• Rage Academy by Shaveen Perera 

A rage room is a place where people can smash and destroy items in a safe and controlled environment in order to alleviate stress, anger, and frustration. The act of smashing and destroying items can be cathartic and provides an opportunity for people to express their emotions in a healthy and productive way. 

Brunch had a chat with Shaveen Perera, Founder of the very first rage room in Sri Lanka. 

Shaveen is a 30-year-old Sri Lankan who had worked for his father’s business for the past eight years until he decided to go on his own entrepreneurial journey to reach his goals. As for his educational background, he dropped out of high school after O/Levels and did a one-year course on hotel management. He is very passionate about tech, agriculture, and philosophy, reading a lot on these subjects during his free time.



What motivated you to start Rage Academy in Sri Lanka? 

My girlfriend and I were having a conversation one day and she asked me if I knew of any places where we could go and let out our anger. We looked online but we didn’t find anything. She then suggested, ‘Why don’t you open a rage room?’ I was working on a project at the time related to manufacturing affordable electric cookers to fight the gas crisis, but had to put it on pause due to other economic reasons, so I decided to go ahead with the rage room idea.

Were there any difficulties during the initial steps in terms of finding the perfect place and breakables? 

There were many difficulties I had to face during the initial steps, but I liked the challenge. The main difficulty was the funding. Banks in general are risk-averse to new business concepts, so all the banks I went to rejected my proposal. I had to ask my father to provide me with a one-time investment, which was difficult for him as well due to the economic challenges his business was facing, but eventually, he did help me. 

Finding the perfect location was another task since I had a strict budget to maintain and had to think of customer convenience, rent, utility, and safety as well. Finding breakables was another task. I had to research which breakables were recyclable and which ones were not before purchasing them. The prices of these breakables also varied from seller to seller, making them difficult to buy easily given my budget.

Apart from all these, there were a lot of other tasks that needed to be accomplished before the business could run smoothly.

How has the response to Rage Academy been in Sri Lanka so far?

There have been some negative responses by people who are sceptical and unaware of what a rage room is and how safe and fun it is, then there are some who find the pricing difficult. But we have a lot of positive responses as well. 

All the customers who have tried a session at Rage Academy have given positive responses. Some of them knew what a rage room was already and a few others were new to the concept. Their response always revolved around ‘that felt amazing!’ We always see all our customers enjoy breaking stuff inside the rage room – their faces light up with excitement and relief.

Given the high demand for rage room bookings, what measures do you take to ensure proper stock levels of breakables?

I always overstock on the breakables since these items cannot be acquired easily and immediately. Breakables like bottles are much easier to acquire than electronic breakables. This is because the process of obtaining electronic breakables can be quite difficult and time-consuming. Many times, it can take up to a few weeks to a month or more to stock electronic breakables.

How do you ensure the safety of your employees and customers during the smash-away sessions?

My employees have been advised not to enter the room during a session and after a session, they have strict rules to wear gloves, rubber boots, and masks before cleaning up. As for customers, we provide them with helmets with face-covering visors, full-body overalls, gloves, and rubber boots. We ensure they are fully covered before entering the room so their skin doesn’t come into contact with dust particles and glass shrapnel. 

All customers have to abide by our strict rules in place, such as never taking off their gear during sessions. They are only allowed to take off their gear once they are out of the room at the end of the session. We also advise them to strictly refrain from throwing any breakables towards the door or hitting each other with the weapons provided. Additionally, every customer has to sign legal waivers before a session.

How do you ensure cleanliness after each session?

All the overalls and gloves are washed and dry-cleaned every week. Customers are strictly advised to bring their own socks and wear long pants and clothes that cover the entire body. A rage room is cleaned after each session, but rage rooms, in general, are dusty due to their ‘junkyard look’ and cleaning glass isn’t easy. The premises are cleaned and disinfected every day before work hours.

Tell us a little about your recycling process after the day’s rage sessions.

After each session, we move all the broken items into a corner. The cleaning process takes a long time and after the day’s session is over, we have to separate the items by hand before we hand them over to the recycle collectors who work as middlemen for recycling centres. 

