The Basement becomes the first escape room to unionize
At the Basement, a haunted escape room experience in Sylmar, patrons attempt to evade a deranged serial killer by solving puzzles.
Now the actors, who work as game masters and perform as distressed abductees at the venue, will be frightening their guests while under union protection.
This week, the Basement’s union voted unanimously to ratify its first working contract, making it the first and only escape room to have a union and operate under a collective bargaining agreement. The group is recognized as part of the Actors’ Equity Assn., which represents more than 51,000 actors and managers in live entertainment.
Jenna Wagner, an actor at the Basement, said the new contract, bargained by a dozen employees including herself, will “improve general unit morale.” It addresses higher wages and greater safety provisions as well as scheduling and media protections.
The Basement’s workers are the first escape room actors to successfully unionize.
(THE BASEMENT: A Live Escape Room Experience and Elwood Walker)
“It’s, of course, setting a precedent. A lot of people don’t see working at an escape room as something worthy of being recognized. Sometimes when you say, ‘I’m an actor at an escape room.’ People just say ‘Oh, OK,’” Wagner said. “It feels very validating [to unionize like this] because we are actors. We are performing every day.”
The Basement’s union was formed two years ago. Management, led by founder and chief executive Kayden Ressel, voluntarily recognized its workers’ efforts to join Actors’ Equity. Ressel said he used to work as a scare actor at haunted attractions so he understood where his employees were coming from.
“Their values seemed to be in alignment with what I really wanted my business to be in the first place. So, we were excited” about the union efforts, Ressel said. He’s hoping the finalized contract “will raise the bar” for other escape rooms.
The Sylmar attraction first opened in 2014 and employs 15 people. Across 3,000 square feet, it offers four interactive room choices where groups get to decide between escaping different areas of the haunted house. Live actors are involved in three of the four experiences. (The Basement is one of the few escape rooms to hire actors.) Two other Basement locations can be found in Las Vegas and Kansas City, Mo.
Ressel said he’s considering offering a discount of 10% to 20% for customers who belong to unions.
The popularity of escape rooms in the U.S. goes back to the early 2010s, when interest in interactive experiences was at an all-time high. Today, there are around 75 escape rooms in the L.A. area and more than 2,000 across the country. According to data from the media company Room Escape Artist and the escape room app Morty, the industry stabilized at the current facility count in 2022, after shrinking more than 10% during the pandemic.
The Basement’s workers are the first escape room actors to successfully unionize.
(THE BASEMENT: A Live Escape Room Experience and Elwood Walker)
Noah Nelson, a professor at the California Institute of the Arts and founder of immersive arts publication No Proscenium, said Actors’ Equity’s recognition of the Basement’s workers is a step in the right direction as the union welcomes more nontraditional units.
“There’s something to be said about the value of live entertainment being recognized. It goes beyond the venues that people would traditionally associate with that whether that is a regional theater, a Broadway house or a concert venue,” Nelson said. “There is an industry here that stretches beyond just the big houses, and at the end of the day, I view the signs of organizing in these spaces as nothing but a good sign for the overall health of the industry.”
The Actors’ Equity Assn. was founded in 1913 and is known for representing live performers typically in theatrical productions. In recent years, the definition of live entertainment has expanded, and Actors’ Equity has recognized performers at the Griffith Observatory, Drunk Shakespeare companies and even the dancers at the Star Garden Topless Dive Bar in North Hollywood. There also are ongoing negotiations for Disneyland’s cast members and the entertainers at the Casa Bonita restaurant in Denver.
Stefanie Frey, the director of organizing and mobilization at Actors’ Equity, said in a statement that the union views “escape rooms and similar immersive entertainment experiences as another live stage.” She also said the union expects “others in this growing community will seek out our union for representation.”
Actress Brooke Shields, the president of Actors’ Equity, said, “Negotiating a first contract is always a challenge, and in this case, we had no other unionized escape rooms to use for a model.”
“These workers stuck together through a long process, and seeing what they’ve achieved, I’m sure they agree it was worth it,” she said in a statement. “They have made history for a swiftly growing sector of our industry.”
