Recon ’21 Afterthoughts – The awesome people behind RECON ’21 – Part 2

The people behind RECON

So, who made all the magic possible?

Who conceptualized the event, planned it down to the minutest details, set the whole thing up, and ensured things went smoothly?

Allow me to introduce the people behind RECON. 

David and Lisa Spira

The Spiras co-founded Room Escape Artist in 2014 and grew it into possibly the best known chronicler of escape rooms.

RECON is presented by Room Escape Artist.

Theresa Piazza

Apart from being a fan of various forms of immersive entertainment, Theresa is a project manager with a talent for “bringing big ideas to life”. (from her LinkedIn)

She was invaluable in coordinating with the exhibitors and sponsors at RECON.

Cindi Saiewitz

With decades of experience in IT management, development, support and global project leadership with Fortune 100 companies, Cindi has earned a reputation as a Great Communicator.

And it was those skills that she put to good use coordinating with event speakers at RECON.

Brendan Lutz

The director of Information Systems at Blue Apron, Brendan has experience in diverse tech fields, like DevOps, Network Engineering, and IT. 

I’ll tell you they completely revamped last year’s tech infrastructure for RECON ‘21, and let you guess what Brendan’s role was.

James Cobalt

You name it, James Cobalt has done it.

OK, maybe he wasn’t an executive at Goliath National Bank…nor has he ever been an architect who designed Goliath National Bank’s downtown headquarters (get the reference?)…

But talk about producing commercials, creating award-winning website projects, or organizing the Boston Midnight Marathon, and James has done ‘em all.

True to form, he’s done a lot of things for RECON, ranging from tech to graphic design.

Michael Augustine

Brand strategist specializing in data analytics by day and escape room enthusiast and creator by night, Michael was instrumental in RECON’s success.

If you want to understand what an Alternative Reality Game (ARG) is, Michael is your man!

Cara Mandel

The senior producer for Story Experience at immersive experience company Meow Wolf, and co-founder and CEO of Interwoven Immersive, Inc, Cara is certainly a force to be reckoned with.

Everyone who felt the escape games (we’ll come to the PlayPass and the games in a while) at RECON ‘21 were well-curated owes her a big thanks.

Theresa Wagner

A grizzled veteran of 283 escape games…

And a fan of board games like Warhammer and Magic the Gathering, and video games like Super Smash Brothers Melee, Portal 2 and Sly Cooper…

Theresa (yes, there were 2 Theresa’s on the RECON ‘21 team and if you’ve not guessed already – they are twins) was the official Games Executioner.

Lee-Fay Low

A qualified psychologist and researcher, Professor Low volunteered to be the volunteer coordinator. Or, in other words, she coordinated amongst the numerous volunteers and ensured that they were able to function smoothly… while literally working day and night to support the conference (as she’s based in Australia which has a 12 hour time difference with New York). 

RECON’21 volunteers

Remember Dumbledore’s Army – a group of Hogwarts students who volunteered to learn duelling from Harry Potter?

Like them, RECON had its army of volunteers, who attended to any task that came up!