We have to check every pile of glass pieces as we shovel to see if there are any TV glass pieces and electronic pieces. Separating all this by hand is the most stressful part of the overall work. We then have to put them in separate bins – E-waste in one bin and glass pieces in one bin. Some recycle collectors don’t take glass pieces if they have mixed colours. The whole process is tedious but we make sure it is done right to ensure everything is environment friendly until the end.

In one of your previous interviews, you stated that ‘Rage Academy was introduced to help battle the current economic crisis in Sri Lanka’. Can you elaborate on this statement?

What I meant by this statement was that Sri Lanka lacked new enterprises and innovations. Compared to other developed and underdeveloped countries, we are far behind. Our political state also hindered the country’s economic growth and its potential. While many Sri Lankans wanted to leave the country for better opportunities, I prefer to stay and rebuild my country by contributing to our economy by introducing something new. Hence, even with a great many difficulties, I implemented and introduced Rage Academy to the country as a brand new enterprise. 

Rage Academy was introduced as an addition to the leisure and entertainment market by bringing in something fun, new, and therapeutic. Colombo in particular lacks diverse entertainment options apart from nightclubs, bars, movie theatres, bowling, etc. Now the people in Sri Lanka have something that is not only fun and exciting but healthy and stress-relieving. 

New enterprises have always been beneficial to an economy, even for a small percentage, because they create new revenue streams, which is the new direction this country needs to follow in order to secure a stable economy in the future.

‘Paying to vent out frustrations regarding the economic crisis, which also includes price hikes of basic necessities, doesn’t make sense,’ was a tweet regarding your endeavour. What’s your take on this?

The customers that come to Rage Academy are not paying to vent their frustrations due to the economic crisis. They are paying to have fun and relieve some of their built-up stress. It’s like going to a gym but better and more fun. 

Rage therapy is a lot healthier compared to other coping mechanisms like alcohol and substance abuse. The scepticism that is circling around claiming that rage therapy induces violent behaviour is completely wrong. Asking a person to contain their anger and deal with it internally will eventually lead to them losing control of their emotions, lashing out, and taking part in unhealthy coping mechanisms. 

Rage therapy also increases and balances an individual’s testosterone levels, which leads to confidence, creativity, self-esteem, focus, and many other similar positive benefits. What we provide is a safe, fun, and non-judgemental zone for anyone who wants to vent.

Why is a rage/anger room necessary in the modern age?

Before we talk about the benefits of a rage or anger room, we need to talk about anger as an emotion.

Anger is a very tricky emotion; people mostly consider anger as violent, crazy, or impulsive, but it is because anger is an emotion that derives from an individual being stressed or oppressed, such as going through a breakup or betrayal. We are usually told to hide our emotions like anger and pain within ourselves to control them. This causes an individual to stray away from friends and loved ones and in turn, they lash out at them when they reach their emotional limits. 

When this happens, you are usually told to go for psychological therapy or cognitive therapy/counselling. What that sort of therapy tells you to do is to again manage and control anger. This doesn’t work well for everyone because the modern lifestyle is very stressful with multiple jobs, economic crises, and so on. This type of therapy will work for someone who has detached themselves from modern society. Even then, there’s a chance that they might lash out even over the slightest problem that may arise over time. This is where rage/anger rooms become beneficial. 

Rage/anger rooms help individuals vent their anger out in a safe and non-judgmental manner instead of taking their anger out on their friends, family, or loved ones, sometimes even on pets. When a person vents out their frustrations in a safe zone provided by us such as our Rage Academy, they come out feeling more positive and happier with increased productivity. Some may say this is a temporary solution, but stress and anger do not have a permanent solution even if you take cognitive therapy or counselling. 

Venting will make an impulsive or aggressive person less aggressive because they have already vented out their anger in a rage/anger room. Rage rooms are healthy. They don’t aggravate violence, since keeping anger to yourselves for a long period will make people more impulsive. Rage therapy is very beneficial for modern society.

What is a message you would like to give out to the general public?

My message to the general public is, don’t be afraid of trying something new. Doubt kills you faster than time.