CCTV News (Focus Interview): In recent years, new games, leisure and entertainment venues such as escape rooms and immersive performances have gradually increased. However, some places also have a feature that is often overlooked by people, that is, the places are closed, crowded, prone to fire and other dangerous situations, and difficult to evacuate, and there are considerable safety hazards. Without safety, everything is zero, and there will be no sustainable and healthy development of this type of new business. Recently, reporters visited such places and saw scenes that made people worry.

This place where screams are constantly heard is what the game participants call the "secret room". Escape room games have become a new social favorite among young people in recent years. Participants in the escape room game are locked in a dark secret room divided into various small rooms. They can only escape the dilemma of the secret room by solving puzzles. In the process, they will also encounter various pre-set scares in the game. Thrilling, exciting, brain-burning, full of immersion, it is loved by young people as soon as it appears.

This immersive secret room game has shown explosive growth, especially in some first-tier cities.

However, the reporter found that while the game is popular, it hides some unnoticed safety hazards.

The reporter found a popular escape room with a high praise rate and ranked in the top four of the local repeat customer list on the Internet, and went to find the store according to the address. But when he arrived at the building where the address was marked, he couldn't find the sign of the escape room outside the entire building - could it be that this escape room does not exist in reality? After the patient guidance of the lobby attendant, the reporter found the elevator leading to the basement of the building from a narrow path on the side. After walking out of the elevator room, turning east and west through several corridors, he finally saw the front desk of the escape room. The escape room is open in the afternoon and evening. In the morning, this escape room has not yet opened for business and is empty. If there is a dangerous situation in such a secret room hidden deep in the basement of the building, where should the people inside escape? According to fire safety requirements, places such as escape rooms must have at least two escape exits. The reporter saw an escape map in the waiting area for game participants. The map showed that there were indeed two escape exits in different directions. The corridor that the reporter had just reached from the elevator to the front desk entrance was one of them. The reporter followed the evacuation instructions to another nearby escape exit. When he opened the escape door, he was faced with rows of electrical appliances. The door to the outside world was firmly locked with iron chains - the escape route was cut off. It is hard to imagine that if a fire breaks out in the secret room, once the escape passage leading to the front desk entrance is blocked by fire, the door of the other escape passage is locked with iron chains, and it will not be opened even during business hours. Then, what will be waiting for the game participants in the secret room?

It is understood that in order to reduce costs, many secret room operators rent basements and generally do not hang signs. The game secret room is hidden in it. Once an accident occurs, both the escape of the people inside and the fire rescue outside will be hindered. The reporter further investigated and found that because the interior of the secret room is not only dark but also arranged with various mechanical scenes, there are more serious safety hazards in some secret room business places.

Inside a secret room in Changsha, Hunan, the ground is decorated with plastic grass, and there are wires stuck to the bottom of the plastic grass. According to the store, the plastic grass is made of flame retardant materials. In the ignition test, the plastic grass burned and smoked when it encountered fire, proving that it was not a flame retardant material, but a flammable and combustible material. Multiple wires are laid under such decorative materials, and once the circuit fails, it is easy to cause a fire. Not only that, the indoor fire alarm system is damaged and paralyzed. This secret room also violates the fire protection requirement of at least two escape exits, with only one escape exit. With so many fire hazards, the site was immediately required to suspend business for rectification.

The problem of safety hazards in secret room game venues has actually always existed. As early as the Spring Festival in 2021, escape rooms and script killings in the commercial and prosperous areas of Changsha, Hunan suddenly emerged like mushrooms after rain, from a few to hundreds. The safety issues of this new crowded place that suddenly emerged have attracted the attention of the fire department.

Chen Ye, fire supervisor of Changsha Fire Rescue Brigade: "There is a hidden danger every step you take from inside to outside. The floor plan is very small, more than 100 square meters or 200 square meters, but it is winding inside, with many rooms and narrow passages. The first hidden danger is that it is dark, there is no light, no signs, and you don't know where to run in case of fire."

Yi Nan, fire supervisor of Changsha Fire Rescue Brigade: "It is shocking, and there is a high possibility of mass casualties. A large number of flammable and combustible materials are used in the venue for decoration, and there is only one safe exit. The location is a shopping mall, but there are no necessary building fire protection facilities for shopping malls, such as automatic sprinkler systems, automatic fire alarm systems, mechanical smoke exhaust systems, etc., including emergency lighting evacuation signs, which directly determine that the unit has major fire hazards."

