Escape From Wizard Prison Party: Decorations

Our annual HP Escape Room party this year was an Escape from Wizard Prison theme. The party was originally scheduled for October 13th, but we ran into a little hiccup with a plumbing pipe that cracked and flooded part of our house (GAH!). The repair timeline pushed the party back a couple of weeks, so it was just this past weekend. Though the rooms were set up the first week in October (for the 'beta group' to run through the escape room puzzles), we did not want to post any photos until after the party to avoid giving away any clues.

** For all Escape from Wizard Prison party posts, see the Escape from Wizard Prison section of the blog HERE**

The escape room had 4 areas to explore: a dark arts alley, wizard shops, a divination classroom, and a Common Room.

I'm embarrassed to say that we completely dropped the ball on photos this year. We had the house set up for most of the month of October, since it was ready for the original party date... but somehow we missed a LOT of pictures of the setup. I'm including what I have available, which is a hodgepodge of setup photos and day-of-party photos.

Dark Arts Alley:

This was a completely new area this year. We transformed our office into a dark arts alley, making false walls to cover the built-in bookshelves and windows in the room. The intent was to make it an actual alley, rather than a shop interior. Each wall was a different look, which was meant to accentuate that there were 'different buildings' clumped together. 

Unfortunately, since this room is meant to be dark and spooky, and the main sources of light in the room are candles & 'torch lights,' the photos aren't great. 

Overview:

The brick wall is covering the exterior windows, and the other two walls are covering bookshelves. The broomstick in the corner is motion-activated, so it cackled and scooted around the room while guests arrived. It was turned off for the escape room, so the groups could better concentrate on the task at hand.

The remainder of the photos were taken at various stages of setting up, so the shelves may not be full or posters may not be in place yet. I didn't realize how few pictures were taken until we had the room fully disassembled. A mental note has been made to 'over-take' photos next year! 

Brick wall with Knockturn Alley iconic 'finger point' sign and "Wanted" posters:

I printed three different posters, where the facial expression is different in them. It wasn't moving photos, but at least gave the impression of more dynamic movement than the same poster for all of them. Once the posters were printed, they were tea-stained to  make them aged and wrinkly. They all had various levels of bleeding and creasing, which also made them look less 'cookie-cutter.'

The back wall has an actual plexiglass sheet in the window to prevent the partygoers from touching the items in this window, so it is only for looking!

The Borgin & Burkes window is just framed out, so the items in this window could be reached and investigated... the next couple of photos were taken early on, so the window display wasn't completely filled and the poster wasn't tea-stained yet.

Final photos:

Wizard Shops:

The wizard shops wer in our dining room this year. This was a hodgepodge shop that had various magical supplies.

Owl Post area...

A close up of the winged keys resting on the packages (from the lovely Jana at Worn Keys Emporium):

The sideboard had our Leaky Cauldron sign propped up next to Knight Bus advertisements and the Gringotts coins and deposit slips were located in this area.

Magical books, potion bottles and herbology supplies were laid out display-style on the table. We included an 'Escape from Azkaban' Daily Prophet newspaper, complete with moving Sirius photo!

A full sized mandrake looks on... 

Divination Room:

This was our living room. We just covered the coffee table and laid out the divination balls, 'Unfogging the Future' book, and escape room boxes props in this area:

Common Room:

I'm embarrassed to say that we totally forgot to photograph this room. The only photos we have of this space are close up photos of the escape room steps in here... so here is the table set up for Wizard Chess:

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