Building An Escape Room During A Pandemic Or How Atlantis Was Dead In The Water
Dear Diary….
March 12th 2020 (My birthday)
Today I made the hard decision to temporarily close Ichabod’s Escape for the next two weeks until this new Covid Virus thing is behind us. It is the busiest time of the year and sales will suffer greatly but it is only two weeks and it’s for the good of everyone, were all in this together, At least this will give me more time to work on Atlantis.
March 17th 2020 (Day of complete lockdown)
It looks like this two week thing might go on a bit longer and emergency funds are draining fast. Atlantis will have to wait , it’s time to do some automation and design contracting work to get income.
March 19th 2020 (Finances secure with contract)
Thank goodness for Sciencetech Inc for picking up my contract again. I have been working on projects with this amazing company on and off for the last 3 years (Apple , Korean Space agency, Nanofab research) and they took me back immediately to help out on a huge US Military project. But the down side is that I have almost no time work on Atlantis.
April, May, June (Still doing our part)
Government grants have kicked in to cover 75% of rent and 65% of wages (not that I have any now). But they don’t cover Heat, Hydro, Internet, Security, Interest on loans, fee’s to keep cash systems, Google business, Insurance, City Signage costs, Bookkeeping or Accounting. This leaves zero money in the pot for Atlantis Construction.
July 17th 2020 (First re-Opening)
After spending thousands of dollars on airport and ambulance grade state of the art fogging and sanitizing equipment, Plexi-glass shields and re-vamping the schedule to leave extra time between groups, we are finally open after four long months. Time to re-start construction on Atlantis.
July 20th 2020 (Not enough hours in the day)
Working full days at Sciencetech and nights running groups with a small staff means there are only a few hours a week that can be used to build Atlantis. Extra workers have been hired and things are starting to come around.
August, September, October, November
Ichabod’s is doing well and has even seen a shift in demographics to family entertainment. Parents want their kids off the screens and into real life bonding and problem solving activities. We even have 8 year old’s playing Protocol. Work is progressing on Atlantis although more and more cool effects and puzzles are added as we build and that adds time and money.
December 10th 2020
We are closed again. Here we go again. Atlantis is stalled for the same reasons again. But it’s only for 28 days…..hehe. But we are a Covid Cockroach and this only makes us want to fight harder to continue to give London a world class family bonding experience, Hey Covid, You will never beat us!
February 12th 2021
Ontario has announced that we can open again in a red zone (although their own zone criteria puts us in orange), Regardless we have modified again to go above and beyond the requirements and will be back in business Wednesday February the 17th. This weekend I am busy hiring back staff and full construction on Atlantis will resume Tuesday when employees are allowed back in my building.
For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice-no paper currency, no promises to pay, but the goal of real service…
So, Here is the question I have been asked hundreds of times and rightfully so…. “When is Atlantis going to be open?”
Here is the answer:
- As far as I can tell we are about 60% complete
- The workers should be allowed to return and continue progress next week.
- Since the last shut down the entire puzzle system has been re-vamped to allow for additional high tech Unity engine based technology that will literally blow you out of the water! ( yes, we kept on working on line during lockdown)
- An entirely new MSK (master show kontroller) system and circuit boards have been developed and are in final stages of implementation.
- We are expecting another lockdown because we rank 20th in the world in vaccinations.
So enough doom and gloom, I just wanted you all to see the trials I am having trying to get the best room in the freekin universe done.
Long story short, best guess… May1st
Next Steps:
Tools of the trade.
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