For the 2019 Halloween season, Cross Road Escape Games unveiled a unique, theatrical horror experience with escape-game overtones—The Séance—which opened on October 2nd and will continue on through though November 3rd. Ticket costs range from $45 to $60 per person depending on the date and time. Each séance group is a maximum of eight people, and guests must be 16 years and older.
Madison Rhoades, co-owner and creative director of Cross Roads Escape Games, describes the The Séance as a typical séance with “unexpected twists.” It’s an hour-long experience that takes place in one room and features human-size puppets playing visiting spirits. In addition, The Séance has been designed to be portable, so the experience is available for purchase by venues around the world.
Madison’s background led her to The Séance in a rather circuitous way. She was an actress in Delusion during its first year, and then she worked at the Queen Mary's Dark Harbor as one of their scenic painters. “I loved both sides of it,” she said. She and her husband had been theater students, and when we discovered escape rooms, they were thrilled. “This was what we've always wanted, to open our own theater and be in the story,” she said.
Another reason Madison is such an escape games fan is that she wants to bring guests to what she calls “the brain blast moment.” “This is when people are working so hard on something and then, suddenly, that light bulb goes off and they're like, ‘Wait a second guys. I know it!’ They’re able to open up the lock, and they get such an adrenaline rush and feel so good about themselves.”