Today was the final day of Up the Game! It was just as great as the first day.

But first! How did I fare in my European adventures?!

Canadian Bumpkin Status- Still Bumpkin, but with 70% less scared eyes

I figured out the shower. My relief knows no end.

I am having extreme paranoia about my outlet converter. I keep watching my various appliances wondering if they will explode at any second.

You know what? I LIKE that the toilet is separate from the bathroom. I don’t know how I will deal when I get back to Canada.

So. Many. Bikes. Bikes rule the road in the Netherlands. That much is clear. God help you if you are a pedestrian and you walk into a bike lane by accident. The lack of helmets is still weird to me.

Quaint but dangerous!

On the flip side, the sheer amount of pedestrian friendly areas is astounding to me. I am getting spoiled for sure.

Macarons are awesome here. That is all.

The Talks

Back to the conference!

Much like yesterday, I had a lot of trouble figuring out what talks to attend.

First I attended Ariana and Juliana’s (of Escape the Werewolf Experiment fame) talk on how escape rooms can expand their business without building whole new rooms. They of course had great ideas.

My crappy, very far away picture

One bit of frustration with the conference so far has been the way they handled activity registration. The first frustration was that we did not really know where to sign up for activities. By the time we found out, they had all been booked.

The second frustration was that not even the staff really knew what classified an “activity” and whether they even needed a sign up. This led to my confusion about how to get a spot on Ubisoft’s new VR project. They were not in the official schedule nor were they on the showroom floor, so no one knew how exactly you got to try it out. By the time I found out of course, it had been booked up for the day.

*Note: I know how difficult it is to organise these things. This was just my individual experience.

Crestfallen, I followed Lisa down to the basement where she was scheduled to try the VR game. My hope was her game partner would not show up and I could take his place. It was almost a lost cause, but suddenly a man came out of the room, looked at me and asked if I wanted to play. It seemed his wife was trying it out and discovered she had a fear of heights. They needed someone to replace her. What luck! (Well…luck for me…poor woman).

Benefiting from others’ fears! (I am terrible)

It was super fun! Honestly, I can’t wait until the game launches officially! I can’t say much about it alas due to the press freeze but more info should be coming soon! All I can really say is that trying to aim with your left hand when you are clearly right handed might be a bit…dumb…really dumb….

I attended three more talks that day. One was on safety in escape rooms. This was the first talk in which the language barrier made it a bit difficult to understand. From what I heard though, the Russian escape community had a lot more safety rules to implement (think chainsaws with sparks again).

There was also a world building talk from Andrew Preble of Escape My Room! It was really interesting and gave some practical advice for how to build your escape world with every resource you have. This could be from the room itself right down to your website.

A better, close up type photo.

Then of course there was Lisa and David Spira’s talk on the good and bad habits of the escape room industry as a whole. What can I say…if you have the chance, watch this talk when it comes up on youtube. It said everything that was in my brain, supported it with examples AND was well spoken to boot.

A close up but blurry photo. I am a podcaster, not a photographer.

Finally I joined Bill and Dani on their live show of Escape This Podcast! I really wish more people had come but it was a tough time slot and there was a lot of confusion over whether it was considered an activity and thus had to be signed up for. Regardless, those that did show up were engaged and laughed. Dani and Bill were both energetic and fun as ever.

I had such a blast being a guest. My fellow guests Nick, Ethan and Ken all had a sharp wit that leant itself well to the podcast format. I really hope they get to do it again next year. I would watch in a heartbeat.

Look, just accept the fact that I tried to photograph and go and actually listen to their podcast.

I missed SO MUCH during this conference but I have been assured the talks will be available online. When they become available I would highly recommend you check them out!

Partay!

With the conference concluded I and all the other participants headed to a nearby bar for the after party. In the tradition of all after parties, the music was far too loud and the people far too awesome. I made some more friends and swapped conference and escape stories.

I will admit that I am coming at this conference from the perspective of a newcomer. Up The Game is unlike any conference I have ever attended. That is not the case for everyone though.

For some, this was the second time they were attending. And when I inevitably asked how they enjoyed the conference, a few replies came back as “It was good. But not as good as last year’s. I really liked meeting people, but I wish they had talked about such and such more.”

This was not everyone’s opinion. But it is important for me to keep this in mind when writing of my experiences. For myself, I rarely get to be in a room full of like minded individuals to talk about immersion. It was incredibly fulfilling for me.

But for others, they had hoped either for a bit more evolution or a for a few more practical examples of how to accomplish their lofty goals. They still enjoyed themselves, certainly, but they did hope for more from the content being presented.

All that being said, I would absolutely attend this conference again. I think it’s important to keep these types of talks going. More importantly, I think it’s important to keep the community going. The more we talk to each other, the more we can grow as an industry.

I had so much fun at Up the Game :D. The things I learned, the discussions I had, and the people I met made the trip more than worth it. If I manage to save my pennies again I would definitely go next year.

Also to get moar macarons

That is not the end of the blog series though! Tomorrow is some sightseeing and a prison escape! From a real prison! With actors!

My hope is that I can be the prison snitch. I always fancied myself a Wormtongue.