MEET THE SPEAKERS
Game On brings together owners, creators and specialists who are actively shaping the escape room industry. Through practical talks, honest case studies and interactive workshops, they’ll share proven approaches, lessons learned and fresh ideas you can adapt and take back to your own venue.
Jan Gheyle
SPEAKER
Jan co-founded De Gouden Kooi more than a decade ago and helped grow it into Belgium’s most awarded escape room company, repeatedly ranked among the world’s best by TERPECA. Leading on operations and finance, he brings practical experience in building a business from nothing and keeping creative growth commercially sustainable.
Mallory Lynch
SPEAKER
Mallory is the Co-Founder and Chief People & Operations Officer of Puzzol Creative, whose portfolio includes Memphis Escape Rooms, Amuse Adventure Museum and Game Nite Lounge. With an MBA and SHRM-SCP certification, she focuses on the people, systems and organisational decisions required to expand beyond escape rooms successfully and sustainably.
Vojtech Vasák
SPEAKER
Vojtěch is the CEO and Lead Designer of The Chamber, the award-winning Prague studio behind The Bistro, ChamCorp: The Cybergame and Kingdom Come: Experience. His experience spans escape room design, business development and the delivery of ambitious, large-scale immersive projects, with The Chamber’s games consistently recognised by TERPECA and Best of Morty.
Keith Edwards
SPEAKER
Keith is the Co-Founder and Chief Creative & Marketing Officer of Puzzol Creative, helping lead the development, positioning and operation of its immersive entertainment concepts. His work explores why customers choose an experience, what makes a new idea stand out and whether it genuinely fits a company’s brand, audience and strengths.
Barbora Fricová
SPEAKER
Barbora is a key creative force at The Chamber, helping bring projects including The Bistro, ChamCorp: The Cybergame and Kingdom Come: Experience to life. Through the studio’s award-winning escape rooms, B2B products and large-scale immersive productions, she brings practical insight into creative development, game design and turning ambitious ideas into finished experiences.
Daniel Toth
WORKSHOP LEADER
Daniel is a digital marketing strategist and Co-Founder of beboldR, with a background in software development and more than a decade of experience in online marketing. He specialises in paid advertising, analytics and conversion tracking, helping escape room businesses connect their advertising spend with real bookings, stronger capacity utilisation and measurable growth.
Phil Harris
WORKSHOP LEADER
Phil is the Co-Owner and Managing Director of Pier Pressure, which operates escape rooms across five locations in South East England. Alongside its award-winning games, including a room that spent three years at the top of the UK TERPECA rankings, Pier Pressure creates commissioned designs, builds props and produces pop-up immersive experiences.
Stephen Lynch
SPEAKER
Stephen is the Co-Founder, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Puzzol Creative. A CFA charterholder, he oversees finance, forecasting, technology and software development across the company’s portfolio. His work focuses on assessing whether new ideas make financial sense, and building the systems and business models needed to support sustainable growth.
Bert Birke
SPEAKER
Bert is the creative force behind De Gouden Kooi, designing and building its escape rooms with a strong focus on storytelling and immersive theming. His work has helped make De Gouden Kooi Belgium’s most awarded escape room company, repeatedly ranked among the world’s best by TERPECA. A decade later, he is still dreaming up its worlds.
Zoli Papp
SPEAKER
Zoli is the founder of Zolitopia, the organizer of Game On, and co-founder of clueQuest. With over a decade of experience in the escape room industry, he has consulted numerous business owners on organizational structure, marketing strategies, and business development. Zoli has also been a featured speaker at major industry events, including PuzzolCon, Transworld, ERIC, and Up the Game
More To Come
WATCH THIS SPACE
We have even more exciting speakers lined up to join the event, stay tuned as the list continues to grow!
While the agenda is nearly complete, a few spots are still available. Interested in speaking? Sign up here!
GAME ON 2027 TICKETS
EARLY BIRD TICKET - £390 £290
Only 30 Early Bird tickets are available, giving you the chance to secure your place and save £100.*
Join escape room owners and industry professionals from around the world for two days of practical talks, interactive workshops, new experiences and valuable connections.
Your ticket includes:
Full access to Game On on 20–21 April 2027
Talks, workshops and exhibitor areas
Lunch on both conference days
Access to the networking evening on 19 April
Conference activities and experiences included in the programme
Early Bird tickets save £100 and are limited to the first 30 sold, or until 31 January 2027—whichever comes first.
You may purchase more than one ticket. Attendee details can be confirmed separately through the registration form sent closer to the event date.
Travel and accommodation are not included, although discounted rates will be available at selected nearby hotels.
