Ticket sales for the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition at the British Museum generated a spending surge that dwarfed major entertainment events, according to financial data from Monzo. In the first hour after tickets went on sale at 10am last Wednesday, cardholders spent £14,100 on exhibition passes, double the opening morning takings for this year's blockbuster films The Odyssey at £7,000 and Spider-Man: Brand New Day at £6,300, Monzo's spending data across its 16 million customers showed.
The scale of the rush prompted comparisons to major ticketed events including Glastonbury Festival and the Oasis reunion tour, with thousands joining online queues to secure access to the 1,000-year-old embroidery. Payments to the museum reached 48 times the volume of a normal Wednesday morning, according to Monzo's figures. Over two hours after the sale began, customers spent £30,500 on tickets, exceeding by 60 per cent the combined average Saturday night spending across six major UK nightlife venues including Koko, Fabric and Roundhouse.
Average spending per transaction also far outstripped film releases. Monzo cardholders spent £97 on average at the checkout for tapestry tickets, five times more than the £19 average for Spider-Man's opening morning. The exhibition has attracted interest across age groups and geography. Monzo's data showed that 55 per cent of buyers were under 35 years old, while almost half of all purchases came from outside London, with some customers from the Glasgow postcode area hundreds of miles away.
The British Museum said the response to the Tapestry going on display last month had been "extraordinary", leading the institution to make operational changes to manage demand, including banning visitors from taking photographs. The tapestry returned to the UK for the first time in almost 1,000 years, drawing crowds keen to view the woven record of the Norman Conquest.