Escape room entrepreneurs have opened a family-fun entertainment centre in the middle of a town.

Owners of The Panic Room Gravesend have transformed the 13,000 sq ft unit at the back of a former BHS store into a hub of futuristic and arcade-style games.

Since opening six years ago, Alex and Monique Souter have expanded their escape experiences to online games, axe throwing and two more branches in Essex and Niagara Falls in America.

Their new site at the St George's Centre is their newest business venture and a next step in their self-proclaimed mission to make Gravesend the place to go for a fun day out.

Monique said: "It is brilliant to finally see this all coming to fruition.

"Ever since we started The Panic Room back in 2016, we have always said wouldn't it be great if we could bring more entertainment to Gravesend and wouldn't it be great if we could do a laser tag.

"We have had all these ideas and we have merged laser tag and escape rooms like we always wanted to do six years ago.

"It is nice to finally get to the stage where we are getting all the extra entertainment bits here and hopefully making Gravesend more of a place to come."

Alex added: "Over the last few years, especially managing to survive through Covid which was probably one of the most difficult feats that we have come against, to finally take a step back and see what we have created with this new building is really nice.

"We are just really proud to bring what makes The Panic Room great to something that is accessible to everyone.

"We would really like to thank our entire team that have been behind us. The Panic Room is not just Monique and I, there is a whole team behind us every step of the way.

"Ultimately, they are what makes the dream finally a reality and when we get to the finish line like we have now, we can take a breath and be really proud of what we have achieved.

"We signed the lease all the way back in November last year at which point it's been gradual chipping away and working out exactly what the finished product will be.

"We have had a lot of distractions and things along the way and in the meantime have built three new panic rooms.

"We really started pushing in July. Things really started to get the ball rolling and the shape of the finished set up came to be but this is just the first floor of what we have made."

At the moment, only the bottom level is up and running as the pair continue to expand and create new games for the rest of the site, which should be open in summer next year.

The centre opens today (Saturday) with visitors able to try out the cyberpunk laser tag arena, which also doubles as an escape room, although not at the same time.

KentOnline was invited to give the mini golf and augmented reality air hockey a try.

The golf is the first to be played in the UK and even Europe and involves an interactive course which changes at the click of a button.

You use a touch-screen tablet to choose which holes you would like to play and the board changes accordingly, putting obstacles in the way, moving them and changing to create new shapes.

The ball is not a real golf ball – it's soft and squishy.

You can do as many holes as you like within a half-hour slot and Alex and Monique hope to get new software up and running soon where people can create their own course designs and play them.

It was a very different take on mini golf and it was fun to try out the different and quite difficult courses. It fit in with the arcade style of games the centre is hoping to expand.

Next up was the air hockey which has different game modes including classic, battles and ones where you must defeat trolls or use spells all while making sure the puck does not go in the goal at your end.

This was definitely a new take on a old-school arcade game and brought out the competitive side of me and my colleagues – there was a lot of shouting.

The games were unique but some took a while to figure out how you were supposed to play.

I could see how a group of friends or a family could spend their whole afternoon in the centre, as there is a lot to do but I would say the golf and air hockey supplement the bigger attractions.

With more to come in the next few months, the centre certainly has potential to become one of the next big hubs of entertainment for Gravesend.

A grand opening ceremony is being held today at 10am.