Ikea has stopped plans by thousands of people to play hide-and-seek in its box-like stores in the Netherlands.
After a spirited round of the children’s game attracted hundreds of people to a Belgian Ikea outlet last summer, the world’s biggest furniture retailer has forbidden similar events in several of its Dutch stores, citing safety reasons. The organizers of the games, who got word out over Facebook, are now looking for alternative locations.
“It’s hard to control,” Ikea Group spokeswoman Martina Smedberg said by phone. “We need to make sure people are safe in our stores and that’s hard to do if we don’t even know where they are.”
More than 32,000 people have signed up via Facebook to play hide-and-seek at Ikea’s Eindhoven store, while 19,000 people registered interest in a game in Amsterdam and 12,000 people for one in Utrecht. The vendor of Billy bookshelves has 13 stores in the Netherlands.