*Early Bird pricing ends on 31 January 2027 or when all 30 tickets are sold, whichever comes first.
WHAT’S INCLUDED IN YOUR TICKET
TALKS & WORKSHOPS
Two days of practical talks and interactive workshops designed to help you build a stronger escape room business.
EXHIBITORS
Explore 10+ industry exhibitors, carefully selected to complement the key topics of Game On 2027.
EXPERIENCES
A clueQuest mission, plus another specially selected experience to be announced.
NETWORKING
Three networking nights to create many opportunities for you to connect with fellow escape room owners.
FOOD AND DRINKS
Lunch is included on both conference days, alongside evening networking events with complimentary drinks at selected gatherings.
ACCOMMODATION
Access to exclusive attendee discounts at selected hotels in a walking distance.
ZOLITOPIA
Business Consulting For Escape Rooms
SPONSOR BIO
Founded in 2021 by Zoli, owner of the UK’s longest-running escape room clueQuest, Zolitopia specializes in helping escape room businesses grow and adapt. Since its inception, Zoli has consulted dozens of owners across the UK and US, providing expertise in business development, organizational structure, and marketing strategies.
EXCLUSIVE GAME ON OFFER
Sign up for three months of consulting and get an extra month at half price!
Consulting includes:
📈 Expert guidance on business growth, organizational structure, and marketing strategies
💬 Weekly or biweekly strategy sessions tailored to your specific needs
📝 Unlimited written support for ongoing questions and challenges
COMPANY NAME
Tagline or summary comes here
SPONSOR BIO
This is the section where you can talk about your company, what you do, the different products and/or services you offer. You can also talk about why people should pick you to work with.
EXCLUSIVE GAME ON OFFER
Give people the highlights of your offer.
Details of what your offer includes:
✅ Bulletpoint #1 about your offer
✅ Bulletpoint #2 about your offer
✅ Buleltpoint' #3 about your offer
THE AGENDA
The Game On 2025 agenda is built to inspire change and provide practical insights on turning current market trends to your advantage. Across two days, you'll gain valuable knowledge from industry experts and have plenty of opportunities to connect with fellow owners and exhibitors.
DAY 0 - APRIL 28
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On the evening before the conference starts on the 29th of April we will gather for a few drinks, light hearted chats and to hang out.
Most of the exhibitors and speakers will arrive on this day so it’s a great chance for you to meet them in a casual setting.
DAY 1 - APRIL 29
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🛒 Located in the main hall of the Sibson building - this is where the conference will take place at the University of Kent - you’ll find all the exhibitors for you to explore.
Highlight Sponsors
🔒 Quizboxing: A new concept from France and a great option if you are looking to diversify your game portfolio.
🔒 Questy: A new game building platform for outdoor and play at home games. The best part, it requires zero coding skills.
🔒 Buzzshot: Escape Room Software powering business growth, player marketing and customer experience.
🔒 RiskBox: An insurance provider with packages specifically made for escape room needs.
🔒 Immersif: One-stop shop for escape room finances: Bookkeeping, Payroll, VAT, Annual Accounts, Self-Assessment, ER Insights, and more!
🔒 Massive Impact: Marketing agency looking after your website, SEO and PPC management needs. They also specialise in escape rooms.
Sponsors
🗝️ Escape Puzzles: Complete escape room plans and assets you need to start building an escape room.
🗝️ Escape Workshop: Creating full builds from the minds behind the highly praised Pier Pressure games in Brighton.
🗝️ COGS: Show control built for live interactive experiences such as Phantom Peak, Bridge Command and many more around the globe.
🗝️ Indestroom: One of the largest escape room supplier with dozens of different themes and game formats in their library.
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🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Future Proofing
🎤 Speaker: Zoli Papp
🎯 Bio Highlights: Zoli is the co-founder of the UK’s longest running escape room clueQuest. He also consults escape room owners on business development and marketing.
📈 Talk Summary
Although the global escape room market is valued at 9 Billion USD and is predicted to grow yearly by 15% in the next 5 years, developed markets such as the UK, US and Europe are experiencing bearish markets.
This new situation can only be survived by escape rooms that are well structured and keep innovating.
Zoli will share his insights on how you too can set up an agile organisational structure that offers career paths and is capable of navigating this new landscape.
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🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Future Proofing
🎤 Speaker: David Goodman
🎯 Bio Highlights: David - the owners of Hounds - writes, designs and builds all sorts of immersive productions. He is not only committed to evolve his own immersive business but he’s also eager to help the industry as a whole.
