DANVILLE, Va. — After their attempt to sell the city on QVC resulted in only a series of calls to the network complaining that the price was too high, civic leaders in Danville have decided to take a new approach by turning the entire city into an escape room.

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“Well, we didn’t really get the kind of interest out of QVC that we were looking for, and we’ve gotten to the point where we want to take advantage of the fact that everyone just wants to get out of here by any means necessary,” Jim Jenkins explained. Jenkins is a member of the city’s Development Council and is spearheading plans to turn Danville into a city-wide immersive escape room experience.

Using federal disaster recovery funds allocated to repair damages from Tropical Storm Michael and Hurricane Florence last fall, Danville will morph into Dan Daniels’s Danville Escape, a massive multi-level adventure where the only object is to make it out of the city limits. Jenkins provided a quick glimpse into some of the highlights.

“Of course we have your typical abandoned tobacco warehouses and cotton mills where you can crawl around and open walls to find passwords. That’s child’s play. We decided to shake things up a little and throw in a few truly unique challenges to get objects and clues. One such challenge is trying to get in and out of a brewery in the River District in under fifteen minutes.”

“Another section includes an attempt at selling your home at actual market value to someone who wants to live here for some reason. You can even earn bonus points by playing a Confederate capture the flag mini challenge. Really top notch game play.”

However, not everyone is happy with the proposed changes. Residents in the Historic District have had enough of City Council’s failure to recognize the potential issues with the redesign of their city. “I don’t need any of these kids running around jiggling my door knobs at night or counting my front steps because my house is part of a puzzle or some such nonsense,” Danville native A.P. Frederick fumed from his porch.

Archie Gravely, a local historian, expressed similar concerns regarding the rebranding. “If you don’t want to live here, just leave! It doesn’t have to be part of a game,” he scoffed, waving his cane meaningfully towards Main Street. ”When I lost my job at the mill I didn’t sit around playing Monopoly trying to buy back the railroads and rebuild our economy. I resigned myself to slowly wasting away and dying here like any good citizen would.”

Jenkins, however, promises that this is going to be exactly what the city needs to really get residents motivated, involved, and in the mood to move away. “I assure you, I’ll be the first in line for this thing. It’s going to be big, and honestly I can’t wait to get the hell out of Danville.”

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