Oh, why hello there.
It’s the first day of spring, and it’s finally starting to feel like we’re past the cold front. Spring evokes feelings of renewal, changes and… updates?
Okay, yeah, so it’s been a while, hasn’t it. It’s time for some long-awaited updates and news! Since our last blog post in 2017, Hidden Trail has gone through many changes – and we’ve got many more coming up.
So, what has Hidden Trail been up to in the last two years?
Wait, two years? Time sure flies when you’re getting things done.
Well, for starters, our location at 1311 Tecumseh Rd. E was lost to the Great Windsor Flood of 2017. That was a bummer, but we didn’t lose hope. We kept running at 3147 Tecumseh Rd. E, even bringing on a new employee (Hey, that’s me writing this! – Judy) as we got busier and busier.
Running the Mad Hatter’s Birthday Party, the Speakeasy, and our two mobile rooms kept us on our toes constantly, not to mention the many events we had the joy of participating in:
· WEtech Alliance Nerd Olympics
· Fort Malden’s Escape Room Festival
· And so many more!
We even began designing escape rooms for others, which was an amazing experience that allowed us to really exercise our creativity and provide a Hidden Trail experience to players we might not otherwise reach.
But despite all of these things going on, in the back of our minds there was something nagging at us. A long-lost evil, coming back to remind us…
Asylum was waiting.
In fall of 2018, we made the big decision to shut down the Speakeasy. In its stead, we created Cherry Meadow Asylum 2.0, making it even better than the first, which had sadly burned down a year before. (What’s up with us and natural disasters?)
With the demons in Asylum finally happy, we turned our eyes to even more upgrades. The loss of 1311 Tecumseh Rd. E was disheartening, but we still wanted to expand. Like destiny was calling to us, we soon joined hands with Mind Over Matter Escape Games just a few blocks away on 4897 Tecumseh Rd. E. We’re proud to have M/M’s owner Denis on our team!
To help out further, we brought on the ever-amicable Jaz. With a full team and two escape room locations, the last quarter of 2018 was a flurry of excitement and work. We cracked our knuckles and got down to it.
We shut down Mind Over Matter’s room, Project Elise (but not before streaming a final playthrough on Facebook). This freed up a ton of room, allowing us to move and renovate Prolixin: After. This newly updated room, now just Prolixin, is fresher and ready for some new players! We’ve got a new story for Prolixin in the works, too, with a cool, fully-voiced video to accompany it. Hope you like thwarting mad scientists!
Then came our most intensive build yet. We had been dreaming since the beginning to have a true horror-themed escape room in Windsor. With our newfound space, we could finally begin work on The Man in the Corner. Our team worked through Canada Post delivery strikes, confounding technical glitches, and some real kooky scenarios (including losing a cell phone inside a wall). It may have taken a few over-nighters and a lot of coffee, but we did it! We’ve been super excited to run the first 18+ horror escape room in Windsor.
Since opening The Man in the Corner (or MitC for short), we’ve been slowly upgrading and refreshing our other rooms and even our lobbies! We got fancy new carpet in the Hidden Trail location and everything. Plus we snazzed up our website with a re-design, as you can see (you’re looking at it right now).
With five rooms polished and ready to go and many plans for the next year, we even started hiring again. And guess what? We hired not one, but two new game masters. The Hidden Trail family is getting bigger and bigger! (Who are they, you ask? You’ll have to stay tuned for our next blog post.)
Okay, so what are you going to do in 2019?
Great question. What aren’t we going to do?
We’re obviously going to have great fun running our five existing rooms. We’re also still in the midst of doing small upgrades here and there: A paint re-touch, some cable management, some new décor items… Anything to keep our rooms looking fresh!
Plenty of events are on our calendar this year too. We already had fun at iClimb, despite nearly being snowed out. Windsor Corporate Challenge is an event we never want to miss, either! And participating in Fort Malden’s first ever Escape Room Festival was like a dream come true, so we’re hoping we can join again this year.
We’ll hopefully be designing even more than ever. We’ve already got one project in the works for a client… and who knows, maybe we’ll have a new Hidden Trail room by the end of the year. In addition to designing rooms, we’ve also been considering reaching out into the community more and planning some fun events with local businesses!
On the more customer-y side of things, we want to start connecting more. With everything going on, our social media and website fell to the wayside. We decided to work on this more since the beginning of the year. In the last few months, we’ve been getting ready to commit to more community engagement, more conversations, and more content.
What does this mean? It means more Instagram posts and stories, more Facebook updates, and more blog posts! You can expect more fun things in the future like puzzle posts, behind-the-scenes, escape room tips and maybe even a giveaway or two.
So, here’s to new beginnings! Hope you’re as excited as we are!