Performer union Equity is seeking formal recognition at The Crystal Maze Experience in London. That would require the company that runs the immersive entertainment venue, Little Lion Entertainment, to negotiate with Equity on issues including pay, working hours, and health and safety.

According to the union, those are all areas where people working at the venue have raised concerns in recent months. It specifically cites “pay slipping below the London living wage” and “safety repairs being restricted”.

Back in 2015, Little Lion initially crowdfunded its project to build an immersive entertainment experience based around the TV show ‘The Crystal Maze’, which originally aired on Channel 4 in the 1990s before being revived in the mid-2010s.

The Crystal Maze Experience originally operated out of a base in Islington, before adding a Manchester location, and then moving its London operation into the West End in 2019.

With the live version, people get to play games like those that appeared on the TV show guided by performers referred to as ‘maze masters’ who, Equity stresses, are “integral to the running and experience of the immersive event”.

In a statement published last week, Equity says that performers at the experience have tried to speak to Little Lion about “stagnation of pay and uncertain shift patterns”, but without success.

“Pay is now below the £14.80 per hour London living wage rate”, the union adds, but Little Lion “refused a 62 pence an hour pay rise when asked by its own workers”.

As a result, “performers are now seeking formal union recognition to force bosses to engage and Equity has launched a petition in support of the workers”.

Equity has also asked Little Lion CEO Thomas Maguire to voluntarily recognise the union as a representative for the company’s maze master workers, but if he declines to do so it will begin a process towards forcing statutory recognition.

The union’s Nick Keegan says, “Immersive performers deserve a fair living wage and to be treated with dignity and respect. These are reasonable expectations and reasonable requests to their employer, Little Lion Entertainment”.

“We hope”, he adds, “that the company will see sense and respond positively to their own performers’ request for union recognition for Equity so that we can engage in constructive dialogue”.