📈 Talk Summary
A thought provoking talk about the need to change our perspective on how we view escape rooms.
David will share insights on why and how he and his team almost entirely dropped the use of the words ‘escape rooms’ in order to fight negative connotation in potential customers’ minds attached to these words
This change helped them to reach a wide range of potential customers who might have thought: ‘Escape rooms are not for me.’
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✍️ Format Overview
There will be three interactive workshops happening simultaneously that you can choose from.
The goal of these workshops is to engage you in excercises so you can walk away with a to-do list.
These workshops will repeat at 3pm so you’ll be able to attend two of the three options.
📝 Option #1 - Adjusting Difficulty On The Fly
🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Future Proofing
🎤 Workshop Leader: Philly Harris
🎯 Bio Highlights: Philly’s academic career in psychology was cut short when she and her husband started Pier Pressure, a TERPECA winning spot. Since then she not only designed games for themselves but various clients around Europe.
📈 Workshop details
Learn about adjusting game difficulty on the fly and why this will benefit both the players and your operational team.
During the workshop you’ll turn a couple of your own puzzles into ones that have different difficulty levels. This will give you a framework to update all your rooms after the conference.
📝 Option #2 - Data Driven Decision Making
🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Future Proofing
🎤 Workshop Leader: Chi Yun Wai (Sam)
🎯 Bio Highlights: Chi not only owned an escape room in Central London but he is a master of numbers and a certified bookkeeper. Since he sold his escape room, he’s supporting owners in making financially viable decisions.
📈 Workshop details
This workshop will dive deep into escape room business numbers and how you can back up your decisions with them.
If you ever wondered for example if one of your rooms is still making enough profit or it should be replaced, this workshop has your name written all over it.
📝 Option #3 - Memorable Branding
🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Future Proofing
🎤 Workshop Leader: Zoli Papp
🎯 Bio Highlights: Zoli not only co-founded clueQuest with it’s widely recognised yellow mouse, Mr Q, but through his consulting work he also helped owners refresh their businesses around the globe.
📈 Workshop details
If you feel like your brand could use a refresh or just want to help your customers to recall your business more easily, this workshop is the one for you.
During the workshop you will work on your brand’s personality and will be shown practical techniques that will help you to differentiate your business from the competition.
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🍔 Enjoy a delicious selection of sandwiches and finger food in the main hall.
🛒 This lunch break is two hours long so you’ll also have plenty of time to explore the sponsors exhibiting in the main hall.
Highlight Sponsors
🔒 Quizboxing: A new concept from France and a great option if you are looking to diversify your game portfolio.
🔒 Questy: A new game building platform for outdoor and play at home games. The best part, it requires zero coding skills.
🔒 Buzzshot: Escape Room Software powering business growth, player marketing and customer experience.
🔒 RiskBox: An insurance provider with packages specifically made for escape room needs.
🔒 Immersif: One-stop shop for escape room finances: Bookkeeping, Payroll, VAT, Annual Accounts, Self-Assessment, ER Insights, and more!
🔒 Massive Impact: Marketing agency looking after your website, SEO and PPC management needs. They also specialise in escape rooms.
Sponsors
🗝️ Escape Puzzles: Complete escape room plans and assets you need to start building an escape room.
🗝️ Escape Workshop: Creating full builds from the minds behind the highly praised Pier Pressure games in Brighton.
🗝️ COGS: Show control built for live interactive experiences such as Phantom Peak, Bridge Command and many more around the globe.
🗝️ Indestroom: One of the largest escape room supplier with dozens of different themes and game formats in their library.
-
🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Diversification
🎤 Speaker: Phil Harris
🎯 Bio Highlights: Phil not only co-own Pier Pressure - a UK’s top 100 winner - but also successfully diversified their business into room and prop building.
📈 Talk Summary
Every owner brushes up to the idea at least once in their career to become a supplier for other escape rooms for their props, booking software, marketing needs, just to name a few.
Phil and his team not only played around with this idea but actually did it. During his talk he will share the pitfalls and learning points of their journey.
This talk will equip you with knowledge on how you too could take one of your expertise and become an industry supplier.
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♻️ 11:00 AM Workshops Repeating
All three interactive workshops from the 11:00 am slots are repeating to give you the opportunity to attend two of the three available workshops on day 1.
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Once the 3pm workshops wrap at 3:45pm you’ll have another hour to explore the exhibitors.
The main hall closes at 5pm and it will be time to get ready for the Murder Mystery at Canterbury Tales in downtown Canterbury.
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🕵️ We will head to downtown Canterbury - about 20 minutes by bus or 40 minutes walking - to play a murder mystery specifically made for Game On 2025 by the Escapement team.
