Lock Chicago found hundreds of new customers outside its walls.

Lock Chicago's rooms do what escape rooms do best: an intense hour for a handful of players. But a significant majority of their customers had already played all three of the rooms at their location, and the team wanted a way to bring those players back for something new.

The obvious answer, a fourth room, wasn't on the table. They couldn't rent any additional space at their location. And the requests kept getting bigger: corporate and university groups wanted events for far more people than any room can hold.

Building a new escape room is expensive. Closing one to rebuild it is worse.

A typical Lock Chicago room has somewhere between 9 and 14 puzzles. We set out to recreate that rhythm as an outdoor adventure: a two-hour hunt that leads players past interesting sights, murals and more. Some challenges are riddles pointing to historic monuments or architecturally significant landmarks, so groups have to work together, not just find things.

The whole game is built and managed online. There is no new room to staff and no props to reset, and every hunt uses the city their customers are already standing in.

• Team building: large outdoor hunts for corporate and university groups of 100+, with every team out on the streets at once.
• Year-round: scavenger hunts customers book at their own convenience, a standing product that sells even when every room is full.
• Seasonal: themed events like their Haunted Halloween Scavenger Hunt give the whole community a reason to come back.

Around the hunts, Lock Chicago built a reward and loyalty program. Players earn gift certificates and other prizes, and redeem them in-store. The game plays out across the city, but the reward brings players straight back to the escape room, where the next booking starts.