Shoppers search for their footwear after the stampede. (AN photo by Ghazi Mahdi)

JEDDAH, 2 September 2004 — I never imagined that the grand opening of IKEA’s new flagship store in Jeddah yesterday morning would turn into a such a chaotic event when several thousand people showed up, pushing and shoving in an attempt to get in. At least four people, two men and two women, collapsed in front of me in the rush to get into the building through a narrow 3-meter-wide front entrance. Later I learned that three of them had died.

A huge crowd gathered outside the store on Tahlia Street near Siteen Street early yesterday morning, making the scene look more like a sold-out rock concert than a store opening. With the temperature at a boiling 42 degrees centigrade and humidity hovering at 80 percent, the victims of heat exhaustion were lifted and carried above the heads of the waiting crowd to two ambulances of the Saudi Red Crescent Society.

I had jokingly debated with my friend Marvin for a week before the opening that I would go there early on the morning of Sept. 1 to try and be one of the lucky few to get a free IKEA voucher. He replied that I was mad to think that half of Jeddah wouldn’t be there with me, and that hundreds of people would be camping out at the front door much earlier than me.

In any event, I arrived at 9:45 a.m. to find a sea of white thobes and black abayas waiting outside the huge blue and yellow store. My first reaction was to just tell my driver Muneer to leave and go home. But BBC radio asked me to give them some description of the atmosphere at the opening, so I decided to stay.

Walking closer to the building, I stopped around 20 feet away to observe the crowd. Packs of young Saudi men walked through the crowds, happily enjoying the scene, with one yelling what sounded like an IKEA advertising jingle. After seeing two people collapse and be carried out to ambulances for first-aid treatment, I decided to plunge into the crowd and get closer to the main entrance.

Angry private security guards shouted repeatedly at the crowd to move back when people surged forward as the store opened earlier than scheduled. By 10:10 a.m. the guards were shouting that the store was already full, asking the crowd to leave. But the stubborn crowd refused to move, and scattered slippers and headscarves could be seen on the ground in front of the entrance. Metal barriers erected near the front entrance to control the crowd lay on the ground, proving useless in keeping the surging crowd back.

Later in the day, at around 3 p.m., I returned to IKEA after getting calls from friends saying that a portion of the store had allegedly collapsed. Three huge civil defense fire engines were parked outside the store now, and police in riot headgear lined the entrance. Timidly, I asked an IKEA employee if they were open, and he replied in the affirmative. A brisk 20-minute walk through the entire store confirmed that none of it had collapsed.

IKEA in a strange way had become a victim of its own success.

The Swedish furniture company ran an extensive advertising campaign for several weeks before the opening, with billboards across the city and full-page ads in many newspapers, promising vouchers of SR500 for each of the first 50 shoppers through its doors and SR100 vouchers for each of the next 200 shoppers. That plus the fact that Saudi students are still on summer vacation, meant that a record number of curious and eager shoppers showed up at the opening.

The crowd, although overwhelmingly Saudi, was multinational with scores of Filipinos, Sudanese, Pakistanis and other nationalities jostling to get in. The empty lot next to the store was full of parked cars that couldn’t find parking spaces below the store, and clouds of dust were churned up by the moving traffic. Both Tahlia and Siteen streets were choked by heavy traffic for several hours as drivers tried to escape from the area.

One Filipino family told me they had planned to camp out at the store’s entrance from 5 a.m. in order to be among the first 50 shoppers to claim a SR500 shopping voucher, but that they changed their minds at the last minute.

A Saudi translator told me that his wife had been nagging him to take her to the opening so she could have a chance at getting one of the SR500 vouchers. He told her that he would give her SR2,000 to give up on the idea.

“Unfortunately for me, she took me up on my offer!” he said.

It is a sad reflection of our society that many of us have been reduced to pushing and shoving our way into a store just for a few shopping vouchers.