The origin story of Escape Artist is as simple as boy meets girl. Owners Will & Kim Rutherford married on September 29, 2012 and after experiencing the escape room concept a few years ago they knew had a special attraction they could establish together in Greenville. Lets go meet the Escape Artists that are here to stay. Meet Will & Kim Rutherford of Escape Artist Greenville…
360: How did the Escape Artist idea come to life?
Will: I’ve been a fan of amusement parks and attractions my whole life. I’ve even worked for Universal Studios in Orlando, FL and Europa Park in Rust Germany. It had always been a dream of mine to open my own attraction at some level. When we first stumbled upon this escape room concept a couple years ago we loved it! It fit our interests and skill set perfectly and Kim convinced me to take a chance with her and open this business.
Kim: Will and I had always loved creating immersive experiences. For years we designed and built a haunted house in our garage, mud room, backyard and screened-in porch. We worked on this haunted house for months and spent way too much money for one night of having it open. A few years ago we went to a haunted house convention in Columbus, OH and attended a seminar about escape rooms. I honestly didn’t think anything of it but on the ride home Will nervously broached the subject. He asked me what I thought and without hesitation I responded that we had to do it. So then over the next year we planned and designed and went through several terrible ideas before landing at 217 East Stone Avenue with Dr. Fratelli’s Cabin. The designing and building came fairly naturally to us… I won’t say easily, but it seemed to just fit our personalities and creativity.
360: Being a married couple running a business how is it working together?
Will: Being married makes this possible. There’s no way just one of us could spend this many hours on Escape Artist if the other wasn’t there as well. With that said, we definitely had to learn to schedule times to put Escape Artist away, and just spend time doing anything else with each other.
Kim: It’s really not that much different from any other project we’ve tackled since being married. Pretty quickly after our wedding we bought a fixer-upper and spent months renovating our home all DIY. Then we started designing our haunted houses. In between haunted houses we built entire sets to transform our living and dining room into a wild west saloon for a murder mystery party. It’s not always easy and we are both just figuring things out as we go, especially with some of the little details that go along with owning and running a business, but in the end we always say that if it at any point seems like too much for us then we will give it up. We love what we’re doing but it would never be worth sacrificing our marriage for. But fortunately we work well together and complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses so we have no plans on giving it up any time soon.
360: What’s your favorite part of the Escape Artist experience for you?
Will: The amazing responses from customer! Seeing their joy and pride that comes from working together to accomplish a goal. Hearing their laughter down the hall as they leave our experience. And then improving as game designers to ensure the next room is even better than the last.
Kim: I love the designing period. This is when Will and I get the most excited. I sometimes get a little too obsessive and want to talk about it all the time. But it’s so much fun. Typically we come up with our theme and run with it. We always come back to “What would exist in this world?” and design our puzzles around that. Our brainstorming meetings are a blast. I love the creativity that goes into designing these rooms. And when we’ve finally figured out puzzle and how it should be done it is so exciting. It’s an adrenaline rush.
360: Where do most of your influences come from?
Will: Anywhere and everywhere. When I come across a book or a movie with a really fun moment, I try to see if I can accomplish something similar in our attraction. When we’ve picked a theme such as a psychologist’s cabin or doomsday prepper’s shelter, we go to as many places as we can that we might be able to get more inspiration for the things that would live in that space. Oh, and of course we love to experience other escape rooms and immersive attractions to help plant more idea seeds.
Kim: Everyday life. We look for inspiration everywhere. We even look back at the games and puzzles we loved as children. It’s always fun when you start with a general idea or inspiration and get to watch it grow into something unique and incredible.
360: What’s next for the Escape Artist?
Will: We want to continue to build our fan base. There are still lots of people in Greenville that have yet to experience Escape Artist. We are currently designing new rooms. And I think they’re getting better every time.
Kim: Ha! Growing and improving I hope! We would eventually like to have 3-4 escape rooms up and going but since we are a small, local company we are taking things slowly. Honestly we don’t want to rush into a situation that may result in a bad, rushed product or something that is more than we can handle. We’ve just recently hired 4 AMAZING people who are making it possible for Will and I to design as they handle most of the day-to-day tasks. We really got lucky with them and trust them to make sure that every experience is a blast.
360: If you could eat and do one thing in Greenville what & where would that be? Go!
Will: Anywhere I can ride my bike to. We love cycling in Greenville. The fact that I can walk out my front door and ride to mountains, then the Swamp rabbit trail, then to tons of great restaurants and breweries is one of my favorite things to do.
Kim: I would eat Crepes at Tandem in Travelers Rest (haha not Greenville I guess) after riding our bikes on our 25 mile loop. A beautiful ride with delicious crepes isn’t a bad way to spend a day. The part of the ride coming back home after stuffing ourselves with crepes is a little tough but totally worth it.
360: Thanks Kim and Will. Hopefully next time 360 experiences Escape Artist we’ll be able to escape within the hour…
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