
Police Shut Down a 3k-Person Game of Hide-and-Seek at IKEA - apress
https://www.housebeautiful.com/lifestyle/a28917427/ikea-hide-and-seek-glasgow-scotland/
======
modernerd
“People are stopping everyone who ‘looks like they are here for a game of hide
and seek.”

Deep down, everyone who walks into the great snaking corridors of IKEA is
playing a game of hide and seek.

But what does a person who goes there to play the game on purpose look like?
What are the tells? Are they wearing IKEA bedlinen?

I love the idea of a stop and search on that scale and basis. “Hide and seek,
officer? I just came to buy a Prickig and a couple of Pysslingars.”

~~~
empath75
[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-3008](http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-3008)

~~~
coryfklein
That SCP was both completely unexpected and completely appropriate. Also a
very interesting mix of creepy and hilarious.

I nearly lost it at the description of the humanoids SCP-3008-2.

Edit: Working my way through the journal entry - my goodness this stuff is
straight-up made for its own movie or Netflix series!

~~~
tomatotomato37
Check out the containment series on youtube; the latest episode is based off
that SCP.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM6GkERwEM0&list=PLEXIiC3q94...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM6GkERwEM0&list=PLEXIiC3q94eO992TlwBD98Zast0gret1r)

~~~
roryokane
Link to the specific video based on SCP-3008:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcq1lLCgk7E&list=PLEXIiC3q94...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcq1lLCgk7E&list=PLEXIiC3q94eO992TlwBD98Zast0gret1r&index=9)

------
ineedasername
That sounds awesome, but how does a 3k game of hide & seek actually work? I
mean, by home rules growing up, one person was "it" and had to find everyone.
That would suck. One person would have to find 2999 others, and most of them
would just be stuck stuck under an Espevar, waiting.

This is an important problem to solve. I call on the engineers of this site to
find a solution to the hide & seek scaling problem. Let's get to work!

~~~
rotexo
You might be interested in the hide-and-seek variant Sardines. One person
hides, with a group of seekers. Seekers that find the one who hides have to
hide with them, until one seeker is left. There is nothing like the feeling of
looking around, encountering fewer and fewer other seekers, until you are
alone with the knowledge that you just lost.

~~~
lucidstack
The first excellent episode of British TV series Inside No. 9 revolves around
a game of Sardines. Wholeheartedly recommended, for pitch-perfect Brit dark
humour

~~~
zzxc
Just watched it now. Gosh that was weird and strangely captivating. Also,
literally every single person spoke with their own uniquely wonderful accent
and mannerism - odd thing to notice and comment on but it made it that much
better. Looking forward to the rest of this series.

~~~
efrafa
Whole series is totally amazing!

------
dakics
Worth remembering "IKEA Heights", a soap opera filmed covertly inside the IKEA
store in Burbank, California 10 years ago.

[https://www.youtube.com/user/IKEAHeights/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/IKEAHeights/videos)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_Heights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_Heights)

~~~
gitgud
Whoa that's hilarious, it's got [1] Randall Park in it before he was famous!

Do you know some other series from that era? I recently discovered
"GoodNeighborStuff" which has the same quality sketch comedy feel to it.

[1]
[https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1320827/](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1320827/)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/user/GoodNeighborStuff](https://www.youtube.com/user/GoodNeighborStuff)

~~~
spookyuser
Take a look at Channel101.com, it seems like this show originally was screened
there. The idea is people submit 5 minute tv pilots and only continue making
them if the live channel101 audience votes to renew them for another episode.

Almost everything on channel101, even now, still feels like quality sketch
comedy. Some of the best stuff though is Dan Harmon's original shows - though
there are almost too many to watch
[http://www.channel101.com/talent/108](http://www.channel101.com/talent/108)

------
skizm
The game continues, but the Police are now the seekers and stakes are raise:
if you're found, you go to jail.

~~~
gist
> and stakes are raise: if you're found, you go to jail

Go to jail? For what? What is the crime? I would say that at least in the US
there would be no such thing for this type of activity. Can you imagine a
prosecutor trying to make a case over this?

~~~
JohnFen
> What is the crime?

If you've been asked to leave, the crime would be trespassing.

~~~
dwild
> If you've been asked to leave, the crime would be trespassing.

If you are asked to leave, it would means that you were found, doesn't it?

> if you're found, you go to jail.

If you are found, you lose, you don't go to jail.

~~~
JohnFen
> If you are asked to leave, it would means that you were found, doesn't it?

