Day 3 of my trip and the second official day of RECON! I am so…so…tired. But also so pumped and blessed.

Let’s see…where to start:

Hair Status: Contained but dull

On the positive side, there is no frizz. On the not so positive side, it was also flat and lifeless. I cannot win the hair battles.

LA Stuff

There is none, since I was at RECON! Apart from the continued horrific prices.

The Talks

First up for the day was a talk from Tommy Honton of Stash House fame, who gave a talk about the freedom of failure. He shared a lot of philosophies I share but am not the greatest at following, and it was great for me personally to reaffirm those beliefs and get practical advice for how to act in the future.

It was a talk I think a lot of designers and aspiring designers needed to hear. So many of us avoid trying anything for fear of falling flat on our faces, and learning to embrace that rather than fear it is so, so critical to success.

Th next talk was from Paul Wood of Rush Hour Live Escape Rooms in Virginia, who talked about Data Driven Business Planning. This talk was much more on the practical and analytical side, with many examples of how data collected can be used to help make business decisions. There were many charts and stats and spreadsheets. My spreadsheet nerd brain loved this talk.

More importantly, it was great to see what conclusions could be extrapolated from simply taking a look at numbers on a page, including what customers to cater to, what rooms needed to be replaced, and what trends in the industry to prepare for.

After this, we were off to sessions for Birds of a Feather, which was a series of facilitated discussions about various topics between convention attendees. This year I was helping to facilitate a talk with my dear friend, Lee-fay Low,  on how to get a business to operate itself.

My only real job was to make sure everyone got a chance to speak and to slightly guide the direction of conversation. My group was fantastic and made up of a multitude of experiences, from owners who were still struggling to hire even one employee to those who had as many as 80.

Our discussion focused a lot on learning to let go of the control we feel we need to have over our businesses and entrusting tasks to existing employees or outsourcing work entirely. I think over all it was a comforting and inspiring conversation. Comforting, because it was nice for owners to know they weren’t alone. Inspiring, because we came out with so many ideas of how to move forward. I considered it a win when many participants stuck behind to continue the discussion.

Later in the day, I managed to catch most of Andy Crocker, who among many other things is the performance director for Knotts Berry Farm and creator for Escape from Godot, doing her talk about Directing Scripted & Unscripted Performance. I will admit, by this point I was mostly brain dead, but this still talk drew me right in. I am a sucker for discussing acting performance and hearing Andy almost maniacally nerd out about how to best direct and manage performers…hit a little close to home.

Imagi-ne’er-do-wells

The only event I had scheduled for the second day of RECON was Imagi-ne’er-do-wells, run by Brett Jackson.

I will be honest…I was dreading this event.

The description about what we would be doing was vague. Would we be doing some sort of game jam! I did not want to do a game jam. My experiences with game jams have tended to be on the terrible side. Would we be put on the spot to be creative, in front of an audience, competing against someone else like some weird puzzle rap battle where all would boo me off the stage?

I was having anxiety attacks.

Luckily, it was not nearly as nerve-wracking as I feared. Yes, it was a game show style event where we, the audience, were provided with a writing prompt and then told to create an escape design from it in 15 minutes. So yes…some creation under pressure.

However, Tommy’s talk earlier in the morning fueled me, and I went about putting every terrible idea down. Plus, Brett was very good at encouraging experimentation, and the rules of the game did give players an out. We had the option to submit anonymously or to not even submit it at all. Also…they gave us a free drink…that helped.

But submit I did. Our prompt was “Escape from LA”. I made a room called “Cattle Call”, in which the player is an actor in a cattle call audition who must do what it takes to get the part despite being terrible and not Hollywood Beautiful.

After 15 minutes were up, we milled around while a set of judges evaluated and gave points. The best 10 got shown, with the option of us being able to pitch it ourselves. Much to my shock, I was one of the ten! I even went up on stage.

Overall, I did have fun with the event.  I think it’s a great way to get creatives to get their ideas put into a terrible first draft.

What I missed

Unfortunately, I had to miss a couple of talks and events due to being on shift to help out the 49 Boxes. From what I heard, the boxing match style debate between the owners of Hatch Escapes, Tommy Wallach and Terry Pettigrew-Rolapp, about narrative in escapes was something epic to witness. I also missed Christine Barger‘s talk about TikTok and Arlo Howard’s talk about win-lose gameplay. Sadness.

Another event I unfortunately missed was Bill Chang’s (also known as Funbi)’s Puzzle Buffet.

Other Stuff

I almost forgot to mention, there was an exhibition hall! I didn’t get to check it out too long, but there were some fun things there for owners and enthusiasts alike!

It’s Over

All the talks were done. All the official discussions facilitated. It was time to wrap things up. David and Lisa gave their thanks to everyone, presents were presented, metaphorical tears were shed.

Our last official event of the day was a comedy and magic show done by Harrison Greenbaum, described by Neil Patrick Harris as “an asshole”. The show was NSFW. We were in for a ride.

I made the epic mistake of sitting front and centre, thus being the target of Harrison’s eye contact and calling the audience out for not laughing enough. I never got voluntold to participate, luckily, partly because I probably wasn’t a good pick and partly because I averted my eyes like my life depended on it when Harrison asked for volunteers.

The show was as crude and abrasive as you can get, and it was fantastic. I say this as someone who normally hates roast humour. Harrison is a talented, hilarious, and completely insane performer who had us pinballing between laughing, exclaiming in awe and delight, and groaning in dread and disbelief. It was a great way to end the night.

The People

I continued to reconnect with as many people as I could find, sometimes quickly saying hello, sometimes managing to find enough time for a proper conversation.

It was great to find and talk to my Canadian friends when I could find them. These included my friends Andrew and Christina from Escape from the 6, and Shannon McDowell, puzzle designer extraordinaire who got me a fun pin!

After Harrison’s show came one of my favourite parts about RECON: hanging out in the lobby and nerding out with my friends. So many escape minded people in one room, partying and talking and gaming, was one of my extreme happy places.

I tried so hard to stay as long as possible, but eventually, my body was beginning to feel like it had been put through a grinder. Reluctantly (okay, only a little reluctantly, I was very tired), I dragged myself back upstairs.

RECON was, once again, an absolute marvel and blast. I am still feeling euphoric from the experience. Here is to next year. Thanks so much to everyone. Some of you I saw only briefly, some more, but either way I am so glad I got to see soany awesome creators, owners, and/or enthusiasts. I am sad I couldn’t get selfies with you all, and I hope we get to chat soon!

BUT…this escape trip is not over yet! There are moar LA games to play!

These fine folks played 49 Boxes with me! (My exhaustion unfortunately made me forget names, but you guys were lovely!)