📍The game will take place in the brand new Canterbury Tales Immersive Experience. We will have exclusive use of the venue so you can explore and roam freely.
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We will stay at the Canterbury Tales venue to enjoy drinks and hangout after a long but productive first day of the Game On 2025 conference.
DAY 2 - APRIL 30
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📍 We will start the day in downtown to play a brand new game, Glitch Hunters: Canterbury.
🕵️ The game will take 60-90 minutes to play. This experience is a follow up to clueQuest’s successful Glitch Hunters: London outdoor game and will make its debut at Game On 2025.
-
🛒 Located in the main hall of the Sibson building - this is where the conference will take place at the University of Kent - you’ll find all the exhibitors for you to explore.
Highlight Sponsors
🔒 Quizboxing: A new concept from France and a great option if you are looking to diversify your game portfolio.
🔒 Questy: A new game building platform for outdoor and play at home games. The best part, it requires zero coding skills.
🔒 Buzzshot: Escape Room Software powering business growth, player marketing and customer experience.
🔒 RiskBox: An insurance provider with packages specifically made for escape room needs.
🔒 Immersif: One-stop shop for escape room finances: Bookkeeping, Payroll, VAT, Annual Accounts, Self-Assessment, ER Insights, and more!
🔒 Massive Impact: Marketing agency looking after your website, SEO and PPC management needs. They also specialise in escape rooms.
Sponsors
🗝️ Escape Puzzles: Complete escape room plans and assets you need to start building an escape room.
🗝️ Escape Workshop: Creating full builds from the minds behind the highly praised Pier Pressure games in Brighton.
🗝️ COGS: Show control built for live interactive experiences such as Phantom Peak, Bridge Command and many more around the globe.
🗝️ Indestroom: One of the largest escape room supplier with dozens of different themes and game formats in their library.
-
✍️ Format Overview
There will be three interactive workshops happening simultaneously that you can choose from.
The goal of these workshops is to engage you in excercises so you can walk away with a to-do list.
These workshops will repeat at 3pm so you’ll be able to attend two of the three options.
📝 Option #1 - Minimum Investment, Maximum Payoff
🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Diversification
🎤 Workshop Leader: Brent Girhalva and Alex Field
🎯 Bio Highlights: Brent and Alex form a tightly knit team at clueQuest. While Alex looks after the operational team, Brent as the sales manager takes care of their corporate clients.
📈 Workshop details
They will share their best practices on how you can create add-on experiences for corporate clients from your existing puzzle portfolio.
The excercises of this workshop will help you identify add-on items in your business that will help you raise the bottom line and attract more corporate teams.
📝 Option #2 - How To Diversify Your Game Portfolio
🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Diversification
🎤 Workshop Leader: Alex Girschfeld
🎯 Bio Highlights: Alex is the owner of Indestrom which is not only one of the largest turnkey providers in the industry but he and his team also created unique concepts such as self restraining rooms and escape cubes.
📈 Workshop details
If you are looking to expand your escape empire with new and unique concepts to attract a more diverse customer base, this workshop is a perfect choice for you.
The excercises of this workshop will walk you through the process of identifying market gaps, the strengths of your business and what new experiences will fit your specific needs the best.
📝 Option #3 - Unlocking New Demographics With Digital Ads
🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Diversification
🎤 Workshop Leader: Piyush Agrawal
🎯 Bio Highlights: Piyush, the founder of Massive Impact and SEO ORB works exclusively with escape room businesses to improve their digital visibility through PPC and SEO marketing.
📈 Workshop details
This workshop is designed to identify new demographics that are not part of your core audience.
Then the excercises of this workshop will walk you through the process of creating ads for these new audiences and how to convert them into paying customers.
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🍔 Enjoy a delicious selection of sandwiches and finger food in the main hall.
🛒 The lunchbreak will also be a great opportunity for you to further explore the sponsors exhibiting in the main hall.
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🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Inspiration
🎤 Panelist: Lewis Hunt
🎯 Bio Highlights: Lewis and his team created and collaborated on several TERPECA top 100 games. He is also the mind behind the brand new Canterbury Tales immersive experience that we’ll be visiting on day 1.
🎤 Panelist: Mairi Nolan
🎯 Bio Highlights: Mairi is the UK ambassador for TERPECA and editor in chief of the Escape Industry Newsletter that’s read every month by hundreds of owners.
