The Escape
View the case- Brand
- HBO
- Year
- 2017
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Puzzle
- Platform
- Installation
- Agency
- MRY
- With
- UNIT9
Objective
HBO used SXSW 2017 to build fan excitement and media buzz around its flagship shows during a week when the festival itself was spotlighting them, with a Game of Thrones panel and a VEEP season-six cast session both on the schedule. The activation gave festivalgoers a physical reason to seek out HBO, spend time with the shows in person, and share the moment on social media. The format had already proven itself as a subscriber-driving tool for HBO Now on college campuses the previous fall, so HBO scaled the same mechanic up for a festival crowd.
Solution
Visitors walked in off Congress Avenue, were grouped into a team, and stepped into the Oval Office set from VEEP, where an actor playing a Secret Service agent handed them their first clues. With five minutes on the clock, the team worked through physical puzzles and props to unlock the door before time ran out. Clearing that room sent them into Pied Piper's "incubator" from Silicon Valley, and beating that puzzle led to Castle Black from Game of Thrones, guarded by a Night's Watch brother, for one last five-minute run. Teams who escaped all three rooms in the roughly 15-minute route ended up in a throne room with the Iron Throne, where they took photos, picked up merchandise, and sampled Game of Thrones wine.
Results
More than 1,500 people played through the three linked escape rooms over the three days of SXSW 2017.
- 1
Visitors team up at HBO's pop-up in downtown Austin during SXSW and enter the first of three consecutive rooms; each room gives the team five minutes to solve a puzzle and locate the door to the next.
- 2
Room one is a replica of the VEEP Oval Office, complete with presidential desk and reproduced wall art. An actor playing a Secret Service agent sets up the scenario, with the team taking on the role of Selina Meyer's aide Gary Walsh.
- 3
The team must locate a missing Nevada ballot urn and recount the votes to secure Meyer's win, while in-character insults are directed at them in the show's style; a correct solution unlocks the door to room two.
- 4
Room two recreates the Pied Piper hacker house from Silicon Valley, where the team must arrange motherboards in dish racks in the correct order.
- 5
Shining an ultraviolet lamp on the racks reveals hidden digits, which form the code the team enters to open the exit door.
- 6
Room three is a snow-filled recreation of the Black Castle from Game of Thrones, with a Night's Watch character present; the team assembles gears into a winch mechanism, solved via a puzzle on a three-dimensional map, to open the gate.
- 7
Teams that clear all three rooms reach a final hall containing the Iron Throne, where they pose for photos.
- 8
On the way out, only those who completed all three rooms can claim merchandise and sample Game of Thrones-branded wine.