Not necessarily. You could be asked to leave with an announcement over the PA
system.

~~~
dwild
> Not necessarily. You could be asked to leave with an announcement over the
> PA system.

Would that be valid legally though? Like how can you know it was targeting
you? If they mentions everyone, that could works.

You will still not go to jail though and you can still try to avoid their
sight (or else you'll be "found").

------
equalunique
Towards the end of middle school, about one mile away, was a brand-new, two-
story Barnes and Nobles. My friends and I - most of whom were waiting to be
picked up in a couple hours by our still-working parents - would often go
there to engage in relatively "large scale" hide-and-seek. It was a lot of
fun. As it turned out, our future high school was even closer to the place.
Shennanigans in the store became a daily thing, and we became the bane of that
place's existience. The whole outside seating area became a camp site of sorts
for teens waiting to go home. Police began to frequent the area, often nabbing
underage cigarette smokers. For about one week, they had some kind of annoying
sonic deterrent device installed that would only be audible to young people -
complaints forced them to remove it. Years later and the plaza has full-time
rent-a-cops to keep the droves of teens in check.

------
donatj
I feel like they would have been better off officially sanctioning the event
and making a big PR stunt out of it.

~~~
zaat
As the article mention, they used to allow it but had to ban it since 2015. No
details as to why except for vague PR speak of safety, my guess is they can't
get insurance coverage for the events, at least not at reasonable price.

~~~
LanceH
People take things too far. They'll climb on things which shouldn't be climbed
on. Some dork might hide in sealed fridge. They'll go back to the warehouse
section and hide where forklifts are operating. Not to mention the general
destruction of the floor models.

------
logfromblammo
A 3000-person game of Hide-and-Seek in an IKEA is what happens when private
businesses start to take over free culture, public places, and public events.

In the past, villages would play village football (or "mob football", or "Ba")
against each other. The England-Scotland border was actually defined in part
by the winner of an annual Ba game between Coldstream and Wark. The "Baa
Green" south of the river went to the winner. Since Coldstream grew larger,
it's pretty much permanently Scottish now.

But then the government banned the playing of football on the highways, and
towns couldn't play against each other as easily any more. Spoilsports.

Every once in a while, The People of Eris get together and say, "We're going
to do something silly and fun and surreal and wondrous and magical and
thrilling!" And then The People of Greyface get together and say, "Stop that
at once. Someone is going to get hurt, or laugh at the government, or
something else equally awful. And that would be catastrophically disastrous.
So, no fun for you. Off with you, now." It's an eternal struggle.

~~~
kwhitefoot
The Ba in Kirkwall is held every year still.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkwall_Ba_game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkwall_Ba_game)

------
gabrielblack
Classic DOS attack by morons. You have that public place, business, physical
service you want to block, so you send a massive number of morons (easily
available on Facebook) to do dumb stuff in that site. Bang! Mission
accomplished. For maximum damage a "Press reflection" variant exists: with the
help of the press you make this kind of attack trendy so more morons can be
focused on the target. Booom ! Nuclear blast!

------
ratel
It seems someone figured out how to play hide-and-seek with thousands of
people. Just let Ikea know you are coming and they will provide the seeker.
The last one thrown out by security or the police before closing is the
winner. Bragging rights go to the person who is found the next morning by
staff sleeping in one of the beds.

------
LandR
> “People are stopping everyone who ‘looks like they are here for a game of
> hide and seek,’”

What? How does one look like they are there for a game of hide and seek v a
regular shopper?

~~~
krustyburger
Regular shoppers don’t usually crouch behind things.

~~~
jplayer01
How am I supposed to know if furniture is good if I can't test its viability
in games of hide and seek?

~~~
jrockway
My takeaway from all of this is that if you have kids that are going to play
hide-and-seek, you probably want something more durable than IKEA furniture.

I think IKEA realizes this as well.

~~~
jplayer01
It's 2019. Adults can play hide and seek too, you know.

------
fyfy18
What exactly were the police planning to do if they found someone playing hide
and seek? At most it seems like they could ask people to leave the store, and
if they refuse charge them with trespassing - but those are civil matters.

~~~
gpm
I mean, it's a different legal system than I'm used to, but around here
trespassing is criminal.

~~~
gmiller123456
Generally you're not trespassing in a store until they ask you to leave, or
you've been informed not to engage in certain activity.

------
mellosouls
This sounds funny but would quickly get tiresome and _intimidating_ for staff;
glad they shut it down - really selfish of the event organisers and
participants.