The fire safety hazards in these escape rooms are not isolated cases, but the characteristics of escape room games. Because to create a horror atmosphere, darkness and locked space are necessary conditions. Take the floor plan of this escape room as an example. This 170-square-meter space is divided into two parts: the hall and the escape room. The area of two to three rooms is usually divided into nine small rooms by the operator. They are not connected to each other in the dark. There are no escape evacuation indicator lights. The escape door is locked. A large number of flammable and combustible paper products and plastic decorations are used to create a real immersive space.

Yi Nan: "The layout of the scene and the content of the theme are to make the game participants who come not know how to get out and can't find the exit. The longer the game participants are trapped inside, the more they can feel the fun of the game. Many of them are contrary to fire safety. An emerging industry may not have considered fire safety issues."

Once a fire breaks out in such a crowded place, the game participants who are enclosed in the dark will have no way to escape. Many businesses do not pay enough attention to these potential dangers, and minors who participate in escape room games also lack safety awareness.

The local government department required the local secret room entertainment venues to suspend business for rectification and inspection, and invited experts to discuss solutions for this new entertainment format with relevant departments such as fire protection, housing and construction, and culture and tourism, formulate relevant safety specifications and standards, and help operators to transform the business premises in accordance with fire safety standards. It is required that the secret room should have at least two safety exits, open evacuation signs, set up password locks and other devices for one-button opening, and fire safety reminders must be given to game participants before entering the venue to increase the safety of the secret room to ensure that this industry loved by young people can develop healthily and steadily.

Although various places have successively rectified the secret rooms in operation and under construction, due to the continuous expansion of the scale of this new format, new secret room venues are constantly emerging, and there are still gaps in relevant supervision. Therefore, to this day, the reporter's investigation found that some secret room venues still have fire hazards, especially in small and medium-sized cities where the infrastructure is relatively not so perfect. Improving the safety level of secret room game venues is still an urgent issue.

In addition to the escape room game, the reporter found that in the immersive performances that have emerged in some cities, the number of audience participants is several times more than that of the escape room, reaching hundreds or even thousands of people. The safety hazards in this place also need to be taken seriously.

The biggest difference between immersive drama performances and performances in ordinary theaters is that the audience is also an actor in the performance. This new immersive performance method that breaks the convention, integrates the stage and the auditorium, and every audience member can be an actor is gradually becoming popular in some cities.

The reporter observed that the characteristic of this immersive performance is the temporary nature of the business premises. It is a space temporarily transformed from a large shopping mall. According to the change of the program, the corresponding scenery will be set up, which is to fully create an immersive experience for the audience. But it is this temporary transformation that has buried the risk of safety.

At the immersive performance site, the reporter saw that the stage sound and light control console with various electrical equipment was only temporarily separated by simple plates to form a semi-enclosed space, and the top space was connected to the performance area and the backstage area. According to fire safety regulations, in performance venues, these electrical equipment and consoles must be placed in a sealed, independent solid wall room and equipped with a fire door with a fire resistance rating of Class B.

Since the probability of fires caused by electrical circuits is relatively high, an important way to prevent fire casualties is to limit the fire to a certain space.

In temporary venues such as immersive performances, this key part that threatens fire safety is not strictly separated in an independent fireproof space. As a result, if a fire occurs here, the thick smoke will quickly spread to the entire venue, which is very likely to cause a safety accident.

In this new model of immersive performance venues, different safety standards need to be examined from the conventional ones. How to eliminate the safety risks and hidden dangers in the development and changes of new formats from the source, there is still more work to be done.

Venues such as escape rooms and immersive performances have enriched people's leisure and entertainment methods. But at the same time, it should be noted that the safety hazards of some venues are indeed more prominent. In October 2021, the National Fire and Rescue Administration issued guidelines and inspection instructions for fire risks in escape room entertainment venues. Relevant departments such as culture, tourism, housing and construction, and public security are paying close attention to new risks in new formats and proposing targeted countermeasures. To eliminate hidden dangers, on the one hand, relevant departments should increase supervision and inspection efforts, and on the other hand, operators should always tighten the safety string and do a good job in safety work so that people in danger in escape rooms can escape safely.

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