Despite early stumbles in America, twenty years later, the store has so ingrained itself into our society that a trend amongst urban hipsters is to host dinner parties at the stores. A meal of lingonberry jam and meatballs at the cafeteria for the host and guests, and the living room displays make perfect venues for a round of Taboo and Pictionary. A blog posting chronicling the first party in Sacramento led to a string of copycats across the country. So far, IKEA management doesn’t seem to be complaining.--- Mac Carey [author of the article: 5 Things You Didn't Know about Ikea, but (Should) via Mental_Floss]

via [Revver]

The IKEA Fancy Dress Dinner Party

Oh! Those IKEA room displays! Entire rooms full of furniture, lighting, rugs and notions. Any one of those rooms would be a great place to sit and entertain friends. They look so comfortable and inviting!

It was an invitation that Jason Adair couldn't pass up. He decided to have a Fancy Dress Party at IKEA.

Before the pary, he invited me along to a mission-planning/brainstorming session. We scoped out which rooms would work best for a large gathering, checked the location of employee kiosks and established the availability of electrical outlets.

The West Sacramento IKEA is a huge store with tons of merchandise, but shoplifting is apparently not a concern, because the upper level is left pretty much unsupervised. The possiblilities were amazing! We were both fairly confident that a group, particularly a well-dressed group would not be kicked out... but you never know.

As insurance against getting thrown out, Jason made up official-looking invitations.

The party was scheduled to start at 7:00 pm on Saturday, on the second floor of the West Sacramento IKEA.  It would start at the cafeteria. After dinner, guests would retire to one or more of the living rooms for games.

The attire was semi-formal, and guests were encouraged to bring board games.

On the evening of the party, I arrived a little early and picked up some wine goblets and a corkscrew on the first level sales floor.  I ran upstairs and found an open table. Within minutes, guests began arriving. Right away there were 10-15 of us, ready to eat.

opted for the meatballs and potato for $5.99. We must have looked as if we were a wedding party, in the buffet line.

Guests continued to arrive during dinner, and by 8 p.m., there were about 28 people.

Dinner was over, and we streamed out of the cafeteria and headed to the showrooms.

Showcase Showdown

Jason was at the lead and paused briefly to get his bearings. When he stopped, a very helpful employee noticed he was lost and asked him what he was looking for.

This conversation with an employee didn't look promising, but it didn't stop anyone other than Jason.

Most of us just walked past them and found rooms to occupy. Five of us sat at a large glass table in a kitchen/dining room showcase. I dustributed wine glasses and we busted out letter tiles for a rousing game of BananaGrams. Other guests were in a model living room playing Scott's Boggle! game, and some others were gathered in a third room, lounging around a television set.

Jason downplayed our real intent, but let the very nice man know that we were here to play board games, and that we had chosen IKEA for the location because it was so much nicer that any of our own actual homes.

To his credit, he could not have been friendlier or more relaxed about the situation. This guy was pretty much the opposite of all the shopkeepers/management that Improv Everywhere encounters.

We sat and talked for a few rounds.

IKEA shoppers drifted into the kitchen, but no one asked any questions. They seemed a little perplexed by our presence, but not enough to ask us what the hell we were up to.

At one point, two casually-dressed friends of Jason needed to leave, and they asked him for directions out of his "house".

"Oh, just turn left at my second living room, down the long hall, til you hit my third kitchen. Go through the second master bedroom and downstairs to the warehouse." was the reply.

As with any good dinner party, the time flew by. Bananagrams was interrupted by an announcement - IKEA was closing in 30 minutes!

It was, by now, obvious that we would never be kicked out.

The party was really rolling at this point, so I recruited as many people as I could for a boisterous game of electronic Catch Phrase.

We split into two teams for a 12-person contest of electronic beeping and feverish clue shouting.

Nine O'clock arrived and the intercom announced that IKEA was now closed.

We proceeded with a disorganized exit.

Gathering outside, we were pleased to discover a well-stocked garden area, inviting us to stay a while.

Many of us stayed, joining Jason's impromptu patio quiz show.

What a terrific time! I highly recommend having your next formal event at IKEA. Before you get started, you should be aware of some shortcomings with this location:

1. IKEA doesn't serve the kind of beer that I like.
2. Hors d'ouvres were impossible to track down.
3. We had to assemble the whole thing by ourselves
4. Not enough GULLHOLMEN in the VORDAGSRUM