PanIQ Escape Room

PanIQ Escape Room is a live-entertainment brand: a group of players is locked into a richly themed, story-driven room and must solve interlocking puzzles together to "escape" within a set time. The concept was born in the Hungarian escape-room scene and grew in the United States into one of the first systematically run escape-room chains, with its own puzzle-and-prop production, custom theming, and later-generation rooms blended with virtual reality. In larger venues, food and beverage are added to the rooms for corporate events and team-building.

As a franchisee you get a single unit in a protected territory (or larger area-development rights), and HQ supplies the package end-to-end — support with financing, site selection, planning and construction, a vetted supplier network, room designs and physical props from its own production, a custom booking system and website, hint kiosks, marketing assets, and hands-on training directly at an existing unit plus ongoing operational support. You find and fit out the venue, hire and train game-masters, run daily bookings and the on-site customer experience, and drive local marketing and corporate-event sales. Venues operate under the PanIQ Room brand in Slovakia, but the brand has no representation in Czechia — HQ is accepting license applications for here.

Income comes from per-game booking fees charged per group or room slot, multiplied by the number of theme rooms and their table turns, lifted by corporate-event packages, gift cards, merchandise sales and — in larger venues — food and beverage. The franchisee pays an upfront franchise fee plus ongoing fees to HQ; the brand does not publicly state the specific rates. The main costs are the capital-intensive fit-out, theming and prime-location lease before opening.