IKEA build their warehouses as giant mazes quite deliberately. The company aims to make sure anyone who ventures into the store has no choice but to take a winding path, passing by tempting impulse purchases, to get out.
A growing social phenomena in Europe, perhaps a reaction to this design, has been to organise massive but unofficial live action games in the labyrinth of flatpack designs.
This weekend an IKEA complex in Braehead in Glasgow, near the River Clyde and about 10 miles from the SSE Hydro and home of Comic-Con Scotland, had police guarding the doors.
IKEA staff had discovered a Facebook Group which had arranged a game of hide and seek in the giant store. Some 3,000 locals Scottish youths had said they were going to come and join in the game.
As the Scotsman newspaper reports, previous large scale games of hide and seek in IKEA had resulted in people being found in fridges, hiding under beds and even tucked away in the iconic big blue IKEA bags.
IKEA drafted in extra security in Glasgow. Working with the police, IKEA turned away anyone from the shop who looked as if they were only there for the game.
It is not reported how IKEA staff or police could tell, by sight, whether someone was interested in buying a glass table with hex marketings perfect for battle mats or hiding under it.
The largest known game of and hide and seek inside an IKEA probably happened in Holland as some 32,000 Facebook users signed up to attend. IKEA has banned the games since 2015.
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