TOURISM
Escape Manor has growing market on lock BY CRAIG LORD craig@obj.ca
F
13 OBJ.CA
Clockwise, starting from bottom left: Escape Manor’s partners Steve Wilson, Neil Schwartz, Billy Rogers and Chris Bisson. PHOTO BY MARK HOLLERON
OCTOBER 2019
ESCAPE ARTISTS
or Escape Manor’s Steve Wilson, the most surreal part of building escape rooms for the past five years is captured in a video that introduces one of the company’s adventures. It’s a special installation for the TV series Bad Blood, starring actor Kim Coates as Declan Gardiner, the right-hand man of a Montreal mob boss. The series partnered with Ottawa-based Escape Manor for a special themed room that would see participants get a real taste of the fictional crime drama by breaking out of a prison to avoid the electric chair. Before the timer starts counting down, Coates – who also portrayed ‘Tig’ on the HBO series Sons of Anarchy – appears on camera speaking to the prison’s newest inmates about how he arranged a flood at the jail to provide a window for his partners to escape. The short introduction video is produced at the same calibre as the rest of the Bad Blood show, with Coates reading his lines on set in full character for what amounts to not just a memorable escape experience, but an immersive advertisement for the show. “I never realized they’d go as deep as they did with it,” Wilson says. “Every time I see this, I get chills because there’s a Hollywood actor that’s reading my words.” Over the past five years, Wilson and his partners at Escape Manor have honed their craft to create exactly these kinds of memorable experiences. The simple concept of locking up a group of friends or corporate team and putting them on the clock to break out results in a more visceral bonding experience than your typical after-work social, Wilson says. Continued on next page