Ikea has officially banned games of hide-and-seek from their stores after over 32,000 people signed up for a Facebook event to play the game at a store in the Netherlands.

Ikea Officially Bans Hide-And-Seek

Ikea was forced to make an official statement on Monday saying that no games of hide-and-seek would be allowed in their stores after the Facebook event reached a critical mass.

“It’s hard to control. 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,” said Martina Smedberg, a spokeswoman for Ikea Group.

According to reports, hide-and-seek games at Ikea have become quite popular, with countless events, groups and pages on Facebook, not to mention other forms of social media. The trend gained steam last year after a store in Belgium allowed Elise De Rijck to host a massive hide-and-seek game in their store. That game attracted 500 people.

Twitter Reacts To Ikea’s Hide-And-Seek Ban

After the announcement was made, people took to Twitter to express their sadness.

Apparently, I’ve been playing “Hide & Seek” at Ikea this whole time. That’d be me looking for the exit and the exit hiding from me.

— Eve (@lovemydogduck) March 18, 2015

IKEA just banned hide and seek in their stores. There’s literally NO REASON to go to IKEA anymore.

— Steve Zaragoza (@stevezaragoza) March 17, 2015

Seriously tempted to go to ikea to play hide and seek ….isn’t that what Utd fans usually do when they get beat

— Gaynor Austin (@birdflu_7) March 18, 2015