Today we’d like to introduce you to Rovena Bridi.
Rovena, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Having worked in the entertainment industry for over two decades We decided to venture into escape rooms industry in 2017. Together with my team, we set out to design and build beautiful fun escape rooms that are immersive and challenging. We provide critical thinking, problem-solving while creating a whole ton of fun and laughter for families, corporate events, friends, team sports, and church events. Customer service is always our TOP priority.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
This business is like a roller coaster with sales, it has it ups and downs months all the time. Sometimes months are better than other months. The hardest part is to try and sell an escape room experience without the customer ever seeing the room beforehand. Many times, people just don’t see the value in all the hard work that we do if they haven’t been to our establishment, they look at price alone. Even though escape rooms have been around for a while it’s a hard sell to people who don’t want to give it a try or will feel dumb not getting out. When meeting new people, I always explain the mysteries and the objective. I also explain that we build, design, and play escape rooms ourselves and don’t always beat the clock or make it out of our escape room experience in a different state or location. It’s really not all about winning or losing to me it’s about the group having a fun experience and thinking outside the box to do something different with their time. It is literally it is the fastest 60 mins. of a player’s life and they are always so surprised how quickly the time passes. Additional challenges is with staffing since most of our workers are part-time, it’s hard to keep good people on board when business sells are up and down.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Well, what most people don’t know is that we own another company in a different state and it is also in the entertainment industry. My husband and I own a party rental company for the past 18 years in Pennsylvania and we live and work in Beaufort South Carolina, we built our northern company from the ground up through hard work and dedication, and teamwork. We work daily with our northern company in our southern escape room business, In the past, I was a store manager and district recruiter in retail sales for over 10 years so I gain a lot of experience through my retail years. We are always driven to make the customer happy in both businesses. Our escape rooms are highly rated with 5 stars ratings across all social media platforms which is very hard to maintain for any business, with coaching and constantly providing ongoing training to our staff to offer the best experience possible. I am highly knowledgeable in marketing in which was self-taught, we constantly change the room themes and experiences so the players come back to do more rooms. In the past two years, I am able to sell the rooms that we have designed to other escape rooms owners that might not be so creative. My husband and I have been together over 20+ years and we have 6 children, with only two left in the home and we feel we prepared the older children to be successful in life and their own careers.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
Well. with the Covid-19 many business were not able to withstand the closure and loss of sales during the lockdowns of each state or country. I do feel that there are so many NEW players to attract to the industry and it should continue to grow and rebound from the shutdowns. In speaking with other escape room owners, they’re sales are up and trending. We had a rough two years and we only hope to be able to continue to grow with the industry. Almost all escape room owners increased sanitization of the games (96%) and of the facility (94%) so we hope that we can drive more groups to the industry while providing a safe and clean atmosphere.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.everysecondcountsesc.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everysecondcountsesc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/escaperoomsbeaufort
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiQk_FoPvM74s-KxmGWJeIA
