Yesterday I got a behind the scenes look at the work happening at 302 N. Broadway, the site that will be the new Champaign-Urbana Adventures in Time and Space. Currently they occupy two spaces in downtown Champaign, one on Main and one on Race. The Main street location will be phased out soon (RIP The Cabin, Calling All Heroes, and The Lost Temple), as plans are underway to open the new locale this fall. The new place was part office space part warehouse, giving owners Chris and Anne Lukeman many options to get creative with their escape room experiences.
They are currently building four new rooms in the offices: An updated version of The Cabin, a wizard-themed Harry Potter type experience, a spaceship, and a detective-themed room. Here’s a sneak peek of the set-building phase happening now. The Lukemans have been able to draw upon the talents of local designers and artisans; these new sets were designed by Joe Taylor, co-founder of Taylor Studios.
A couple of unique elements for the lobby:
There’s a huge warehouse space which is currently being used as a staging area for games they’re taking on the road. They’re preparing four games that they will pack up and take to GenCon in Indianapolis next week, and they’ve already sold out all the experiences. Eventually this space will give them the ability to get even more innovative with some larger scale interactive experiences.
Stay tuned for an annoucement about a specific open date for the new location, and in the meantime go book a room in the current space.
Photos by Julie McClure