Let It Fly
Amber Shouse Brings Joyful Chaos to Redding’s Rage Room and Paint Space…
This month sees the first anniversary of an entertainment destination like nothing Redding had ever seen before. For an entire year, Break Out has offered customers a choice of two venues where they can entertain themselves. In a rage room, they can let off a little steam by breaking things or, next door in the paint place, literally immerse themselves in fluorescent paints all aglow under black light.
Each rage room comes with an assortment of weapons, like baseball bats, heavy wrenches and tire irons that visitors use to swing at pretty much anything arranged in front of them. Targets abound, mostly large and small glass items, but also desktop equipment of every description and even the furniture upon which it sits. The owner even allows customers to bring in personal possessions to destroy.
The paint place itself is a work of art that comes with an invitation for visitors to add to it. That first glance can be overwhelming, brightly colored fluorescent paint streaks red, blue, green on the walls and floors and ceiling, layers of creativity blending into abstract patterns that cry out for new contributions. Painters can grab a brush or a squirt gun or just a handful of paint and go Van Gogh.
Owner Amber Shouse sees customers coming to Break Out for reasons serious and for reasons fun. “I promote it more as an entertainment venue. I don’t really want to touch the whole mental health aspect, though I have worked in that field for a long time,” she says. “I get calls from people who have lost parents and they want to break things, but people also come in for their date nights.”
Her husband, Perry Snell, adds that people come in after bad breakups. “One specific case, she brought in things of ex’s,” he recalls. “And when she came out, she was crying and gave everybody a hug and thanked us. She said it was amazing, like she really needed that.”
Today, a tightly knit group of four friends have come back to Break Out for a bachelorette party. “We’re a group of girls, and we do a lot of stuff together to bond. And this, this is a bonding experience,” says Amy Jarrell. “We have a blast. We break stuff. We mess around. We scream. The paint room’s fun because we shoot each other.”
They suit up outside the two rage rooms. Break Out provides all needed protective gear, coveralls, gloves and a helmet with a mesh mask. Shouse requires, at minimum, long pants and closed-toe shoes. To date, she says Break Out has seen no serious injuries.
Ashley Cole says she really appreciates the little extras Shouse provides. “She sets an entire experience. You don’t just come in and smash and break things,” Cole describes. “She gives hair ties and water and she has tissues set out. She lets you bring your own playlist so the experience is specific to that person, which we love.”
Ready to go, the four friends gather in one rage room to bond by breaking wine glasses, a dry toast to begin. At the count of three, they scold hard, filling the room with the sound of a bell’s toll on impact, followed by the tinkle of shards hitting the concrete floor, followed by laughter. For 20 minutes, their personal playlist can barely be heard over din of wanton destruction. And so much laughing.
Shouse, who has a master’s degree in applied behavior analysis, says the idea for Break Out came to her while on the job as program director at a day program for disabled adults. It was a rough day, and a client told her he was so mad he wanted to hit things. She sympathized, then wished with him aloud for a place where you could hit stuff and not get into trouble. She searched on her phone and was surprised to discover that a rage room actually was such a place.
She dreamed it. Her husband, a man of construction and maintenance, built it in two adjacent industrial lots. Decor in the rage rooms fits the mood, with urban-style graffiti screaming SMASH IT!, while the paint place received an otherworldly layout of UV-active tapestries and floor cover. Visitors receive hazmat suits that protect their clothing from flying paint.
For employees, Shouse drew from contacts in her past and brought in the disabled adult population she knows so well. “I’ve worked in group homes like residential care facilities and day programs for 15 years, plus. So part of the business was developing an employment model that would be suitable for these individuals,” she says. “It does give them an opportunity for community inclusion and finding their self-worth, which is super important.”
Marking a year in business, Breaking Out draws clients referred by mental health professionals. Shouse and Snell attend as vendors at local health and wellness fairs. Companies schedule sessions as team-building events, or as venting chambers for their employees, especially during holiday season.
“Yeah, the UPS Christmas party, that was a fun one,” Shouse recalls. “If anyone needed to rage during Christmas time, it was the UPS store.” •
Break Out • 915 Wall Street Suite #1 & 2, Redding
(530) 515-7474 • info@reddingbreakout.com • By appointment only
