes for us to guess - he managed the first of these, before time ran out, and a mad scramble to get out of the room, sadly with no crystal. With no time to take on board what had happened, we were off to the next game and then on to the Futuristic Zone. My 14-year-old son, bravely took on a physical game, that involved dodging lasers to complete an obstacle course to retrieve the crystal. He completed the challenge and emerged with a crystal to a hero’s welcome!

The Crystal Maze LIVE Experience, Shaftesbury Avenue, London

There were many other challenges, including riddles to be solved, enormous jigsaw puzzles, an alien autopsy and perhaps the most memorable game of our experience in the Aztec zone, where my eldest son had to fill a bag with sand and cross ‘the pit of despair’ via a precarious twisting pole, whilst sand poured through holes in the bag. His aim: to fill a receptacle on the other side with sand and release the crystal. He took a spectacular tumble in his race against the clock, and faced the dreaded ‘lock in’. We magnanimously agreed to pay for his freedom by giving up one of the precious crystals we had won.

Our final destination, having completed 16 games in total, was the Dome itself.

Having won a respectable 7 crystals (excluding the one we lost in the unfortunate incident) we had earned 35 seconds in the dome. Donning our shiny ‘Crystal Maze’ regulation bomber jackets we entered, and awaited the frenzy - a mad scrabbling in the air to catch as many tokens as possible and stuff them into the collecting pot. Sadly, we did not make the leader board, but felt proud nevertheless with our total of 120 gold tokens!

You can’t fail to come out of the experience on a high, with adrenaline still pumping through your veins. It’s an intense 75 minutes, filled with highs and lows and an exhilarating journey through the twists and turns, tunnels, slides and crevasses of the maze itself. If, like us you are comparing the experience with its TV counterpart, you will not be disappointed. At no stage during your ‘experience’ do you feel like you are on a tourist-attraction conveyor-belt. The maze master has the difficult task of cleverly avoiding bumping into any other teams, making you feel like you have the maze to yourself. Having only experienced some of the 32 games, we would love to return and try to improve on our performance, and master that pesky Aztec sand game!

Tickets can be booked online at www.thecrystal-maze.com and are from £54.99 per person, with VIP packages available.