Back in January one of the guys I play hockey with, and who works for the chain, sent out a mass email to all the players in the league. Anyone interested in visiting Ikea's 341st outlet to test its readiness should promptly sign up.
(The trial visit was originally scheduled for Jan. 26 but was postponed.)
"This [invite] will only be open to the first 3,000 email addresses, as we want a relaxed environment on this day," he wrote at the time.
But it looks like the big day will be anything but relaxed, now that the electronic invite has reportedly gone viral.
My invitation to the outlet's trial opening on March 7 was sent to me by email on Feb. 27.
The visit to evaluate the store's operational readiness includes a free meal (presumably the Swedish meatballs will have been screened for horse meat), and the opportunity to be among the first people in Doha to shop there. The only hitch is there'll be a fire drill to test evacuation procedures... an excellent idea given we had 19 people die in a mall fire not that long ago.
The store is scheduled to open to the general public on March 11.
When I showed my smartphone with the invite on it to a colleague at work, he jumped out of his seat and lunged at my phone. When I refused to hand it over, he physically attacked me, and started grabbing at the handset.
Clearly, emotions are running high in the desert.
So high in fact that the invitation, which is not personalised, has gone viral, raising concerns over crowd control and safety, according to Doha News.
I sent Ikea marketing executive Kershini Moodley an email on March 2, asking what was being done to ensure order and safety given the invite had gone viral. The reply from Vanessa Kaye, a member of "The Ikea Team", came just 15 minutes later.
"We kindly request you to limit this invite only to your close friends & family," was the only thing she said that came remotely close to addressing my question in her email to me, which also had Moodley cc'd.
A half-hour later Moodley sent out a mass email repeating Kaye's message, presumably to everyone on the original invitation list.
Somehow, I doubt very much that admonishing people to limit who they invite at this late stage is going to cut it. They've already invited half of Doha.
I've been in Qatar 18 months and Ikea was being talked about before I arrived. The hysteria is, I'm afraid, understandable given the furniture options in Doha. Here's a typical example of what passes for a bed:
And here's what we've got for lighting:
Fancy a fancy couch? Step this way.
You get the picture... what passes for home furnishings here is, to be kind, not for everyone. As a result, I expect the wave of shoppers to hit Ikea this Thursday to be a tsunami of pent up demand... (I know, it's a cliche, but it's a blog. No one reads this.)
Anyhow, I have an idea... I'm not going.
