£14,100 in one hour: Bayeux ticket rush outpaces new film openings

Monzo customers paid £14,100 to the British Museum in the first hour after a second batch of Bayeux tapestry tickets went on sale last Wednesday. That total was 48 times the amount the bank’s cardholders typically spend on a Wednesday morning.

The museum opened the exhibition last month, presenting the roughly 1,000-year-old embroidery in England for the first time since it was taken to France in the 11th century. The initial ticket release sold out in 24 hours. This week’s release cleared in three hours, a pace the museum attributed to high demand comparable to major music events.

Thousands of people joined an online queue at 10 a.m. on Wednesday. By 1 p.m., all available tickets were gone. Spending by Monzo’s 16 million customers reached £30,500 within two hours of the sale beginning.

The demographic profile of the buyers skewed young. In the opening hour, 55% of purchasers were aged under 35. Almost half of the buyers lived outside London, with the most distant transactions recorded in Glasgow.

Ticket prices for the exhibition are higher than average cinema tickets. Standard adult admission costs £33 at peak times and £27 off-peak. Buyers spent an average of £97 per checkout for the exhibition, compared with £19 for Spider-Man: Brand New Day on its opening morning.

Monzo data indicates the exhibition’s first-hour spending was about twice the amount recorded for the opening mornings of The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day. The bank noted that higher admission prices and restricted supply influence these comparisons.

The British Museum described the response as “extraordinary.” The institution has implemented changes to manage visitor flow, including banning photographs in the gallery to reduce queue times for ticket holders.