Escape exhibition: Stuttgart in the Lost Age

The StadtPalais – Museum for Stuttgart is a special kind of city museum. You get the impression that it is constantly reinventing itself. The StadtPalais offers a wide variety of formats to get to know Stuttgart and its history. With the escape exhibition “Stuttgart in the Lost Age“, it is venturing into another unusual format that has never been seen before in this form at the museum. The escape exhibition is designed to sensitise visitors to Stuttgart’s city history and bring it to life. The concept of the escape room will not only be integrated into the exhibition, but also linked to it. 

90 mminutes. The length of a football match. In this short time, we want to convince visitors that history does not have to be dry and black and white. Rather, it can be colourful and varied and even fun. We want to take our audience on an exciting journey through the past and into the future. The focus is on conveying the message of self-efficacy: even the smallest things can change the world! The butterfly effect states that even the gentle flap of a butterfly’s wings can trigger a tornado. 

The town hall in Jahr 1744, the market square in Jahr 1312 and a marshland in Jahr 950 – these are the stations that visitors reach:Inside with a futuristic, 16 metre long time travel train, which is supposed to be in the middle of the StadtPalais. But what did it look like back then? The sets are created in close collaboration with the historians from the StadtPalais, because of course everything has to be authentic and historically accurate. We also bring a set designer on board to provide us with advice and assistance. A slide brings visitors back to the present – definitely a highlight for young and old alike. 

We write puzzles and develop a hint system. The puzzles are solved at the hexagonal, interactive game tables, which are activated by an RFID time travel ticket. And the tipster also works using RFID Technology. In addition to the time travel ticket and tipster, visitors will find other gadgets in their time travel bag. They can use these gadgets to solve the puzzles. To make the invisible visible, we work with UV colour and black light. We breathe life into the characters who accompany the visitors on their journey through space and time. We meet up with Meike Rosenplänter and Markus Dichmann from Deutschlandfunk Nova in a recording studio in Cologne. There we record the spoken word texts we have written. We use various media to sharpen our audience’s attention. We also appeal to different senses in the various puzzle rooms. 

Of course, we want the public to know about the escape exhibition. We develop a corporate design for print and online marketing. We design posters and banners for various purposes, a flyer as well as graphics and animations for the web presence and social media channels. 

The opening of the Escape exhibition is a complete success. We see beaming faces and are featured on the front page of the Stuttgarter Zeitung one day later.