On Tuesday, July 23, 2019, Waxhaw Escape celebrated its official ribbon cutting with the Union County Chamber of Commerce. Waxhaw Escape also announced that they have a new game coming that is the first of its kind on this side of the Mississippi! Extraction Point is a ‘free-roaming’ virtual reality game. “Up to three people can play together in our game, which is an amazing experience. Instead of holding controllers to manipulate objects in the world of our game, we will put body-motion sensors on the players, so the players will be able to see their whole selves, and their teammates. The game is a ‘zombie-shooter’ experience – you’ve made it to the extraction point, but must protect yourselves until the helicopter arrives, so you can escape to a safe zone!”
Many people turned out for the ribbon-cutting. Town of Waxhaw Mayor, Steve Maher, shared his thanks to Waxhaw Escape for bringing so much fun to the town, and drew lots of laughs with his joke, “Who would want to escape Waxhaw?” One of the U.S. Senators from North Carolina, Thom Tillis, sent a note with James Estes, Regional Representative, congratulating them on their success. Pelican’s Snoballs were also on hand handing out free snoballs to the crowd. The Union County Chamber of Commerce Director of Business Development, Nancy Duncan, also spoke with warmth about the joy that the business has brought to the area.
Ken McCoy, self-described Emperor of Waxhaw Escape, and his wife, Jeannie, own Waxhaw Escape. He explains, “In 2018, Jeannie attended a mini-family reunion in Portland, Oregon. There were ten who attended, from the age of nine to ninety. They wanted to do something fun together, so they booked a game at a nearby escape room. And they all had a blast! It was so fun, and so engaging that Jeannie texted me about it – ‘Ken! We can DO this!’ So, we began looking into it. I’d never heard of escape rooms before, so we went to a couple. We started researching the opportunities, did market research, and hooked up with Don Fischer, a mentor from SCORE. The concept seemed valid, and the opportunity was right, so we maxed out our credit cards and started Waxhaw Escape, and opened in January of this year.”
“We have two escape room games available at the moment: Alice’s Dream (an Alice In Wonderland themed game) and Train To Nowhere (a runaway steam train theme – hey, this is Waxhaw, we have trains!). We worked with some escape room designers and prop creators from Russia to design and build the skeleton-framework of our games. A local set-designer friend, Rebecca Starnes (with a lot of help from her husband Keith) did a TON of work to make our rooms an immersive environment.”
Each room can accommodate up to six players per game, and they will eventually rotate the games, but so much work went into them that they hope to get several years from each game. On Wednesday and Thursday, games start from 12:30 p.m. until 9:30 p.m. Friday’s and Saturday’s games go from 11 a.m. to last start at 9:30 p.m., and on Sunday, games go from 1 p.m. to last start at 7 p.m. You can book any or all of the three rooms online. Make sure to call and book your corporate event, birthday party, scouting trip, or a family getaway today!
Waxhaw Escape – 3901-E Providence Rd S, Waxhaw, NC 28173; waxhawescape.com; 704-256-1378
