In 2015, my partner, Jeremy Pendleton-Chow, and I visited Portland, OR and experienced the awesomeness that is McMenamins (a company that revitalized unexpected spaces, like an old elementary school from the 60s, and turned it into bars, restaurants, and more while keeping the same feel as before). They had 1 sheet passports made, which encouraged customers to visit all their locations and collect a different stamp. I loved the concept and ever since, have been obsessed with trying to get a world-wide Escape Room Enthusiast passport off the ground!
I wanted to make sure the passports would be quality and last for years to come. They must withstand being kept in a purse for months and months, ready for the next escape room game. They had to look and feel nice, so they’re durably leatherette bound with gold foil on the cover. The pages had to be thick enough, so that stamp ink wouldn’t seep through on the other side of the page. We chose an ivory color to give it a more antique look. Each of the stamp pages have 4 boxes on them, to give more room underneath to include any potential notes an enthusiast might want to write to remember their experience. Of course, we had to include a place to write the Escape time! The passport includes space for 55 game stamps. There will be options to buy extra filler pages in the future.
In November 2018, we reached out to other businesses to see if they would be interested in simply stamping passport-holders with a special stamp for each of their games. We are thrilled with the interest from not only escape rooms in our state, or our region, but throughout the country, and a couple in other parts of the world! With the only requirement for an Escape Room business to participate and have their business included on our site is to simply provide a stamp for each game, we can’t wait to see how it grows! We began selling passports on the day after Thanksgiving, November 23rd, 2018. We also can’t wait to collect all the different stamps ourselves!
It’s a tricky thing, coming up with an idea that includes multiple businesses, which is why we’ve decided to keep it simple. Business owners decide sales, discounts, and even prizes if they so desire! Enthusiasts, we love you so much! At the very least, we wanted to provide a beautiful souvenir to keep record of your games.
We hope you enjoy and let us know if you have any suggestions or feedback!
Thank you,
Audrey Pendleton-Chow
Creator of We The Enthusiasts Passports
Owner of Curious Escape Rooms
359 Main Street
Fitchburg, MA
