Thousands pledge to play hide and seek in Bay Ikea

THOUSANDS of people are planning a massive game of hide and seek in Ikea Cardiff.

A woman is claiming to organise the ultimate version of the playground game in Cardiff Bay branch.

The Facebook event, entitled “Hide and Seek Ikea”, has been set up for 2pm on September 28

The page has had 9,000 people say they are interested and a further 1,200 people promise to attend.

A Facebook post reads: “Join us for the biggest game of ADULTS ONLY Hide and Seek in Ikea!!” There are some rules, though:

No hiding beyond the car park

No vandalising/breaking any of the items in Ikea

You may only play in the customer areas – not staff-only areas

No stealing – in 2015 the furniture giant banned people from playing hide and seek in its store after 32,000 people signed up to play the game at its store in Eindhoven. Citing health and safety concerns, the decision was made after a round of hide and seek in Belgium led to 500 adults hiding everywhere, including in fridges, cupboards and underneath piles of soft toys.

Speaking to Bloomberg at the time, Ikea spokeswoman Martina Smedburg said: “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.”

Last October a similar Facebook page was created in Bristol.

The event soon went viral, with 14,000 people promising to go.

But Ikea cracked down on the idea, saying it would not facilitate the event.