🎤 Panelist: TBC
🎯 Bio Highlights: TBC
🎤 Panelist: TBC
🎯 Bio Highlights: TBC
🎤 Moderator: Zoli Papp
🎯 Bio Highlights: Zoli consults escape room owners around the globe, organises roundtable discussions and attends several ER conferences every year.
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♻️ 11:00 AM Workshops Repeating
All three interactive workshops from the 11:00 am slots are reapeating to give you the opportunity to attend two of the three available workshops on day 2.
-
🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Inspiration
🎤 Speaker: TBC
🎯 Bio Highlights: TBC
📈 Talk Summary
TBC
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🧙♂️ Game On Topic: Inspiration
🎤 Speaker: Stephen Davies
🎯 Bio Highlights: Stephen is the Senior Vice President of Global Licensing at BBC Studios. He has overseen licensing for iconic brands such as Doctor Who and BBC Earth.
📈 Talk Summary
More and more iconic IP’s are adding immersive experiences to their product lineup with a budget usually far superior to traditional escape rooms. Their innovation however eventually trickles down to the SME sector.
Stephen will go through examples of what big brands are working on right now and how that could affect the escape room industry in the near future.
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Zoli - the main organiser of Game On 2025 - will wrap up the conference with a few words before we open the bar for the third and final networking night.
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We will gather at the bar on-site to enjoy a few drinks and hang out with our fellow owners.
MEET THE SPEAKERS
Game On brings together industry innovators and experts to share proven strategies and insights. From business growth to immersive trends, our speakers will deliver presentations and interactive workshops to equip you with the tools to thrive in today’s market.
Stephen Davies
SPEAKER
Stephen is SVP of Global Licensing at BBC Studios, overseeing licensing for iconic brands like Bluey, Doctor Who, and BBC Earth across entertainment, publishing, gaming, and live events. With a finance and strategy background, Stephen has held leadership roles at the BBC since 1998, following earlier work in business development and supply chain strategy for Sainsbury’s and TJX.
David Goodman
SPEAKER
Dubbed the UK’s “Master of Immersive Experiences,” David is the Owner/Creative Director of Hounds, Sussex. David is committed to constantly evolving out-dated entertainment formats, looking to diversify the immersive entertainment sector and carve out a position for small-medium scale attractions in the future. He writes, designs, builds and directs all-manner of Immersive productions
Alex Field
WORKSHOP LEADER
Alex has been the Operations Manager at clueQuest, the UK’s longest-running escape room, since 2022. He started as a host in 2018 and transitioned through various back-office and operations roles, gaining extensive experience in operations and logistics. Alex now oversees a team of 40+ people, including Games Hosts, Assistant Managers, and members of the Sales and Customer Service teams.
Mairi Nolan
PANELIST
Mairi Nolan is a puzzle game designer and journalist. When not trying to escape from every escape room in the world, she writes about them as the editor in chief of the Escape Industry Newsletter - a global newsletter about escape rooms, and The Escape Roomer - a news and reviews site covering the UK. Additionally, she is the UK Ambassador for the Escape Room Championships, and TERPECA.
Brent Girhalva
WORKSHOP LEADER
Brent has over a decade of experience in youth empowerment, immersive entertainment, and applied theatre. At clueQuest, he combines creative sales outreach with a deep understanding of immersive experiences, focusing on corporate client retention and new customer engagement. He is also completing a Master’s in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy.
Zoli Papp
SPEAKER
Zoli is the founder of Zolitopia, the organizer of Game On, and co-founder of clueQuest. With over a decade of experience in the escape room industry, he has consulted numerous business owners on organizational structure, marketing strategies, and business development. Zoli has also been a featured speaker at major industry events, including Transworld, ERIC, and Up the Game.
Chi Yun Wai (Sam)
WORKSHOP LEADER
Chi, founder of Immersif, has over a decade of experience in the escape room industry, designing, building, and successfully selling multiple escape rooms. Drawing on his deep industry knowledge, he now specializes in providing tailored financial services, including bookkeeping, payroll, tax compliance, and data-driven insights. Chi is passionate about helping escape room businesses to achieve stability and growth in a competitive market.
Phil Harris
SPEAKER
Phil is co-owner of Pier Pressure escape rooms in Brighton and MD of Escape Workshop – the UK’s top dedicated puzzle and prop builders. Pier Pressure are currently the only UK company with a game that has spent three years at the top of the UK TERPECA rankings and Escape Workshop have designed games and built props for some big companies both inside and outside of the escape room industry.
More To Come
WATCH THIS SPACE
We have even more exciting speakers lined up to join the event—stay tuned as the list continues to grow!
While the agenda is nearly complete, a few spots are still available. Interested in speaking? Sign up here!