Geneseo Late Knight organized “Escape the Room” which took place on Thursday Oct. 25 in the Union Ballroom. The event was a great opportunity for students to take a break from their studies and come together to get into the Halloween spirit (Josie Kwan/assoc. photo editor).
Spooky Halloween decorations and bright lights covered the MacVittie College Union on Thursday Oct. 25 as students gathered together to participate in Geneseo Campus Activities Board and Geneseo Late Knight’s co-coordinated Halloween event “Escape the Room.”
This event offered enjoyable, free activities to students as they ended a tiring week. Students relaxed and socialized with peers while enjoying the start to “Halloweekend.”
An escape room requires participants to collaborate in an extensive sequence of puzzles. As the clock ticks down, teams must find all of the keys and the way out of the room through logical thinking.
Students who participated in this event had to reserve “Escape the Room” time slots to secure a spot in a room of choice. There were three levels of difficulty, ranging from least difficult to most difficult. The least difficult room was “Castle Escape,” the moderately difficult was “Escape the Upside Down” and the most difficult was “Halloween Escape.”
Among the many participants was early childhood education major first-year student Erin Garone who participated with her group of friends.
“My group didn’t get to finish because we only had 10 minutes,” Garone said. “But we were pretty close to being done and it was really a lot of fun.”
GCAB Vice Chair of Membership junior Sara Wendell highlighted importance of on-campus events like “Escape the Room.”
“Events like this on campus bring students out with their friends to come and take a night off from homework,” Wendell said. “Just hang out, get some food, just some free activities and events that they can enjoy with their friends on campus, put on by students that they know will be fun for them.”
As students waited for room availabilities, they chatted with new people, ate caramel-coated apples and popcorn, drank apple cider and engaged in arts and crafts like painting mini pumpkins, and enjoyed live music from a talented student band.
GCAB Special Events Coordinator sophomore Mary Kate Schuchman specifically addressed why the members of the organization chose to bring an “Escape the Room” to Geneseo this year.
“I’ve talked to a lot of people in the past who really wanted to do escape rooms,” Schuchman said. “So instead of going somewhere and paying a ton of money to do them elsewhere, we thought we’d bring them here to Geneseo.”
With the astounding number of students who came in their groups at the start of the event to reserve spots, “Escape the Room” was a tremendous success.
Ironically, participants left the dark, spooky themed event with smiles and laughter as they spoke about the difficult challenges and their struggle to accomplish the missions.