Escape the Petersen

The Peterson had ambitious plans for their pop-up but unfortunately failed to hit the mark. The even was a bit on the expensive coming to 50 per person with the opportunity to play only one 45 minute room. Room choices were first come first serve so you might not even get to play the room you had in mind. Additionally the rooms were the only attraction the rest of the museum was closed so there wasn’t anything else to do in the event. The cars were really lovely and I would loved more time to look at them. I really wish they had been better integrated into the event. I would definitely go back for the museum but maybe not another pop up event

Great atmosphere - $50.00 per person but covered appetizers and 2 drinks, escape rooms were good ( we did not escape the first one but were able to do two which was nice) overall would definitely recommend and not your normal escape room experience

I hate to leave a not so favorable review but for the hefty price of $50 a ticket, this experience did not live up to my escape room standards. I was drawn to the idea of an escape room within a museum when I signed up for this. There was so much potential too. This could have easily been an immersive experience with the beautiful cars and the ample space they had. It was the poor execution of the escape room and the logistics that left a bitter taste with many of the attendees. The escape room design felt amateur at best. They put us in groups of 10 and they had four rounds of escape rooms happening with 6 different escape rooms experiences. They only provided us with 45 minutes to do one escape room, even though their marketing said one hour. Since we got there early, we wanted to see if another escape room is possible to sign up for but they had a come-and-go system so really, we just paid for one escape room. Our game master was well-intentioned but new to his role, and he didn’t even realize that the key was missing from the set up. Our group lost 10 minutes looking for a key that was not there. The puzzles were not satisfying to solve and I wish there was more story building around how the cars are connected to the mystery we are solving for. They did offer light refreshments and snacks while waiting. My suggestion to make the hefty price tag worth it for future attendees is to work on the puzzle design, limit the number of people so folks can opt for two out of the six escape rooms, and potentially open up some of the exhibits while folks are waiting.

This is their second time opening up for an escape room experience, and for the price point it honestly wasn't worth it. Depending on which of the experiences you got to do, you get to visit different parts of the museum, which if you haven't been before is a pretty cool visit. But the escape experience was roughly put together with props that didn't even have their price tags cut off yet. It relied heavily on the GM to confirm if the puzzle was solved correctly since all of this was essentially a pop-up put together. They serve food and wine which was a great touch, but we left feeling like we were swindled out of a $50 price tag per person. At least all of the personnel were nice and earnestly wanted this event to go well. Needs a lot of improvement before I can recommend this as a "escape room" experience to others. I would say come if you want to see cars and wine/dine a bit. But if you really wanted to see cars, you'll need to just get a ticket to the museum as we could not just wander past the lobby of the museum.

So this was a pop-up and let’s just say the venue was the draw. Problem is it remained the draw upon leaving. While it was SUPER cool to play an escape room in the vault with every car ever made in history (1913 Rolls Royce alongside the snazziest Ferrari and Ford Model Ts, etc)…the game was designed in-house and it kind of explained things. They did the pop up once before (Oct 2023) and are hoping to do it again. First off, we thought we were playing 4 rooms and we only got to do 1 (it’s left up to how many ppl show up vs a limited number of tickets sold to play all 4 rooms). For the $50 price tag there should have been the option to play more than one 45-min room. Additionally, there were elements that were broken, missing, and one that died (batteries) in our room. Our group of 5 played with 5 strangers and we all had experience but due to the issues we finished a couple minutes late so we are counting it as a win. They did have hors d’oeuvres and drinks (wine, beer, soft) but we came for the escapes. Thankfully, it was our first of 3 rooms that night so we ended on high notes!

I asked at the end, "Did you partner with anyone on the design?" "No, we did it all in house." That basically explains it all. It was really cool to be in the museum, but the exhibits weren't open for this event. There were several "rooms" set up to play, but each person only got to play one 30 minute experience with strangers in groups of 10. There were also cheese and crackers and wine and soda, but the experience did not match the $50 ticket. The game we played was a mess--keys didn't work, items weren't used, and many of the clues, the host, who was in the room with us, would tell us as we were trying to solve. Everyone was very nice and well-intentioned, but this was a missed opportunity.