Summer School "Beyond the Lock: Innovative Approaches to Escape Rooms in Education, Culture, and Organisational Development"

The upcoming Summer School 2024 at the University for Continuing Education Krems, themed around the multifaceted world of escape rooms, aims to explore escape rooms from three perspectives: Education, Cultural Mediation, Organizational Development. We invite game designers, cultural experts, educators and museum educators, organizational developers, researchers, students and enthusiasts to participate and share their insights, experiences, and research in this growing field.

Escape Rooms?

Escape rooms, as interactive and immersive experiences, have gained significant popularity worldwide. Originating as live-action team-based games, they offer an engaging blend of storytelling, puzzle-solving, and teamwork. Participants in escape rooms are challenged to uncover clues, solve puzzles, and complete tasks within a set time frame, typically with the ultimate goal of ‘escaping’ the room. This unique form of entertainment and reflection has evolved from various influences, including live-action role-playing, point-and-click adventure games, puzzle hunts, interactive theater, and museum education programs. It appeals to a broad demographic, transcending age, gender, and cultural boundaries, making it not only a popular leisure activity, but also an excellent tool for educational purposes, cultural experiences, and organizational team building. The adaptability of escape rooms allows them to be tailored for various themes and narratives, offering endless possibilities for creativity and innovation. Their growth reflects a desire for more engaging, hands-on, and social forms of entertainment and mediation, making them a fascinating subject for exploration in our Summer School 2024.

The Summer School is organized by the Department for Arts and Cultural Studies of the University for Continuing Education Krems in cooperation with in scope GmbH.

Please register using the linked form if you want to participate in our summer school. Registration deadline: 15 June 2024

Participation is free of charge and limited to 40 people.

Participation is also possible without submitting a contribution to the programme. However, we strongly encourage you to actively participate in the programme and look forward to a lively exchange and discussion.

During the Summer School we are planning play sessions for the Escape Room "Der Traum der Archivarin" at the Archives of Contemporary Arts. You can indicate during registration whether you are interested participating a play session (only possible in German).

The programme will be released here in mid-May 2024.

Please note that all presentations will be held in English.