Bucks party, Melbourne
Start the bucks with a proper challenge
Sixty-plus minutes of competitive, high-energy fun before the night kicks off. Split the crew across rooms and find out who actually escapes.
Saturday evening is the hardest slot in our week to get. Book it well before the rest of the weekend is planned.
Why Rush
A bucks night with actual bragging rights
Kick things off with something the group will rib each other about for years. Split into teams, race the clock, then roll straight out to the pub.
Built around your night
Evening sessions from 6pm mean you play first, then head out for the rest of the night with a story to tell.
Everyone plays at once
We split the crew across rooms running at the same time, up to 6 at South Yarra, so no one sits out.
Bring the competition
Multiple teams, one clock, results compared at the end. It gets loud and it gets personal.
Pub crawl ready
Every venue is surrounded by pubs and restaurants within walking distance for whatever comes next.
Rooms we would pick
The rooms that go hardest
For bucks groups that want intensity, the horror rooms deliver. If horror is not the move, the spy and fantasy rooms still bring the energy.
HackSawHawthornThe original, and the bloodiest hour we run.
It's NightmareSouth YarraTop of the scare scale, and it gets there without a drop of blood.
The ConjoiningSt KildaDread rather than gore. Groups routinely rate it the most frightening of the four.
The Last of ThemSt KildaSurvival pressure rather than horror, and the one to pick if somebody is wavering.
Game of the DragonSouth YarraNo horror at all, and the largest capacity we run for keeping a crew together.
Secret Agent ManSouth YarraThe no-scares option, still fast enough to keep a competitive group honest.
Plan your group
How big is the crew?
Drop the number in for a quick estimate. Rooms get cheaper per head as they fill, so six and six beats eight and four.
Estimated at standard rates, bottoming out at $70 a head with six in a room. Times are confirmed at booking and nobody pays for a no-show.
Book your roomGood to know
The practical bits
Is the evening the right time?
Yes. For bucks groups we recommend evening sessions from 6pm onwards, leaving the rest of the night free.
Can we have a few drinks first?
Save them for afterwards. The rooms are no fun half-cut, and the pubs are a short walk from every venue.
What ages are suitable?
Every room is built for adults, and four of the sixteen are restricted to sixteen and over. Say how hard you want the hour to hit and we will name the rooms that deliver it.
Lock in the bucks
Send your date and numbers and we will set up the best combination of rooms for the crew.
This is the one occasion where the horror rooms are the point
Most groups who come to us want to be entertained. A bucks party usually wants something done to it. That is a different brief, and it is the reason this is the only page on our site that starts with the sixteen-plus rooms rather than working up to them.
Four of our sixteen are built to genuinely frighten adults. They are the most requested rooms we have for this occasion, and choosing between them is a more interesting decision than most people realise, because they frighten you in two completely different ways.
Visceral or atmospheric. Pick before you book
Fear is not one thing, and our four restricted rooms split cleanly down the middle. Getting this wrong is how one person in the group has a genuinely bad hour.
The visceral end
HackSaw at Hawthorn, HackSaw: Remastered at ChadstoneBlood, industrial horror and a set that looks like something happened in it. This is the pair for a group who came specifically to be disgusted as well as frightened. The Remastered version at Chadstone is a full rebuild of the original rather than a copy of it.
The atmospheric end
The Conjoining at St Kilda, It's Nightmare at South YarraAt the top of the fright scale with none of the gore. Darkness, sound design and dread rather than anything graphic. Groups routinely find these more frightening than the visceral pair, which surprises people who assumed blood was the scary part.
Nothing in any of the four is a person. We run no live actors in any room, at any site, in any season, so nobody is waiting to grab you. The fear is built into the room. Ratings for all sixteen are on the scare scale.
Head to head is the format
Above six players you are in more than one room anyway, so make it a competition rather than a logistics exercise. Two teams, two rooms, one start time, and the finishing times go up where everybody can see them.
This works better for a bucks party than almost any other group, because the natural dynamic is already competitive and the losing team has to buy the first round. The pairing to aim for is two rooms of comparable difficulty, so the result means something rather than reflecting who drew the easier draw.
If you want a genuinely level match with no horror involved, the two rooms at Chadstone rated five out of five are the fairest pair we have, identical difficulty and identical capacity.
Going harder: more than one room in a row
For a group that wants the afternoon rather than an hour, rooms can be played back to back at a single venue. Two, three, four or all six at South Yarra in one visit.
It is a genuinely different experience from playing one. The first room you play well. By the third, the group is making mistakes it would never make fresh, arguing more, and finding the whole thing considerably funnier. Marathons covers how they run and what happens to a group over the course of one.
Practical, and the bit that decides whether the day works
- Play before you drink, not after. The rooms need people who can concentrate, and this is the single biggest factor in whether a bucks group has a good hour or a frustrating one.
- Closed-in shoes. There is crouching and crawling in several of the horror rooms.
- Phones go in lockers before the session, which the group will thank you for afterwards.
- Sixteen and over for all four horror rooms, without exception.
- Somebody who does not want to do it. There is always one. Put them in a room at a lower rating at the same start time rather than talking them into it, because a reluctant player ruins the hour for the five people who wanted it.
No function space at any venue. No party room, no food storage, no cutlery. This is an hour to build the day around, not somewhere to base it. The venues sit on Chapel Street, Glenferrie Road, Fitzroy Street and minutes from Chadstone, so the rest of it is a short walk away.
What a bucks group pays
Weekday evenings. Crew Night prices a room of four to six whole instead of per head, $250 to $300, across Monday to Friday, 4pm till late on the code CREWNIGHT.
Saturday, the usual day for this. Between $74 and $70 a player depending on how full each room is.
If the party is midweek. $50 an adult across Monday to Thursday, all day with 3 or more in the room.
Marathon runs and anything across three or more rooms are quoted directly. Email enquiries@rushescapegame.com.au with the date and numbers. Standard rates are on prices and deals.
Questions
Which is actually the scariest?
Depends what frightens you, which is the honest answer rather than a dodge. For dread and atmosphere, The Conjoining. For something that looks like a crime scene, HackSaw.
Can we do two rooms back to back on the same day?
Yes, at any venue with the availability. Tell us when you book so the sessions are scheduled properly rather than with an hour of standing around between them.
The buck genuinely hates horror.
Then do not book it. There are twelve rooms that will not frighten anybody, several of them very hard, and a competitive puzzle race is a better day than watching one person endure sixty minutes.
Fourteen of us. Can that work?
Three rooms at most venues, or up to six at South Yarra. Numbers per site are on the venue group pages.
Is anyone going to touch us?
No. Nothing in any room makes contact with a player, and you can walk out of any room at any point.