eng cultural heritage user experience escape room games cultural mediation archives application/pdf DAC - DIGITAL JOURNAL FOR ARTS & CULTURAL STUDIES 01 Brinkmann, Hanna (University for Continuing Education Krems) Potz, Brigitta (University for Continuing Education Krems) Wimmer, Simon (University for Continuing Education Krems) Denk, Natalie (University for Continuing Education Krems) Exploring Archival Practices: Unveiling Cultural Heritage Through a Live Escape Room Experience CC BY-NC 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ article 2024-08-20 https://door.donau-uni.ac.at/o:4791 There are an increasing number of Live Escape Room Games—especially in the GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) sector. The paper provides insights into participants’ feedback on The Archivist’s Dream, a Live Escape Room within the Archives of Contemporary Arts (ACA) in Krems, Austria. The case study shows that Live Escape Games have great potential for cultural heritage sites as an outreach strategy, as well as a format of cultural mediation. This phenomenon is still understudied because existing research mostly focuses on mainstream Escape Room Games. We discuss the results of a visitor study with over 80 participants, showing that the players value the visit of an authentic cultural heritage site with the possibility to learn something new about the location and its history, as well as about archival practices. They described their experiences as fun, exciting and challenging. Further, we introduce the term Cultural Heritage Live Escape Game (CHLEG) and analyse the different opportunities it offers: to attract new visitors, gain broader visibility through low-threshold access, provide knowledge and arouse interest in further exploration of cultural heritage.