Police Ward Off Ikea As 3,000 Teens Plan Massive Game Of Hide-And-Seek

Thousands of teenagers planned to play hide-and-seek among Ikea's furniture last Saturday before being stopped by police who were called in to prevent the event from taking place.

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The enormous game was organised over a Facebook group and was supposed to take place in Glasgow last week. The game was due to be the biggest hide-and-seek game to have ever taken place in the city.

But as word became known, Scotland police sent over five officers to the store to prevent the game. According to The Sun, Ikea also called in its own security to help ward off the flocks of incoming teenagers.

In an interview with STV, Rob Cooper, the store manager for Ikea Glasgow, said that whilst they appreciate the temptation for such games in their shop "the safety of our customers and co-workers is always our highest priority."

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"While we appreciate playing games in one of our stores may be appealing to some, we do not allow this kind of activity to take place to ensure we are offering a safe environment and relaxed shopping experience for our customers." he emphasised.

"We were aware of an unofficial hide and seek Facebook event being organised to take place at our store and have been working with the local police for support"

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Despite a few excited youths managing to sneak into the homeware shop, most were turned away at the door. And sure enough, as police presence became known, the thousands of people who had once eagerly clicked attending, stayed clear.

Not before long, word quickly spread on social media that the hide and seek game had been shut down.

This isn't the first time for a game like this to have erupted on social media.

Ikea hide-and-seek games have been circulating the web for years. Back in 2014, 500 people successfully participated in the game in an Ikea store in Belgium.

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Whilst bosses did often ignore these happenings, they have recently had to ban these kinds of events from taking place because of the huge increase in the number of people attending.

An Ikea spokesman has said that whilst they appreciate people want to have fun, this behaviour can no longer be tolerated.

Topics: Event, IKEA

Nicole Cherruault

Nicole is a freelance write for Tyla. Since graduating from The University of Edinburgh she has worked for Phoenix Magazine and British Vogue.

@NCherruault