--- title: Ikea Shuts Down 32,000-Person, In-Store Hide-and-Seek Game description: 32,000 people signed up to play an in-store game canonical: https://time.com/3746278/ikea-32000-people-hide-and-seek-game/ author: Laura Stampler article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-16T18:23:51.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:48:34.114Z og:title: IKEA: Please Stop Playing Hide-and-Seek in Our Stores og:description: We thought you were cool, Ikea og:url: https://time.com/3746278/ikea-32000-people-hide-and-seek-game/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49e33a576f45647e/698783c255a8598a3fa8651d/164899551.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: An Ikea store in Montpellier, southern France on March 27, 2013. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: IKEA: Please Stop Playing Hide-and-Seek in Our Stores twitter:description: We thought you were cool, Ikea twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49e33a576f45647e/698783c255a8598a3fa8651d/164899551.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # IKEA: Please Stop Playing Hide-and-Seek in Our Stores ## Video: IKEA: The Psychology Behind Why We Overshop [Watch (HLS stream): IKEA: The Psychology Behind Why We Overshop](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/0fFiBuse.m3u8) (2:31)  _Published 2015-03-11. Here's how IKEA gets us to buy more than we need, explained by TIME writer Josh Sanburn_ by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Mar 16, 2015 6:23 PM UTC  An Ikea store in Montpellier, southern France on March 27, 2013. An Ikea store in Montpellier, southern France on March 27, 2013.Pascal Guyot—AFP/Getty Images by [Laura Stampler](https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/) ## Laura Stampler Mar 16, 2015 6:23 PM UTC IKEA is a pretty fun place. But the Swedish furniture store — known for meatballs, ball pits and unpronounceable dressers — has taken a stand against irreverence by banning massive games of hide-and-seek in its Dutch stores, [_Bloomberg_](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-16/ikea-stamps-out-hide-and-seek-games-in-dutch-furniture-stores)reports. And by massive, we mean 32,ooo people signed up for a Facebook event in Eindhoven; 19,000 in Amsterdam; and 12,000 in Utrecht. “It’s hard to control,” IKEA Group spokeswoman Martina Smedberg told Bloomberg. “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 summer, hundreds played the game in Belgian IKEA locations. And just look at how much fun they were having: > [](https://twitter.com/TheStalwart/status/577445845848756224) \[[_Bloomberg_](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-16/ikea-stamps-out-hide-and-seek-games-in-dutch-furniture-stores)\] _Read next:_ [_Ground Zero in the Clutter Wars: My House_](http://time.com/3500104/clutter-war-purger-hoarder/?iid=time%5Freadnext) [_Listen to the most important stories of the day._](http://time.com/newsletter/the-brief/?sl%5Fautoplay=true&xid=spl-fullbrief-article) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3746278/ikea-32000-people-hide-and-seek-game/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3746278/ikea-32000-people-hide-and-seek-game/"},"headline":"IKEA: Please Stop Playing Hide-and-Seek in Our Stores","datePublished":"2015-03-16T18:23:51.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:48:34.114Z","description":"32,000 people signed up to play an in-store game","url":"https://time.com/3746278/ikea-32000-people-hide-and-seek-game/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Retail","Games","Bizarre","Ikea"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49e33a576f45647e/698783c255a8598a3fa8651d/164899551.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Laura Stampler","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/laura-stampler/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49e33a576f45647e/698783c255a8598a3fa8651d/164899551.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"An Ikea store in Montpellier, southern France on March 27, 2013.","caption":"An Ikea store in Montpellier, southern France on March 27, 2013.","creditText":"Pascal Guyot—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3746278/ikea-32000-people-hide-and-seek-game/","name":"IKEA: Please Stop Playing Hide-and-Seek in Our Stores"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"IKEA: The Psychology Behind Why We Overshop","description":"Here's how IKEA gets us to buy more than we need, explained by TIME writer Josh Sanburn","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/0fFiBuse/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-03-11T22:23:23.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/0fFiBuse.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3746278/ikea-32000-people-hide-and-seek-game/","duration":"PT2M31S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3746278/ikea-32000-people-hide-and-seek-game/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```