Students win entrepreneurial award by locking people up

What started out as a student project for Givskud Zoo has developed into an award-winning company in three different Danish locations.

Since Locked - Escape Room opened its doors for the first time in February 2018, the company has been inundated with guests who want to be locked up and solve puzzles, murder mysteries, and much more. The successful company was founded by four students on the Business Development Engineering programme at Aarhus BSS in Herning. They can now add award-winners to their CV. 

Get locked up and learn how to cooperate

On 8 November, Anna Louise Grantland, Søren Vedstesen, Martin Høeg and Kristoffer Nielsen received the 2018 Business Idea of the year award presented by the Business Development Center Herning and Ikast-Brande at the 2018 annual entrepreneurship event.

It all started with a study project in which the four student entrepreneurs were working as a study group for Givskud Zoo. Here, the four BDE-students developed a new concept based on the escape room trend from the US. When Givskud Zoo decided not to carry on with the idea at the end of project, the four students decided to start their own concept. Early this year, Herning was thus introduced to the escape rooms in the former folk school building. 

Since February, Anna Louise Grantland, Søren Vedstesen, Martin Høeg and Kristoffer Nielsen have been busy. They have just opened their third company location, Escape Zone in Esbjerg. And although the project started out by offering classic escape rooms, it will focus more on company events and teambuilding in future. 

Apart from being locked in a room and having to solve a number of challenging puzzles, Locked – Escape Room also offers teaching in group dynamics to help participants increase their understanding of collaboration in general. The mission of Locked – Escape Room is in fact to create a better work environment at Danish workplaces through intense team building and teaching. 

And this was the business idea that was celebrated at the annual entrepreneurial event 2018 hosted by the Business Development Center Herning and Ikast-Brande. 

Find out more about the BDE degree programme.