If you're thinking about running murder mystery games in your area, one of the first questions to ask is who else might be doing the same thing five miles down the road. That's what territory exclusivity is for. It's the agreement that says a given area belongs to one licensee, and the company won't sign up a second person to compete with you there. Get this wrong, or work with a company that doesn't offer it, and you can end up building a customer base for someone who moved in next door six months later.
This post explains what territory exclusivity actually covers, how a territory gets defined, and why it matters more than most people expect when they first look at the licensee program.
What does territory exclusivity actually mean?
It means that within an agreed area, you are the only person licensed to run our games. No other licensee can book private events there, sell public tickets there, or use the brand there. If a venue in your territory wants a murder mystery night, they come to you, not to someone operating out of a neighbouring city.
It doesn't mean the company can never do anything in your area itself, and it doesn't stop you from bringing in bookings from just outside your line on the map. What it stops is a second licensee being set up to compete directly with the business you've built.
How is a territory defined?
Territories are usually set around a metro area or a defined radius, sized so that one operator can realistically cover it without spreading themselves thin, and so that it can support enough events to be worth running. The exact boundary gets agreed before you sign, based on population, the number of venues nearby suited to hosting a game, and what other licensees already hold.
This is worked out during the application process rather than handed over as a fixed template, because a workable territory in a small city looks different from one in a large metro area. You can see the shape of the current footprint by looking at public events by city, which shows where games are already running.
Why does territory exclusivity matter to a licensee?
Territory exclusivity matters because it's what turns a licence into an actual business rather than a side bet. You're the one calling venues, building relationships with event planners, and doing the work of getting the local audience for public ticketed nights. If someone else can undercut you in your own city, none of that effort compounds. Exclusivity means the customers you find this year are still yours to sell to next year.
It also affects how you plan. Marketing spend, staff training, and the time you put into chasing corporate bookings only make sense if you're not doing it for a market someone else can walk into. Exclusivity is what makes those numbers add up over a year rather than a single event.
What happens if you want to expand your territory later?
If your area is doing well and you want more of it, or you want to add an adjoining city, that's a conversation to have directly rather than something that happens automatically. Growth usually depends on how the current territory is performing and whether the adjoining area is already spoken for. Licensees who are actively running events and keeping their booking calendar full are in the strongest position to ask for more ground.
This is also why it's worth understanding, before you apply, roughly how big an area you actually want to run. A smaller, well-worked territory usually beats a large one you don't have time to service.
What stops the company from just adding another licensee next door?
The agreement does. Once a territory is granted, it's held for the length of the licence, and the company doesn't sign a second operator into that same ground. This is the same reason private event pricing is kept consistent rather than left to a race to the bottom between two licensees fighting for the same venues — you can see how private events are priced on the pricing and availability page for an idea of how that structure works at the customer-facing end.
If you ever have a specific question about a boundary, an adjoining licensee, or how a particular city is currently allocated, that's a fair thing to raise directly through contact us before you commit to anything.
Is territory exclusivity common in licensing generally?
It's standard in most franchise and licence structures for exactly the reason above: nobody wants to build a customer base that a competitor with the same product can walk in and take. What varies between companies is how strictly it's enforced and how territories are sized. Some hand out very large regions that are impossible to serve properly, which isn't really exclusivity so much as a paper promise. A workable territory is one sized to what a single licensee can genuinely run.
If you want the background on how the wider licensing side works — training, the games themselves, and the booking system that comes with it — the licensee program page covers what's included beyond the territory itself. There's also a broader set of answers on the FAQ page if you're still weighing it up, and past posts on the blog go into other parts of running a licensed territory.
Once you understand how a territory is defined and protected, the next practical step is finding out whether the area you have in mind is available. That's a conversation worth having before you go further, and it starts with the licensee application.