Can you escape?
Planning a group outing in Belleville, IL? Here's how Escape 618 splits large groups across rooms, schedules extra hours, and handles payment.
Owner, Game Master, Set Builder
Escape 618 can host groups from 12 up to 40 players at once by spreading them across its rooms, including two matching Detention rooms that together hold 24 players. Larger groups can book a full building buyout, schedule a private time outside regular hours, and split or combine payment however works best for the group.
Bringing a dozen coworkers or forty family members to an escape room sounds complicated. It doesn’t have to be. Escape 618, located at 102 E Main St in downtown Belleville, Illinois, is built to handle exactly this kind of booking. Below is how we split big groups across rooms, handle mixed ages, schedule around a packed calendar, and sort out payment so nobody’s left confused on game day.
Escape 618 has three rooms open right now, with two more in the works. Each room holds a different number of players, so a big group usually gets spread across more than one room at the same time.
On their own, that tops out well under 40 players. Here’s where it gets more useful for big bookings.
We run two nearly identical versions of Detention. Booked together, they hold up to 24 players at the same time, split into two teams working the same story in parallel. This is the easiest way to keep a group of 12 to 24 together under one roof, playing the same room, without cramming everyone into a single session.
For anything bigger, or if you want the whole place to yourselves, a full buyout puts your group across every room at once: The Jail Cell, both Detention rooms, and The Haunted House of Alice. That’s capacity for up to 40 players, with no other bookings in the lobby at the same time. It’s built for company events, military units from Scott AFB, and other big groups.
Big groups rarely sort themselves into one age bracket, so room assignment matters.
If your group spans a wide age range, splitting into Detention for the younger players and The Jail Cell or Haunted House for the teens and adults usually works best. Keep in mind that anyone under 16 in your group needs an adult on-site for the whole game, since the game master runs the room from the control room and can’t supervise kids directly.
Our regular hours run Thursday and Friday from 3 PM, and Saturday and Sunday from 11 AM, with the last game starting at 9:30 PM. Monday through Wednesday, we’re open by appointment only, which actually works in favor of large groups. Private group events can be scheduled any day of the week, at any time, including those Monday-to-Wednesday slots that aren’t open to the public. If your group needs a specific window, like a Tuesday afternoon corporate retreat or a weekday school field trip, give us a call or use the inquiry form to set it up.
Booking a big group doesn’t mean collecting forty separate credit cards up front. Here’s how it breaks down:
Parking is free everywhere around us, which matters when you’ve got a crowd of cars arriving together. The closest option is the lot right behind our building, the former Ben’s / Belleville Public Library lot. Street parking around us is also free, with no meters, and there’s a larger lot behind the Lincoln Theatre a short walk away if the closer spots fill up.
During our regular hours, food and drinks aren’t allowed inside the lobby. That’s what our front patio is for. Eight picnic tables sit right outside, so cake, snacks, or a full lunch spread all work fine before or after your game. If you’re booking a private after-hours event, food and drinks can be approved ahead of time to bring inside, so let us know what you’re planning when you set up the booking.
For groups of 12 or more, the fastest way to get things moving is the inquiry form on our Groups page. Tell us your group size, preferred dates, and what kind of event it is, and we’ll typically reply within one business day. If your group is smaller than four, just give us a call. We’ll figure out a way to make it work. And if you’re booking a single room on your own for a smaller group, our regular booking page shows live availability.
Weekend and holiday slots fill up first, so the earlier you reach out, the more flexibility you’ll have with dates and times. Booking one to two weeks ahead gives us the best shot at getting your whole group into the rooms and time slots you want, whether that’s a single Detention session for 12 or a full building buyout for 40.
Up to 40 players at the same time across a full building buyout, which covers The Jail Cell, both Detention rooms, and The Haunted House of Alice.
Yes, if the group is 24 or fewer. Booking both Detention rooms together lets up to 24 players run the same story side by side as two separate teams.
No. One $35 deposit secures the whole booking, no matter how many players you’re bringing. The rest is paid after the game, only for players who showed up, and your group can pay together or split it.
Yes. Private group events can be scheduled any day, including Monday through Wednesday when we’re not open to the public, by appointment.
Tyler has run more than four thousand games at Escape 618 since opening on East Main in 2018. He still builds every set himself.
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