Escape This!, an escape room complex in downtown Madison, announced Oct. 2, 2025, that it would be closing in May of 2026, according to its Facebook page. The location’s (and potentially the company’s) closing follows around 10 years of ownership by Renee and Chris Thomas, two long-time Madison residents. 

The Badger Herald spoke to Renee Thomas about her and her husband’s experience running Escape This!, the circumstances behind their closing and more. What follows is an edited transcript of a Q&A with Renee Thomas. 

You and your husband have been running Escape This! for almost ten years now. What was the story behind its opening? 

Both of us were in a weird place in our careers, where we were both between jobs at the same time. It was horribly scary, but at the same time, we paused and took a step back and wondered what we wanted to do next, you know?

We took our family on a road trip out west. Along that road trip we ran across a small town and an escape room. This was very early when Escape Rooms were first coming to the U.S. from Europe. We begged them to open up on a Sunday night for us, they did, and we just fell in love with the concept.

I knew that, based on my marketing and sales-focused experience and my husband’s technical skills, that this would be a big hit. 

What are some lessons that you’ve learned while running the business?

Oh, boy, lessons.

We really intensely watched the games, and we made a lot of improvements from that. We would watch every game we built and implemented and would watch and watch and watch and watch and watch, and we ran lots of different groups through. What we learned over time was how different people react to different puzzles. 

Did a certain clue, effect or kind of puzzle impact people the right way? Did it create surprise or excitement? What we were learning overall was, you know, it’s an iterative process. That was something that we didn’t expect early on. We didn’t realize how so many different people would play and interpret the games differently. 

To shift to more recent news, what is the story behind the recent announcement to close?

It’s not a decision we made. It’s our landlord who, by the way, gave us plenty of notice. They are getting more and more into the hospitality and creating a great hotel experience for the people who are staying above us. So we knew that was coming and mentally timed that with a point in our career. 

It’s been so much fun, but at some point, we would have to end it as well. We feel like we’ve had a really satisfying run. We’ve really done our very best to entertain so many people in Madison, and we feel so proud of that. We’re going to take time for ourselves now to focus on the next stages of where we’re going in life.

What is Escape This! doing before it closes in April? 

I would encourage people to come to our website and/or get on our mailing list. We’re doing flash sales to get people to play games. 

Another cool thing that we’re doing that is so much fun for us is offering the ability for people to come back in the control room and be a Game Master. You come sit back in the control room with me or one of our employees, and you get to watch the players and talk with us while we watch the game. It’s such a great backstage experience.

What would you try to say to sell someone on the idea of escape rooms?

I would encourage people to think of it as a puzzle space and a fun experience. I would tell people who like puzzles that this can be a great experience, and it doesn’t have to be something that causes them fear or anxiety. 

The other thing that I think I would tell people about our escape rooms is we also do really take a lot of time after the games to talk with people, because you sometimes don’t make it all the way through. We do take time to explain the last puzzles to give them a nice sense of closure. So we think that’s really important as well.

What’s your favorite memory that you’ve had while running Escape This!?

I can’t think of a specific memory, but what I could collectively talk about is how many celebrations we’ve been a part of — birthdays, anniversaries, people moving back in town, parents coming to visit, graduations. We recently hosted an entire wedding. I have personally worked on engagements and hid a ring in the room and altered some of the puzzles.

What really makes me emotional is just how many important experiences and memories we’ve been a part of. That’s the part that makes me extremely sentimental, to think about how many moments that we shared with people and how we tried our best to make those moments even better by, you know, offering the escape room experience. 

Do you have any additional comments?

We have been so nicely supported by the University [of Wisconsin] and Madison as a whole. The people who’ve supported us and come and been great customers, the amount of emails and responses I’ve gotten because of our closing is overwhelming. It makes you think that you really did a cool job.

We’ve also had such great employees. A lot of them did come from the university. They were students passionate about escape games and became like family to us. We’ve been very, very fortunate that employees’ attitudes, interests and dedication aligned with ours and enabled us to provide that great customer experience that we’ve been putting out there for people.

Escape This! will be offering rooms until April. They post frequent deals on their social media pages and through their mailing list.