Looking for something different. Just opened at Glenwood and Rt. 224, is Escape Boardman, a hands-on and mind-bending problem-solving experience designed to provide guests with an experience like no other in Mahoning County!
      Escape Boardman, 7523 Glenwood Ave., is an adventure game that allows a group of people to be put in a themed room to solve a series of puzzles in a set amount of time.
      The business is open Fridays and Saturdays, from 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., with private bookings available.
      “Our passion all started with a group of friends, neighbors and family that loved Halloween. We spent endless hours of constructing, decorating, and designing a themed Halloween party for our annual house party. This grew as the years went on and it rivaled a movie production increasing our guests by the hundreds,” says Nancy Smith, owner of the new business.
      “It also increased our amount of props, theme designs and decorations. As the years grew, we became more detailed and more intense about the production. But it all ended in one night.
      “We decided to channel these ideas toward a business. One of our friends, Joe Glenn, owner of Zombie Skins, is a makeup artist who is in the haunt industry. We went to a trade show in St. Louis for the haunt industry and learned escape rooms derived from this industry as a way for haunted house owners to have a business that operated throughout the year. So we decided at to open our own escape room with the props we had collected over the years to provide Boardman, as well as Mahoning Valley residents with some entertainment that is a little outside of the box,” Smith said.
      Escape Boardman’s have an eclectic group of owners that allowed them to do all the preparation internally.
      Ivan Bosnjak, is an engineer who did all the construction.
      Jeff Humphrey has a security integrator background and has done most of the wiring and implementation of Light-O-Rama and special lighting effects in the rooms.
      Joe Terlecky has an IT background and has done most of our computer work.
      Smith, is an accountant who handles all of the accounting work and owns most of the props as the Halloween parties were held at her house.
      And there’s Don Hepler, who has a sales and marketing background. He has worked with a friend of ours, Ryan Kellar, who manages Captured Moments Art. Together they have provided the art work in the rooms.
      There is also two board members who are spouses of two of the owners. Sue Terlecky provided social media set up and research. Greg Smith created video and voicing effects for both rooms.
      The two rooms at Escape Boardman include the Vampire Lair, a 60-minute, two-part puzzle-solving room with the object to find your friends and get the vampire before the sun goes down. Guests have one hour to use the clues in the room to escape
      A second room, Winter Wonderland, is a 45-minute puzzle solving room with the object of finding the presents and saving Christmas before the children awake.
      “We plan on changing our Winter Wonderland room to a new theme in the spring sometime,” Smith said.
      Private bookings and additional information about Escape Boardman can be obtained by calling 330-953-2170, or on the web at www.escapeboardman.com.
     
      PICTURED: AT RIBBON-CUTTING ceremonies held last week at Escape Boardman, were two of the new firm’s owners, Ivan Bosnjak and Nancy Smith.