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IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES IN ATHENS - A DESIGNER'S PERSPECTIVE
- 7 hours ago
- 8 min read
I recently visited Greece with some industry colleagues to immerse myself in the famous European experiential scene. As someone who believes that market knowledge is a cornerstone of effective design, I prioritize exploring a diverse range of experiences each year (It's also a great excuse to visit cool places!) Knowing what works, what doesn’t, and where the gaps lie is essential for any designer. This time, I set my sights on Athens, hailed as the capital of horror experiences. And my oh my, what a trip it was!
From both a designer's and client's perspective, there’s a wealth of knowledge to glean from Greece’s offerings. My trip crystalized the possibilities of immersive experiences, the expectations of participants, and who we're designing these encounters for.
While I could delve into the city's history or its typical tourist attractions, that’s not what you're here for. (If you're curious about such things, feel free to drop me a message!). Instead, let’s explore what I experienced.
Exploring Athens: A Deep Dive into Experiences
We participated in six experiences in total. At first glance, that may not seem like many; however, the scale and intensity of these encounters will make you realize how each one was more than enough to keep us engaged (and we're still recovering!) Our main focus was on escape rooms, although I need to clarify that I don't really see a world where these experiences could be defined as "Escape Rooms", if not for any othe reason than the fact that I dislike escape rooms and their traditional format, but yet these experiences in Athens have been some of my favourite attractions to date. To put it into perspective, throughout those six experiences, we only encountered about ten puzzles, no timers or certificates, and, surprisingly, no escaping involved.
It was thrilling to witness a city that's not only aligned with my design philosophies but is also pushing boundaries in gamified experiences.
However, I did encounter a notable absence of what I term “experience design,” which encompasses customer journey, branding, and service quality. Let's unpack that a bit.
The Customer Experience: A Missed Opportunity
Allow me to guide you through the average booking journey, which was rather hit or miss for many experiences I visited.
While you can book online, many operators lack a well-designed website, making navigation tricky. Most bookings occur through a directory, like a yellow pages for escape rooms in Greece. This in itself indicates just how mainstream this type of entertainment is out there. While we do have similar platforms in the UK, like the Morty app, or review sites like ETR, they haven’t reached anywhere near the same level of popularity yet.
As a result, the companies behind these experiences often remain unknown. Participants book tickets to “that thing,” rather than an experience associated with a well-recognized brand or venue. This trend seems to permeate even upon arrival.
On that note, finding these venues is a challenge in itself. Pre-visit communication is often inconsistent, sometimes providing enough information and other times offering cryptic texts or phone calls from private numbers, albeit, themed in-world. The lack of decent websites complicates the process of determining where to go or what to expect. Many times, we found ourselves wandering up and down streets, scrutinizing every building for a minuscule nameplate on a apartment buzzer panel. These experiences seem to only exist tucked away in residential or office buildings. Signage is minimal, with commercial storefronts and welcoming entrances virtually non-existent.
Finally, we spot the tiny doorbell marked with the experience's name, press it, and wait. After a few minutes of nothing, one of us would just so hapopen to hear a tiny little "click". Often, we didn’t even notice. Our group would gently push on the door to the apartment building and it had unlocked, yet still without any contact from staff. We would then begin aimlessly navigating the stairs, eventually discovering one apartment door that lacked a flat number. Perhaps a trunk by the door with a note instructing us to deposit our valuables, and then to knock three times on the door.
Starting to sound like a horror movie plot? Just wait...
The Experience Begins
Upon depositing our belongings and knocking, the door creaked open, revealing a pitch-black void with haze spilling out. What’s your instinct? To step into the unknown, hands outstretched to avoid colliding with walls? It was a jarring introduction to these experiences, especially as someone accustomed to a more service-oriented approach, even if it were to be through an actors introduction. There was no pre-experience briefing, orientation, or welcome. Just instant immersion into the action.
From nowhere an actor might appear and launch into story-telling. This unconventional entry may seem off-putting, particularly for someone accustomed to a standard of service. Yet some experiences excelled with fluid improvisation and natural role-play. Thankfully, we didn’t face logistical questions or inquiries about facilities, but it did lead me to ponder about the mechanics of this environment should things go awry, demonstrating a confident placement of the “magic threshold” in design (See my blog post about the Magic Threshold here!)
The Experiences Themselves
There's so much to unpack regarding the experiences; I'm still processing it all! In brief, they were extraordinary. Many of these encounters spanned up to 15-20 spaces, with some individual "rooms" resembling small warehouses. The 360-degree sets, while expected in immersive experiences, were impressive considering the sheer scale of decoration. We encountered stunning set pieces, a full chapel spread across multiple levels, an actual car you could climb into, an entire three-floor house as part of the experience, just to name a few.
Moreover, the average experience length was 2.5 to 3 hours. When put into perspective that similarly marketed experiences in the UK have a run time of 60 minutes, maybe 90 if you’re lucky, it’s a staggering upgrade. We were also seeing casts of actors sometimes up to 4/5 people. So you might assume that tickets are expensive to reflect this… NOPE! Some tickets for these experiences were cheaper than a big standard escape room in the UK, averaging around £30 per head, for double or even triple the length, not to mention the cast and production value included. Granted this is more of a reflection on the Greek economy than the actual value of tickets, but it can’t be denied that these low prices have made experiences at this level infinitely more accessible to the public, but perhaps that’s a conversation for another time. Let’s breakdown the experiences a little more.
