Experience FRANKENSCAPE at CTRL ALT ESC in Margate- Competition giveaway! 

 

 

CTRL ALT ESC is a brand-new Escape Room situated on Margate seafront. 

 

Defying usual Escape Room traditions, CTRL ALT ESC brings a new dimension to the escaping experience. 

An Escape Room is a fully immersive, 4D game that you play as a team. Perfect for friends, family or as a corporate team building exercise, you must work together to find clues and solve puzzles in order to escape the room before your time runs out.  

Their dream was to bring something new to the Escape Room experience. Geoff has a strong background in the technology and wanted to incorporate this love into the escape room. As their name suggests, there isn’t a padlock or combination lock in sight – a common factor in the vast majority of rooms. All of the puzzles incorporated into the room use electronic systems to create a wider variety and more challenging, yet entertaining, escape game. 

Wanting to give clients good value for money, unlike other Escape Rooms they charge a flat rate of only £70 allowing up to 8 players to play the room. They have increased the game time to 90 minutes, however, if you want to take a place on the leader board you must complete the room in less than 60 minutes! 

The group decided to take on a run-down property in Margate in hope of bringing more business to the nearby area and have completely transformed it themselves. 

The CTRL ALT ESC team are proud to, with the help of the landlord, completely revamped the building, but also have built the entire room from scratch and created all the puzzles too. 

CTRL ALT ESC’s first room is ‘Frankenscape’. Set in an 1800’s style, eerie castle of the eccentric Professor Alec Smart. He has gone missing in the middle of an important experiment so you must complete it before time runs out. Your task is to create the monster to allow you to escape! 

Due to the popularity of Frankenscape, a new, second themed room is now in the process of being built with further rooms to follow. 

Community Ad spoke to marketing manager Laura Portanier about this incredible new style of escape rooms and the potential CTRL ALT ESC has going forward…. 

 

Escape rooms are becoming extremely popular, especially in Thanet (3 escape rooms in the area) why is this?  

Escape rooms are fairly new, they have been around since the early 2000s but no one really knew about them and it was extremely niche. There has been a 200% increase in the amount of escape rooms built in the last year alone. They are becoming extremely popular; it’s a way to be social with your family and friends and is something to do that doesn’t involve sitting around a TV at home.   

 

How many rooms have you got? 

We’ve got potential for up to four rooms in this building and we have one room open now which is Frankenscape! This is completely different to anything else which is around. We are the only Frankenstein themed room in this Country; the only other ones are in America.  We wanted to go a completely different route which is why we charge a flat rate charge of £70 for 90 minutes.  

 

Where did the idea behind this come from?  

There are four owners at CTRL ALT ESC.  Myself, my fiancée Colin and Marie and Geoff Musselbrook (Colin’s auntie and uncle). Marie and Geoff went to Amsterdam three years ago and experienced an escape room there. As soon as they done it, they loved it. That very same evening they sat down and wrote the story for ‘Frankenscape’ with all the puzzles included. They run some other businesses locally so they let the idea simmer for a few years. Last Christmas they both came to me and Colin and pitched us with the idea.  

We then started going to escape rooms all over Kent and abroad immediately loving them. We then started looking at properties to set this up.  

 

How difficult was it transforming the property into an escape room? 

This used to be a derelict run down restaurant which was in a terrible state. We decided to take it up and spent five months getting it up to scratch. When we first bought the place, my dad refused to go downstairs because of how dirty and disgusting it was. It’s been a bit of a journey!  

  

The CTRL ALT ESC team worked their socks off to completely transform the former derelict building they took over for their escape rooms. It took the team five months of hard graft to complete their makeover and the results are quite extraordinary

  

How important was picking Margate as a location for CTRL ALT ESC? 

Margate was a massive incentive for us. We are all born and bred in Thanet and three out of four of us were born in Margate. The town has been up and coming for a while with the rejuvenation of the old town which has been amazing and we want to support this and see if we can bring more business to the area which is why we chose here. This area at the top (where CTRL ALT ESC is located) hasn’t had a lot of work doing to it but there are some really good shops and restaurants popping up so we all support each other with our businesses. Margate is a great day out and this is just adding to this list of things you can do here. We are extremely passionate about the area. 

 

Is it difficult creating fresh new ideas for the escape rooms?  

All four of us have put our heads together to create a variety of puzzles and games to incorporate into the room. We work together to come up with physical, logical, observational and scavenging puzzles and work out how they will work for us and the players and design the aesthetics of each one. Geoff is the brains behind the technology. His long background in the tech industry has meant he has been able to create a unique computer programme to control the Escape Room and link it to the electronics in the room to give this new technology based game experience. Colin and I like to think our background in theatrics has helped with the production.  

 

Can you explain how much of a commitment was this for all four of you? 

This was a huge commitment that we all had to make. I gave up my job in TV production and we are all strongly passionate about this. A lot of what you see in our room has been created by us and all the puzzles you see we make ourselves. We also have a 3D printer so all the props have been made by us. We love what we do and are starting on the new room now due to the great feedback we have had from Frankenscape. One of the many joys we have experienced are the family bookings we have had as it is absolutely amazing seeing how they work together.  

 

 

Where would you like to see CTRL ALT ESC in 5-10 years’ time? 

For us this would always be a flagship branch because of the amount of effort and time that has gone into it and we love it here. We would definitely think about expanding in the future. We want to keep doing new rooms to see how we can be completely different with the theme, incorporating new styles away from the norm. If it gets to a point where we have to expand we would absolutely consider it.   

 

Finally Laura, what do you enjoy most about living in Thanet? 

I personally love Margate, it’s such a great environment to be in. it involves everyone culturally from all walks of life, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from if you come to Margate everyone is friendly and its showing more and more over the last few years.  The town is very open to new ideas and very accepting, we have been really well supported from locals and the businesses from the area.  

 

Competition giveaway!  

CTRL ALT ESC are giving away one free game between Sunday to Thursday (opening hours 10:00-22:00). You and up to seven other players can experience FRANKENSCAPE. All you have to do is comment what your favourite thing to do in Thanet is? Winners selected at random, deadline for all entries is 3rd November. Booking is valid until the end of 2017.  

Please check terms & conditions on our competition page.

You can visit CTRL ALT ESC website at ctrlaltesc.co.uk

For regular updates on new escape rooms check out their Facebook page ctrlaltescmargate