Exploring Life & Business with Rob Garrod and Rebecca Horste of Escapes Unlocked

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rob Garrod and Rebecca Horste.

Hi Rob and Rebecca, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My partner Rebecca and I met at Michigan State University in 2005. Our friend group grew into the hobby of puzzles and games over the course of our undergraduate education. In 2009 we started attending board game conventions, getting more involved with the gaming community in the greater Lansing area.

We experienced our first escape room nearly ten years ago and were immediately hooked. The combination of puzzles, story, and challenge all meshed into a social experience was like nothing else we’d done before. By the time we’d played five games, we knew that design was in our future.

We debuted our first experience, a 30 minute Scottish Murder mystery, at AlmaCon in 2019. Shortly after we engaged in searching for a physical location where we could build more involved games. When the pandemic hit, the search was delayed, but it resumed in 2022. We signed a lease in late 2022 and opened with our debut experience, Dream Explorers, on May 6, 2023. Since then, we have designed three more experiences with the help of family, friends, and the wonderful community in Okemos.

We’ve really enjoyed meeting new friends and getting to share in their joy as they solve puzzles in our games. We’re looking forward to honing our craft further and introducing more reasons to smile in Okemos.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
There have certainly been challenges! Most of them have to do with navigating the entrepreneurial world, which was, and in some ways still is, new to both of us. From permitting, to staffing, to building out our online presence, all of it was an incremental learning process.

A fun challenge is figuring out how to design experiences that will be fun for everyone regardless of age and experience level with puzzles. Our first experience was too difficult, and since then we’ve honed in a bit more of what this particular community most appreciates, including a family friendly experience.

Our main ongoing challenge is in spreading the word about our existence, so thank you for this opportunity! As a “mom and pop” shop, we cover all aspects of running the business on a daily basis. We have a lot of strengths, but outreach isn’t a natural talent for either of us, so we’re still learning there.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We offer themed escape room experiences for 2-10 players, and up to 28 players total throughout our facility. Guests bring teams to explore a forgotten castle, solve the mystery of who stole the cookie from the cookie jar, or help magical creatures in a fairytale forest.

We offer birthday party packages for ages 9 and up.
Our escape rooms are also great for a fun team building activity or company holiday party.

We are really proud of our thoughtful design process that is meant to be as inclusive as possible. None of our rooms are scary, and all are designed to allow for free movement. We find that truly family friendly rooms are hard to find, and The Case of the Missing Cookie is specifically designed for kids as young as 9 to make significant contributions as part of a family outing.

Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
We’re definitely lucky we met, lucky to have the educational opportunities we did, and lucky we found a location walkable to a hardware store since we don’t own a pickup truck! We’re also lucky that we didn’t sign a lease right before Covid.

We haven’t experienced too much bad luck, except maybe the pandemic, and even if it happens on a small scale, it just provides new perspective!

Pricing:

• Standard games are priced at $29/person
• Student pricing of $25/person is available on Thursdays
• Birthday party packages start at $250
• All inclusive team building packages are available from $300

Contact Info:

• Website: www.unlockedlansing.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/escapesunlockedlansing
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/escapesunlocked
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/escapes-unlocked-okemos

Image Credits
Clover & Paws Photography