A hilarious TikTok video shows a group of students pranking staff at an escape room with a strange 'ritual'.
Exit the Room Manchester in the Northern Quarter provides team-based challenges for groups of two to six people to solve and break free from the room. Their themed challenges include 'madness escape', 'murder escape' and 'bomb escape'.
The escape room on Joiner Street posted security footage to their TikTok account of a group of five students attempting to escape from the 'Bomb' room, which requires players to locate a stolen nuclear weapon.
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But as the students struggled to complete the challenge, they decided to embark on strange rituals to help them succeed. Security footage shows someone laying across three chairs whilst the four other players circle around in a strange ritual.
The video then cuts to a shot of all five players staring creepily into the security camera and has now amassed 1.2 million likes and 7.7 million views on TikTok.
Nicola Wilson, site manager for Exit the Room Manchester, filmed and posted the hilarious TikTok video with the caption 'When a group decides to do a ritual for the escape room gods'.
She told the M.E.N.: "A t the escape room, we get a lot of incredibl y fun, amazing people. This group of students were so nice about us posting the footage of them- they had a blast.
"They didn't want to ask for too many clues, they probably tried everything that they could think of before asking for a clue, including doing the rituals. I was with a colleague at the time and we were watching the rituals on the camera, and it was like watching a movie!
"It made my job incredibly fun to do. At the end, when they were finished, we spoke about it and had a laugh and there was born the TikTok!"
Escape rooms bring out a "wild" side in people, Nicola explained.
She continued: "I think people often think these things don’t happen at escape rooms, but they do bring out the fun, crazy side to people. I always see people on the camera doing interesting, out-of-the-box things, which I guess is what you come to an escape room to do.
"So in that aspect, when I saw the students do that ritual, I was like ‘yeah, that seems about right!’ They truly took it to another level! The group almost escaped from the room- unfortunately, they didn't manage it, but they were so close!"
Nicola was "overwhelmed" with the amount of likes, comments and shares that the TikTok video has amassed on the popular video platform.
She continued: "All of us at Exit the Room Manchester were astounded by the amount of positive feedback we got from the TikTok video. We had so many comments from people, saying that they do the exact same thing in other escape rooms!
"It was a surreal experience and I am beyond grateful that it did well and I'm grateful that the group attended and let me post the video without them, this wouldn’t have been a thing."
This is not the only funny incident that university student Nicola has seen while working at the Manchester escape room.
She added: "We are a hotspot for company team-building, stag dos and birthdays. On one occasion, i had a stag do come in and the groom was dressed up in an inflatable banana costume.
"They were dancing around the room, having fun. I have also had groups play hide and seek in the room. You truly see everything here!"
Exit the Room Manchester is open Thursday to Sunday- visit their website here. The TikTok video can be viewed here.
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