Why every room has a red herring

Every room we build has exactly one red herring: a clue that looks important, feels important and leads absolutely nowhere. It’s the reason for our name, and it’s the most argued-about thing in the building.

Why on earth would we do that?

Because real puzzles don’t arrive tidy. In real life, half the information in front of you is noise. A good escape room should feel a bit like that. The red herring teaches teams to step back, compare notes and ask “does this actually connect to anything?”

It’s also very funny to watch. We’ve seen grown adults spend eleven minutes decoding a shopping list.

How to spot it

We won’t give away which clue it is in which room, but the decoy usually has a few tells:

• It doesn’t match the style of the other clues

• It leads to a lock that’s already open, or no lock at all

• Two people in your team are utterly certain about it

• Your host suddenly gets very quiet on the radio

“Spot the red herring and you’re halfway out. Fall for it and you’re still having a good night.”

Nadia

The idea came from our very first room in a borrowed garage. Tom left a padlock on a toolbox by accident, and every single team spent ages trying to open it. It wasn’t part of the game. It was where he kept his drill bits. We realised people loved the moment they worked out it was a decoy almost as much as the moment they escaped.

So we made it a rule. One per room, never more, and always something you could reasonably talk yourselves out of.

Is it fair?

We think so. It’s always solvable, it never blocks the real path and if you ask for a hint while you’re stuck on it, your host will gently tell you to put the shopping list down. Every team that gets out has learned to ignore something. The red herring just makes it official.