------
cellular
How would this work? I could just hide in plain sight: act like I'm shopping.

Do you have to seek only people that look like they are hiding?

------
magashna
This makes me curious how the upcoming raid on Area 51 will go.

~~~
LandR
Is this an actual thing?

I thought it was a joke, is it meant to be a joke but some people are going to
turn up having it taken it seriously?

Not an American, but I feel that could go badly.

~~~
squeaky-clean
It's not an actual thing beyond a big in-joke. If anyone does actually show
up, it will be something like the pizzagate gunman situation, where they have
mental issues. Area 51 is so isolated [0] that a raid by any average person is
pretty much impossible, they'll be stopped miles away from the facility. It's
a long gravel road just to reach the restricted roads. [1] If you type for
directions from Crystal Springs to Area 51 into Google Maps it'll also show
the gravel road (and the street-view person also changes into a UFO haha)

[0]
[https://www.google.com/maps/place/37°14'52.9"N+115°48'00.6"W...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/37°14'52.9"N+115°48'00.6"W/@37.234709,-115.8179512,7166m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d37.24804!4d-115.800155)

[1]
[https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g45991-d117062...](https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g45991-d117062-Reviews-
Area_51-Rachel_Nevada.html)

~~~
lonelappde
The military compound won't be overrun, but local towns are bracing for an
surge of idiots arriving the same day.

~~~
caf
Idiots, it must be noted, who are expected to require food and lodging,
provided at a reasonable price by the local towns.

------
gremlinsinc
Ikea should stop 'banning' them and embracing these. They should build a
ticket platform so you can only get into the game w/a ticket. You'd put an
armband on signifying you're a 'player'. That way they could maybe limit it to
a smaller number per game.. 3000 seems like a lot. Maybe 500 or less. How many
of these people would shop while there are go to the cafeteria?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
We were at Ikea today and I thought - they should have a "lazer" game where
you try to get as many tags as possible. Players would be required to walk,
you could only tag someone once and they could have tags on furniture [or only
on furniture] that encouraged kids to "catch them all" ensuring the parents
visited a particular room or item that Ikea wanted to sell.

Maybe ...

MVP would be just have some of the barcodes with a different colour background
and give people barcode readers "capture 30 tags and get an icecream";
improves engagement, keeps kids interested in the "hunt"??

------
dgzl
When I was in high school, I would play a game called "fugitive"[0] with 100+
people from nearby schools. Essentially, it's a game of chase through a few
miles of town. Everyone starts at the same line but runners get a head start.
Runners who are tagged become chasers who carpool with drivers. Runners use
any means necessary to get away, including hiding and deceiving, trespassing
across properties, jumping fences and scaling houses.... It was a frenzy and
madness and probably didn't last an hour overall. Athletes win the race and
everyone else has a brilliant hilarious experience.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_(game)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_\(game\))

~~~
roryokane
That sounds fun; I wished I could have played that.

For people who want to experience some of the same thrill, try watching
FailRace’s “Survive the Hunt” series on YouTube, in which he plays Grand Theft
Auto V in a lobby with his fans. He is given a head-start to drive away from
the group in his car, then he has to switch to a random vehicle and pretend to
be one of the many AI cars. After a few minutes a swarm of 15 or so hunters
comb the city looking for anyone out of place. The videos get more exciting
when they see FailRace and he has to lose them, despite all of the hunters
being in voice contact. It’s not the ideal version of this kind of game,
because FailRace only goes on foot when he has no other option, but it is
still fun to watch.

The playlist is
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHw7hcztgbtslirPWPBL4...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHw7hcztgbtslirPWPBL4G_8r4XPlp_vr).
That playlist isn’t complete for some reason; search FailRace’s other videos
for “Survive the Hunt” to find the rest.

------
PhasmaFelis
How is a 3000-person game of hide-and-seek supposed to work? Hide-and-seek
typically involves knowing who you're looking for, or at least knowing that
anyone in a given area is in on the game.

~~~
turc1656
I was wondering the exact same thing. Who hides and who seeks? I'm guessing
that it's more like people go in small groups and do it within their own group
but just with the size of the Ikea store being the fun factor. Or maybe they
team up against another group of equal size to see which group can find each
other faster?

~~~
jimijazz
Or maybe they wear some sort of tags in their clothing to identify them as
hiders.

------
newsreview1
We used to do this on dates at the Denver, CO IKEA. No one ever even knew what
we were doing.

------
NicoN00b
"The trend began in Belgium in 2014 and quickly gained popularity throughout
the continent"... People have been do this in Ikea for much longer than that,
I love it when "journalists" make up facts based on conveniently available
evidence. In two months the New York Times will cite Belgium as the beginning
of ever playing hide and seek in public.

------
time0ut
Ikea is the perfect place to play hide and seek. The stores are deliberately
designed to be labyrinthine after all.

