Corey LeRoux is tired. He’s barely gotten any sleep the entire month of October because he’s been busy directing zombies and charging up laser tag gear at Panic In the Lab, a unique twist on the escape room trend.

But the 36-year-old entrepreneur is still smiling through his yawns because he’s having so much fun. 

“We’re in the business of having fun,” says LeRoux, taking a brief break in a chair that’s part of the escape room scenery. “The questions I’m always asking myself are how can we make our people smile more when they’re working? How can we be a part of the community that makes people happy? We’re always trying to make people smile, especially kids.”

LeRoux and his wife and business partner Sara started Panic In the Lab as a way to bring a family-friendly haunt experience to the Toledo region.

“This gives us a chance to market to the whole family instead of dropping the kids off with grandma and grandpa so that mom and dad can go get their pants scared off them,” he said. “This is something parents and kids can do together. There’s not a lot of family-friendly Halloween activities out there. You could go to Cedar Point, but that’s an all-day trip. We’re a family company. I have little kids and we market to families with little ones. So I thought, let’s make a family friendly October attraction.”

The couple own Hero’s Party Experience, providing what LeRoux calls “birthday shenanigans”— inflatable bounce houses, face painting, glitter tattoos, and so on. They also offer laser tag, but with the onset of fall, there’s not much demand for it, which led LeRoux to put his thinking cap on and brainstorm ways to continue to offer the entertainment.

Then inspiration struck: “What if we could shoot zombies? And what if we could find clues to save the world?”

So LeRoux, an Iraq War veteran, and his team worked together to create Panic In the Lab, 10,000 square feet of zombie-zapping fun. But you also have to put your thinking cap on to find the clues that will let you advance to the next room. Located inside a building on the south end of the Lucas County Fairgrounds, Panic In the Lab goes throughout the month of October. 

Each escape room session, which LeRoux refers to as a “show,” allows a group up to 12 people. Everyone is issued their laser tag equipment and each group is guided through the lab set by the only surviving scientist of a experiment gone wrong that has turned everyone into zombies. The group fends off the zombies with their laser tag guns while looking for clues to find the antidote that will save the day. Each session lasts about 20 to 25 minutes.

LeRoux says the point of Panic In the Lab is to merge the typical haunted attraction with the joy of shooting zombies.

“That’s the fun of the escape room. You’re walking into an unknown room, you’re supposed to be looking for clues, and then here the added bonus of having laser tag trying to stop zombies,” he said. “You have that strange connection of being spooked and trying to find things. This is a real melding together of two usually different ideas. When you add both of them together, it gets pretty crazy and fun.”

Just outside the fairgrounds building is the Family Fun Zone, where kids can paint pumpkins, do crafts, and jump on the inflatables.

“This is a new and fun way to enjoy the fall season,” LeRoux said. 

OTHER LOCAL ESCAPE ROOMS:

Escape Game Experience, 3100 Main St., Suite 410, Maumee: Games run Wednesday through Sunday, $28 per patron; escapegameexperiences.com, 419-360-5689.

Monroe Escape Rooms, 14750 Laplaisance Rd., Suite H30, Monroe, Mich.: Games run Friday through Sunday, and by appointment, $25 per patron; monroeescaperooms.com, 734-682-3347.

Trapped Toledo, 2410 Key St., Toledo: Games run Thursday through Sunday, and by appointment, $175 per room; trappedtoledo.com, 567-316-7028.

First Published October 14, 2021, 12:00 p.m.