October 1 is Escape Room Day!
With so many holidays in the Netherlands, a proper Escape Room Day couldn't be missing, so since 2016 we've been celebrating the existence of the escape room on October 1!
You'd expect something special to have happened on October 1. That the first escape room opened its doors on that day, for instance. The real reason is, how could it be otherwise, that October 1 was the outcome of a very well-known puzzle principle.
If you give every letter of Escape Room a number, so A = 1, B = 2, C = 3 and so on, you get 5, 19, 3, 1, 16, 5, 18, 15, 15, 13. Then add those numbers up and you arrive at the number 110. 1-10, the first of the tenth. October 1!
Escape Room Day is a Dutch invention
It could hardly have been otherwise. Internationally, Dutch escape rooms are known as the absolute best in the world, so the initiative for a dedicated Escape Room Day had to come from the Netherlands.
It did take a while before Escape Room Day was picked up internationally, but by now you hear about promotions and other festivities at escape rooms on October 1 in more and more places at home and abroad. Abroad, Escape Room Day has since been renamed International Escape Game Day.
We don't rate your chances of getting October 1 off from your employer to go play escape rooms very highly, by the way, but you could give it a shot. Maybe your employer is just as big an escape room lover as you are and the two of you head out together for an adventure. How cool would that be? As far as we're concerned, every day can be Escape Room Day!
What does Escape Room Day mean to you?
Okay, we shouldn't make it bigger than it is, of course. Escape Room Day can't be compared with some days of remembrance, say, or big commercial successes like Valentine's Day, but for true escape room lovers it's still nice that there's a day on which they can bring up their favorite hobby once again. Or, hobby? For some people, escape rooms are a way of life! We love those people!
That brings us to the question: how are you going to spend Escape Room Day? Maybe you've never played an escape room and this is the perfect day to take your first steps into the unknown. If you've found this article, though, chances are you're a seasoned escape room player. Maybe you've saved that one special room that's been on your list for a while for this special day. Be honest now, is it a DarkPark room?
This is what we celebrate on Escape Room Day
We celebrate that escape rooms exist! We celebrate that escape rooms have been a success for so long and we celebrate that the developments in our industry never stand still. When we opened one of the very first escape rooms in the Netherlands in 2013, one question kept running through our heads: how long will this stay a success? Is this just hype, or are escape rooms here to stay? By now, we think we've found the answer. Escape rooms have become impossible to imagine life without. To this day, there is nothing that even comes close to the feeling you get when you play an escape room.
We're proud that the simple puzzle rooms this unique branch of entertainment started with have grown into the theatrical adventures of today. And we're very proud that with DarkPark we've made a solid contribution to that. It hasn't always been an easy road, innovation sometimes meets resistance, but on this special day we celebrate that we're still here. Stronger than ever. We celebrate that every single day, escape room lovers from all over the world find their way to us to enjoy adventures you can't experience anywhere else.
What's next?
On days like this, we also take a moment to think about the future. We stopped being afraid that escape rooms were just a passing fad a long time ago, but we're only too happy to dream about what else is possible!
For us, escape rooms are a way to stretch your own limits a little and widen your comfort zone. We love that our escape rooms are more than just entertainment and bring about real transformation. That can happen in many ways. Your self-esteem might grow a little when you manage to solve a complicated puzzle, but it could just as well be that you overcome your own fears and do something you never thought you'd dare.
At DarkPark, you are at the center of the story and we want to keep building on that concept. As far as we're concerned, the limit of what's possible is nowhere near reached. We'll keep building until we drop and we don't shy away from innovation and boundary-pushing ideas. We don't believe escape rooms can only be one thing that has to fit in a box. Every day we're still working on that question: 'What else can an escape room be?'. That we're still not stuck in our image of what escape rooms can, can't or should be, and that we still think about questions like these with passion every day, that is what we celebrate on this day.
Escape rooms are our life, so at DarkPark every day is Escape Room Day!