~~~
lonelappde
The stores have a single (long, windy) path illuminated with arrows, plus
pockets for each product area

------
anonytrary
Hide-and-seek was always my favorite game to play with friends. Nothing can
really beat the basal gratification and excitement in simulating a predator-
prey situation. It is kind of neat that humans, after conquering hunting and
being hunted, simulate this activity for risk-free thrill.

------
mitchdoogle
This reminds me of the time my high school wrestling team had practice over
winter break and we played hide and seek one day instead of practicing. There
were about 30 of us (including coaches) and we had the whole school to
ourselves. That was the best game of hide and seek.

------
ender89
Joke's on them, it was 4,000.

------
dlwiest
The first (public) web app was a tool for managing large games of Assassin,
which we used for about a week and a half to run a class-wide game until
someone complained to his parents and the school shut us down. We probably
could have finished it out, but once people get scared and start dropping out
of an in-progress game, it's hard to keep going.

------
swsieber
If I were Ikea I'd try turning into a paid event. Collect the money ahead of
time ($5 per person?) and you're golden.

~~~
onemoresoop
Yes, but that makes Ikea assume some responsibility. At the end of the day
Ikea sells furniture, people playing a massive hide and seek game are not
there to buy furniture.

~~~
swsieber
They could use waiver forms, like any other place hosting moderately
"dangerous" things (like trampolines, etc.).

That said, you could still allow people who came to actually buy furniture.

Though, I think it would require more preparation than just winging it.

~~~
aeorgnoieang
Waivers aren't – just like anything else – perfect protection against (legal)
liability. In the U.S. at least, _everything_ can be litigated and even just
defending one's self can be expensive.

------
spike021
Last time I wandered into an IKEA I wished there was a real escape rope item,
like from the Pokemon games, to escape quickly.

------
winrid
"The police are stopping everyone who 'looks like they are here for a game of
hide and seek.'"

Amazing.

------
semanticist
This is the same Ikea that has a "Jesus in the woodgrain" on a toilet door.
(If you Google it you'll see stories popping up every couple of years as
someone "discovers" it again.)

------
zw123456
It seems like an interesting business opportunity to open a Hide and Seek
venue, maybe in conjunction with a theme park or something of that nature. If
it is that popular. Shrug.

------
grawprog
I'm just kind of shocked they could fit 3000 people inside an IKEA and still
be able to play hide and seek. I know they're big, but damn that's impressive.

------
newsreview1
Headline continues......turns out, they were all just people lost because of
the horribly-placed yellow arrows misdirecting them through the store.

------
baxtr
_Five police officers were called to the Braehead branch and remained at the
store until the evening._

Ok... the title sounds way more alarming

~~~
ZainRiz
Five police officers stopped 3000 hide-and-seekers

In a previous life they used to be Spartans

------
cwkoss
So they got the police to play as well? /s

------
sverige
I wonder if this was organized by an underground boxing club.

------
hgoel
Reminds me of the "Infinite IKEA" SCP entry.

------
coding123
And.... now it's going world wide.

------
bluntfang
are we just posting corporate guerrilla marketing now?

------
omarhaneef
Headline two days later: "It was actually a 3001 person game of hide and seek!
They found Janet in the Sektion."

------
droithomme
Next thing you know the police will be arresting people running lemonade
stands!

------
PhasmaFelis
It's nice to know that Glasgow has eliminated crime to the point that this was
the most useful thing the police could possibly be doing.

~~~
trhway
it is "broken windows" policy in action - you don't stop hide and seek in IKEA
today, you end up with people shooting up heroin and engaging in various adult
activities there tomorrow.

Anyway, how do you efficiently stop a good game? You spoil it (cue Dr.Evil
laugh). In this case use NN to analyze video feeds to identify a hiding person
and deploy a Roomba (i feel like our civilization is on the precipice of the
epoch where "deploy a Roomba" will be the answer to almost any situation) to
the vicinity of the hiding person where the Roomba will loudly announce
presence of the hiding person.

~~~
quickthrower2
IKEA - the gateway drug?

