Several years ago my wife and I drove 3 hours to get to, what was then, our closest Ikea store in Emeryville, California. The store had just been opened for a couple of weeks, and was the first store in Northern California. Upon our arrival just after store opening at 10:00 a.m., we were greeted by a full parking lot and a mass of people flooding into the store - apparently crowds would wait outside the store more than an hour before opening each day.

Everywhere inside there were people pushing through crowds and franticly wading through merchandise as if it were a contest. And there were lines... long lines: to place our order; at the concession stand; at the register; and at the service warehouse desk waiting for our purchase to come out. We had just a few items on our list that day and had planned to spend some time in the city after we were done… but it didn’t happen.

Five hours later, we emerged from the store… tired, hungry and beaten by the experience. We loaded the car and started the long drive home.

And at the end of all that, we had come to a conclusion: no, it was not worth all of the hassle. But what other choice did we have to get reasonably well designed items that we could afford?

Press release: Ikea - An incident at the opening of IKEA Edmonton
Article: BBC - Crush chaos at Ikea store opening
Image from Waxy