Exploring the Nature of These Experiences
What actually took place during these lengthy adventures? Surprisingly, it was far from a barrage of puzzles or challenges. As mentioned, over our six experiences, we encountered about ten to fifteen puzzles in total. Starkly lower than the average or so 20 puzzles you might find in just one typical nUK escape room. This reduction is due to a few factors:
Horror Atmosphere: Almost every experience experience in Athens is horror coded. Guests often move more slowly in horror settings, their minds juggling logic with atmosphere. A challenge that's typically quick in an escape room might stretch to several minutes in this context.
Focus on Cinematics: The real stars of these experiences were the cinematic elements. More on this in a moment!
Shift in Immersive Trends: The immersive industry is evolving away from traditional puzzles, likely in part due to the stigma surrounding escape room difficulty. I discuss this in detail during my seminars, addressing its impact on the immersive sector.
Guest exploration was a significant draw, made possible by vast sets and strategically utilized darkness. These experiences keep much of the space hidden using masterful lighting, creating an exhilarating search for discovery. Unlike typical venues that allow quick reconnaissance of a room, here participants might still be trying to familiarize themselves with a space even after spending ten minutes in one area. It’s no surprise that a significant portion of time was devoted to pure exploration, something many UK immersive venues aspire to achieve, accross all immersive formats.
Interestingly, movement and exploration were often guided by lighting. One owner shared that months of lighting design went into testing the guests' responses to various light settings. Experimentations with flickering, bright, and colored lights achieved nearly perfect physical cues, enhancing guest engagement. But lighting design is a subject for another blog. Let’s dive into the best part!
The Power of Live Performance
An extensive chunk of our time in these experiences was consumed by live cinematics. Some taking place in separate spaces, and others incorporating participants actively. This is where the designers truly showcased their skills, employing a plethora of special effects: lights, sounds, splatter bladders, pyrotechnics, and even rain. This aspect captivated my design sensibilities and highlighted accessibility; everyone could engage with and appreciate these spectacular performances, even when the rest of the experience might not have been as engaging for them.
Most guests are unlikely to remember minor prop interactions or static sets, but a dynamic narrative unfolding in an engaging world leaves a lasting impression on memory and repeat visits. The designers, writers, and actors of these scenes deserve high praise; their performances even surpassed most traditional theater productions I’ve witnessed.
I feel like I could talk about these cinematic moments endlessly. Particularly as there is absolutely no photos or footage to be found that showcases any of them, re-living them through telling is the closest we can get without going and doing them all over again (which I totally would). UK attractions - More of these please!
Debriefs
It’s worth mentioning these way these owners and designers carry themselves. Post-experience debriefs are informal, and owners are keen to explain more of the story they’ve told, and make sure that you as the guest understood and appreciated specific design choices. Perhaps this is something more cultural, whereby feedback is given more freely and honestly than in the UK where most wait to bitch about things on Google or TripAdvisor.
I found this interaction slightly bewildering, and endearing at the same time. But my personal thoughts is that anything in immersive should stay in immersive. If there’s something worth talking about, then designing in a safe space that gently moves you back across the “magic threshold” is the ideal. It was nice to have a conversation with these people, but maybe it should have been a bit more structured to stop it dragging on too long, or starting to chip away at the facade that was so carefully curated just moments ago. There was one experience in particular that did a brilliant job of this.
Key Takeaways
Immersive experiences in Athens... you're setting a lofty standard, and the world should be taking notes! However, there's a crucial opportunity for improvement in customer journey and experience design. Merging these strengths would yield remarkable results.
But why isn’t the UK moving in this direction? The answer largely rests on cost factors: space, fabrication, safety, and performer expenses. Even if these financial barriers were reduced, a lingering question remains: Is the UK ready for this level of immersive, or even simply for year-round horror?
Frankly our guests can't be trusted to play safe, let alone just play along. How do we tutorialise our markets to not just know how to react to these kinds of experiences, but to actively engage with and enjoy them. And if we were to bring something of this scale to the UK, how would we justify the accompanying ticket price?
All quite damning questions when you really start to break them down, however it reveals a path forward for the industry. At the time of writing this, I am actually actively working on a couple of experiences that are looking to bring this level of storytelling and immersion to destinations around the UK. Having now seen for myself what is possible, you can for sure expect to see elements of Athens hitting the UK scene in 2026/2027 - A sign of potential growth and transformation!
Truth be told, I have barely scratched the surface of the details and nuances of the experiences in Athens, and what can be learnt from them. I'd love to go into more depth, so if there's any topics in particular that you'd like to know more about, or discuss if you've been yourself, then please do reach out!
Credits
Don't Take A Breath https://verone.gr/dont-take-a-breath-en
Chapel And Catacombs https://www.lockhill.gr/chapel--catacombs.html
Grithin Gifford https://www.escapeall.gr/en/EscapeRoom/Details/grithin-gifford
A special shoutout to Evil Dead which we all agreed was our collective favourite of the trip.
DESIGNING IMMERSIVE.
It's complicated, intricate and specialist. Koncept has it mastered.
An asset, ally and hidden superpower to creative teams and businesses. I am a specialist in writing and designing immersive attractions that stand out. As the mind behind some of the UKs most critically acclaimed experiences, Koncept Creative has a proven track record of transforming LBE and FEC business's ideas into fully realized, expertly written masterpieces that customers will pay to be immersed in.
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