On a small scale, it's a big, tight knit community with one common interest - escape rooms. On the large scale of things, it's a very, very small world. All depends how you look at it.
Our president and content creator, Rob, helps moderate and admin an escape room enthusiast page with over 32, 000 members. Check out the page : here.
Escape room players all over the world use this page to find suggestions, reviews and everything escape room related you can think of. Twice now, we have met up with groups that have posted on the escape room enthusiasts page when they need more people for a game they would like to play. Some escape room experiences require a minimum amount of players, and a lot of groups travel as couples specifically.
Other than this method of meeting new people and going to conventions then meeting with people that you've encountered online, Rob and I (Cecilia) have always played together or with a specific group of friends. We have never regretted playing with enthusiasts/designers even if we've had no prior meetings or conversations with them. There's just something about playing well reviewed escape rooms with people that like (and pick apart) puzzles just as much as we do. The most recent example of this is when we came across a post on the facebook group asking for a couple of players to join a couple of players for "The Hangover" and "Over the falls" at Escape City Buffalo - two rooms that have been on our radar for a while, but we never have a good enough excuse to cross the border and drive for 45 minutes to do it, plus we suffer from the same 2 player issue as the couple looking to play (SO many rooms are 4 player minimum - and even if they don't physically require 4 players, they will likely charge you a 4 player minimum since they could've put a bigger group in the room, so you might as well do it with 4 people at that point) When I messaged the person that posted about it - she let me know that she was ALSO part of a review group that would be visiting us...the day after our bookings for Escape City Buffalo! Check out Escape the roomers: here - our interview and room reviews for "Easy Bake Coven" and "End of the BLEEPING world" will be posted on their site soon! WHAT A SMALL WORLD.
We had a fantastic time in both "The Hangover" and "Over the Falls" at Escape City Buffalo, and highly reccomend both experiences. The Hangover, is a challenging and puzzly experience with many nods to the film. Over the falls is the most immersive experience I've done in my 7 years of experience and having played almost 70 rooms.