Ikea: Please stop playing hide-and-seek in our stores

Store is forbidding mass games across Europe

Ikea is clamping down on massive games of hide-and-seek in its stores, saying that the Facebook-organised events are getting out of control.

Starting at a Belgian outlet last summer, the craze has spread around Europe, and Ikea has now had to step in and forbid future games planned, including one in the Czech Republic and a couple in the Netherlands.

"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."

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5,500 Facebook attendees have been disappointed by the news in Breda, while another 1,100 would-be players are looking for a new venue in Prague.

A game planned in Amsterdam still looks to be on though, with 19,000 people listed as attending.

"Sometimes it’s fun just to do some childish things," an organiser of the Belgian leg previously said. "Ikea is like an extremely large living room."

This Ikea-sanctioned game apparently saw people hiding in fridges, under stuffed toys and beds and in the iconic blue shopping bags.

"We played hide and seek the whole day," they added. "It was really exhausting but so much fun."