Small Business Spotlight: Tactical Escape 101

Written by: Delila Lyshik

Tactical Escape 101 was opened in 2015 by co-owners Justin and Jennifer Fonfara. There are five locations, four of which are located in Wisconsin.

Each location has different rooms, which can be explored on their website, https://tacticalescape101.com/.

Bailey Buckholt, a manager at the location, said, “We work with the children’s museum downtown, and we’ve been trying to work with UWSP to set up an escape room on campus for accessibility.”

The escape rooms themselves are typically open seasonally and rotate out multiple times a year. Some of the current rooms to play in at the Stevens Point location include Tanked, Dollz, Paranormal, and Kraken’s Revenge. Some of the rooms are updated for the Halloween and Christmas seasons.

Buckholt said, “The Paranormal escape room is based loosely on a local urban legend.”

In short, a woman was driving on her way to her wedding when she crashed off the bridge near Jordan County Park. Neighbors and residents of the area report seeing a woman in a wedding dress standing by Highway 66.

The most popular rooms change depending on the age range, season, and interests of the group playing.

Buckholt said, “Tanked and Paranormal have been quite popular lately.”

Buckholt said, “Players get an hour to play in the escape room. But if a person in the party has a birthday coming up or plays a game on their birthday, they get an extra two minutes.”

Additionally, if players dress up for Kraken’s Revenge as pirates or within a pirate theme, they can get up to 5 more minutes. Double-booking is allowed as well if the party wants an extra hour to figure out the puzzle within each room.

For the upcoming holiday season, a new room called “Santa’s List” will be implemented.

Some of the discounts for the rooms include a 10% discount code good for every Tuesday and Thursday: “Imastudent.” A 25% discount code redeemable every Friday is “uwstuds.”

Delila Lyshik

News Reporter

[email protected]