IKEA bans people from playing Hide-n-Seek in their store.

IKEA have banned people from playing hide-n-seek in their stores.

It was getting KOMPLEETLY ÅUT ÅF KÅNNTROL.

IKEA has banned thousands of people from playing hide-n-seek in its stores after management said it was too “hard to control”.

The Swedish furniture giant gave permission for a one-off game of hide-n-seek at a store in, Belgium, back in July.  Around 500 people took part, hiding in fridges, under stuffed toys, under blue Ikea shopping bags and in the storage space beneath beds.

Now, the idea has caught on, with more than 32,000 people signing up via Facebook to play hide-n-seek at Ikea’s Eindhoven store, while 19,000 registered interest in a game in Amsterdam and 12,000 for one in Utrecht.

Ikea Group spokeswoman Martina Smedberg told Bloomberg the decision was due to safety reasons.

“It’s hard to control,” she 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.”

Unsuspecting victims of the game have told of their experience too, including several men who claim their wives entered the furniture warehouse “for just one thing” and have not been seen since. Dave Jones told his wife he would wait outside, and his minutes quickly turned to hours.

“Is she playing this hide and seek too?” he said. “Did no one tell me?”

MORE: 7 ways to survive IKEA with your relationship intact.

Some of the furniture is in on the gag too, with ticketed items seemingly in-stock but then ‘hiding’ somewhere else, nowhere to be found.

The organisers of the games are now looking for alternative locations for the giant hide-n-seek but in the meantime our intrepid Facebook journalistic search uncovered several smaller splinter groups organising games elsewhere:

We don’t want to condone such behaviour, but in case you’re there, just will probably find me “hiding” in the food court next to the $1 soft-serve machine.

Want to win a trip to New York. Of course you do:

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