THE CRYSTAL MAZE LIVE EXPERIENCE

A review by Tanya Howard

I have always been a big fan of challenge shows, and The Crystal Maze with Richard O’Brien as Maze Master was one of my favourites. For anyone who doesn’t know what The Crystal Maze is, a team of contestants take on a selection of challenges set within a maze of four themed zones before reaching the centrepiece, ‘The Crystal Dome’.

During the challenges you are against the clock to win a Time Crystal which each give you 5 seconds in the Dome. The team work together in the Dome to collect gold tokens with your time being determined by the amount of crystals you have collected throughout.

There are two locations for the Live Experience, one in Manchester and the other in London. I was invited to review The Crystal Maze Live Experience at its newly opened location on Shaftesbury Avenue, after moving from Islington. I brought Abi, Hannah and Kelly to complete my team of four, but you can have up to eight players in a team.

You have never seen a more excited group of girls than we were in the run up to the day of the review. Feeling like a childhood dream was about to come true to be in the maze, we wondered would it be a case of being so excited that it couldn’t have possibly lives up to our expectations? Well, not only did it live up to them, but it fully blew them out of the water, and I honestly still can’t get over how much fun we had.

Before going into the maze, you have to store your belongings in the free lockers provided, and I would advise wearing gym wear or comfortable cool clothing as it can get quite hot inside and there are physical challenges. The other challenges you could end up taking part in are skill, mental and mystery.

After a safety talk you get to meet your maze master, I believe ours was called Pam, and she was absolutely hysterical. She was ready with the banter and her energy was infectious and has us even more hyped for the challenges, she even ribbed us when we struggled but not in a horrible way.

The set has been recreated so well and it really felt like we were on the set of the show. In the show if the time runs out on your challenge and you haven’t left the room you get an automatic lock in but in the LIVE Experience no one misses out, so you just automatically lose a crystal.

We took part in a total of 16 challenges, and your self-selected team captain selects who takes part in each challenge so make it known in advance if there’s anything you’d prefer not to do. We had a few lock ins but managed to bring our score back from a pitiful minus one, which hilariously happened twice, to a respectful four crystals.

The most exciting part was of course the finale in the Dome, which our crystals had given us a total of 20 seconds inside. With the theme song playing in the background, and a quick photoshoot in the classic bombers, we made our way inside and as the fan started up we got ready to collect as many gold tokens to put in the slot… They must be in before the buzzer sounds which Kelly missed ha.

We ended up with a score of 20 tickets, one per second, and came out to hysterically see the high score was actually 499. None of that mattered though because we were then presented with our own crystals to take home and we were in such a good mood and had so much fun that any score was better than 0!

Before leaving we popped into the onsite bar where you can get drinks and burgers, exclusive to the Crystal Maze from Nanna Bills. To be honest burgers are never my first choice of food but these were amazing; The Golden Ticket had a double beef patty, raclette cheese, bone marrownaise and shoestring fries in a seeded brioche bun. They also have a vegan option which Hannah had and enjoyed as well.

Whether or not you have heard of the show I would definitely recommend going if you get the chance. It’s definitely worth every penny and would work for any occasion; birthdays, hen dos, team building for work, etc. Thank you to my Crystal Babes* for being a part of the experience and making it all the more fun, I will definitely be booking to go back and take on the other challenges.