Shelf and safety... cops stop Ikea game

WORRIED Ikea bosses had to call in police yesterday, fearing thousands of people were about to turn up for a massive store-wide game of hide and seek.

Officers were sent to Glasgow’s Braehead shopping centre after plans were announced on Facebook to turn the Swedish furniture store into an impromptu playground.

The trend for using Ikea’s giant warehouses for games began in Europe a few years ago and has seen people hiding in fridges, under beds and in the firm’s big blue shopping bags.

Yesterday, staff at Braehead became aware of a Facebook thread suggesting some 3,000 youths were about to descend on the store.

As well as drafting in extra security, Ikea contacted Police Scotland who sent five officers. Throughout the afternoon, groups of youths who looked like they were there for the game were turned away from the shop.

Word also spread on social media that the hide and seek stunt had been abandoned, meaning many others stayed away.

Police remained at the store until it closed at 8pm. The social media post suggested the game was due to start at 3pm, before plans were halted.

One Facebook user posted on the thread: ‘To the person who said they phoned the store, this event is not organised by Ikea and they now won’t let people in.’

In another post, Lewis Phillips, believed to have got inside the store, reported: ‘People are stopping everyone who “looks like they are here for a game of hide and seek”.’

Others asked when the game was starting and where everyone was meeting.

The trend for using Ikea for hide and seek started in Belgium in 2014 and spread rapidly around Europe, with Ikea bosses initially allowing the events.

In Holland an astonishing 32,000 Facebook users signed up for a game in Eindhoven, as well as 19,000 in Amsterdam and 12,000 in Utrecht. But in 2015 Ikea was forced to impose a hide and seek ban because the events were getting out of control.

An Ikea spokesman explained at the time: ‘We need to make sure that people are safe, and that is hard if we do not know where they are.’