Gen Z treats Bayeux Tapestry tickets as ultimate status symbol

Forget Glastonbury or Oasis! How getting a ticket to see the Bayeux Tapestry has become the ultimate status symbol for Gen Z.

When it comes to sought–after tickets, Glastonbury Festival or Oasis might spring to mind. But according to new data released by Monzo, it's the Bayeux Tapestry that has really got young ticket–hunters excited.

After thousands joined a virtual queue for tickets to the British Museum when sales opened at 10am last Wednesday, payments to the museum were 48 times higher than on a normal Wednesday morning. In the first hour alone, cardholders spent £14,100 on tickets to the exhibition. For comparison, that's double the opening mornings for this year's blockbuster films The Odyssey (£7,000) and Spider–Man: Brand New Day (£6,300).

The news will come as no surprise to many youngsters, who took to TikTok to discuss the ticket–buying experience. 'Apparently it's history nerd ticket hunger games today,' one user joked.

When it comes to sought–after tickets, Glastonbury Festival or Oasis might spring to mind. But according to new data released by Monzo, it's the Bayeux Tapestry that has really got young ticket–hunters excited

The exhibition at the London museum has been met with a huge surge of interest from people wanting to see the woven record of the Norman Conquest, which returned to the UK for the first time in almost 1,000 years.

According to Monzo's data, which is based on 16 million users, buyers spent five times more on average at the checkout than Spider–Man's opening morning, at £97 versus £19. In the two hours after tickets went on sale, Monzo customers spent £30,500 on tickets. This was 60 per cent more than the combined average Saturday night spend, between 8pm and 4am, across six major UK nightlife venues – Koko, Fabric, Roundhouse, Lakota, Thekla and Sub Club.

The British Museum said the response to the Tapestry going on display last month had been 'extraordinary', leading it to make changes to address lengthy queues among ticket–holders, including banning visitors from taking photos. Monzo's data suggested that the buzz has been felt among younger as well as older generations, drawing in crowds of Generation Z and millennial viewers.

Some 55 per cent of buyers at the latest sale were under the age of 35, it found. Furthermore, almost half of all buyers were outside of London, with the furthest purchases coming hundreds of miles away from the Glasgow postcode area, the bank said.

'The person who came up with good things comes to those who wait was definitely NOT queuing up for tickets to the Bayeux Tapestry online today,' one TikToker said. Another compared waiting for tickets to the Bayeux Tapestry to the scrum for tickets to Glastonbury Festival, showing a screenshot of 22,499 ahead of them in the queue. And one joked: 'I opened it as soon as I got the email and had less than 2000 ahead of me, scared my fiancé by calling him when I'm at work to confirm dates, he didn't understand how dire the situation was.