'My Chicago Podcast' Interview: Escape Artistry with Maren Rosenberg

Escape Artistry was featured on My Chicago Podcast! Read the article and listen to the interview, by Carrie Rubin here.

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My Chicago Podcast, Carrie Rubin: I really enjoyed chatting with today’s entrepreneur, Maren Rosenberg from Escape Artistry. She’s really funny, a great storyteller and her theatre background is definitely apparent as she shares the story of her taking over Escape Artistry in 2015 and what all is involved in creating the six different escape rooms located at 1579 and 1342 N Milwaukee Avenue in Bucktown. I love her passion and appreciation for the arts and the artists that make Chicago so great.

P.S. Don’t you love the post-escape photo of my family completing the Railcar room? We were in the middle of saying “choo-choo” when it was taken so we all have pretty goofy expressions on our faces! LOL

 
 
 

In Maren Rosenberg’s interview we discuss:

  • Her beginnings as an escape room zombie, then moving into management for the owner who started the first-ever escape room in Chicago in 2015, then ultimately taking over the business

  • Challenges with the city and permitting/licensing because escape rooms were a new type of business

  • Opening additional escape rooms with other investors in 2016 in a second location, right when the escape room market got saturated in Chicago

  • Buying out the investors in 2019

  • Navigating the covid related restrictions and finding new sources of revenue

  • Scrambling to create a virtual experience and the challenges around that

  • Maren’s second full-time job as the Co-Artistic Director of Uprising Theater

  • What is involved in designing new escape rooms and what sets Escape Artistry apart from their competitors (there is a lot more involved than you’d realize!)

  • Maren’s passion for supporting the arts and artists and why she encourages others to do so as well

Maren’s Nominations:

Escape Artistry

Flatiron Arts Building
1579 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago
Third Floor, Room 350

1342 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago
Second Floor
773-789-9535
https://escape-artistry.com/

Nikki Spencer