Escape Room Booking Software

If you run one escape room and nothing else, there are good specialist tools for that, and we say so below. VenueChief is for the venue that sells rooms along with something else: axe throwing, VR, a party room, a bar or a kart track. It books all of it on one calendar, in one basket, with one waiver and one payment.

Booking plan from $279 a month, published. Four escape rooms and four axe lanes is eight bookable units and costs $391.

Two products, and which one this is

People who buy for escape rooms usually buy two things. Booking software sells the slot, takes the payment, collects the waiver and tells the front desk who is coming. Game master software runs the game itself: the in-room timer, hint delivery, music, lighting and puzzle control.

VenueChief is the first. We do not run your puzzles, hints or room timer. Keep the game master tool you use now; we sit beside it. If your game system can call a web address when a game starts or ends, an early access automation pack can put an intro and a 60-minute countdown on the room screen and start a reset countdown for the crew when the game ends. It does not control your props.

Rooms, resets and group sizes

An escape room slot is a resource booked for a window with a reset gap after it. Each resource type has a buffer, fifteen minutes by default, that nobody can book into. Set it to 20 and a room cannot be sold back to back. Each room also has its own minimum and maximum group size, so a room built for four to eight will not take a booking for two, and will not take twelve.

You can price a room per person, per booking, per person per hour, or a base price that includes a number of people plus a charge for each extra. Add member rates, peak hours, days of the week, time of day and seasons, each with a priority, and check any combination in the What will this cost? preview before a guest sees it.

A room that is broken or being repainted is marked unavailable with a reason and a return date. Online booking stops offering it the moment you do.

One basket for the whole night

A guest can book a room, axe lanes and a party room in one cart and pay once. Each activity keeps its own booking, so the room and the lanes can start at different times, and the order is one. A gift card, a promo code or a membership offer goes in the same basket. Gift cards sell online for a room as well as for anything else you run.

Corporate groups are a different shape: one organizer, many people, one bill. Staff create a private event in a single screen. The organizer gets one bill and a link to pay the balance online. Or each guest pays their own ticket when they join from a link. A private event can be built from karts, sim time, one room and a food credit per guest. Group leaderboards score karting and sim racing laps only.

Waivers for a group of fourteen

The booking confirmation carries a signing link the organizer can forward. Turn on per-participant links and every guest gets their own, and the link for a minor goes to a parent or guardian, who does not need an account. At the desk, the check-in list shows each person and what they still owe, so you are not chasing the last four at 7:10.

You decide how strict to be about age. An eligibility profile can set a minimum age, require an adult to supervise and require a signed waiver. Attach it to a room or a lane type, and the check applies when the group is checked in.

Staff and game masters on the schedule

With the Workforce add-on, a room or any other activity can need a staff role, and online booking only offers times when a qualified person is on a published shift and not already committed. That is a staffing check on the schedule, and it is useful when a game master is part of the product. It is not a game master console.

What a Friday looks like

At 5:30 the manager opens the week and sees that Saturday has two room slots with no one scheduled to host them, because the booking page has already stopped offering them. The 7:00 company booking is two rooms and a 9:00 axe block. Eleven of fourteen have signed. Room B was reset by 6:45 because the 15-minute buffer kept anyone from booking into it. At 9:00 the lanes are free, because the same calendar knew.

What VenueChief does not do for escape rooms

This list is longer than a competitor's page would make it. It is also why you can believe the rest.

• No game master console. No in-room timer, hint delivery, puzzle control, music or lighting from VenueChief. The early access automation pack reacts to your game system. It does not replace it.
• No booking questions or custom fields. The checkout has a free-text special requests box. You cannot ask "What is your team name?" as a separate field and report on it.
• No waitlist for a full slot. If a time is gone, it is gone. A waitlist exists for out-of-stock shop items and for karting league entries, not for room bookings.
• No public games with strangers. A room slot is booked by one group at a time. You cannot sell individual seats to separate groups in the same game.
• No Reserve with Google, Viator, TripAdvisor or Groupon listings. Bookings come from your website, your kiosk and your staff.
• No private game fee as a separate option. Exclusive use, which holds a track or the whole venue for one booking, is available on any booking. It is not a per-room upcharge.
• Online booking lengths are 1, 1.5, 2, 3 and 4 hours.

If you run two rooms and nothing else, a specialist booking tool at a lower price probably fits you better. We would rather say that than sell you $279 a month of software you do not need.

What it costs

Platform is $579 for four units with $28 for each unit after, and adds the point of sale, kiosks and automations. Annual prepay is 12 percent less. See the pricing page.