British Museum ticket sales draw up to 80,000 online queue

Tens of thousands of people faced online queues of up to nine hours on Wednesday as tickets for the British Museum's upcoming exhibition of the Bayeux Tapestry went on sale for the first time. The scramble for access began at 10:00 BST, with the museum's website quickly showing tens of thousands of people in a virtual waiting room. By mid-afternoon, the queue had reportedly ballooned to nearly 80,000 people, with the museum advising that wait times could extend up to nine hours.

The exhibition, scheduled to run from September 2026 to July 2027, marks the first time in nearly a thousand years that the 11th-century embroidery will be displayed on British soil. The 70-meter-long artwork, which depicts the Norman conquest of England in 1066, is being loaned from the Bayeux Museum in Normandy while that institution undergoes renovations.

Ticket prices for the London show are significantly higher than in France, with peak adult tickets costing £33 and off-peak tickets priced at £27. This compares to the standard £12 admission in Normandy. Museum director Dr. Nicholas Cullinan defended the pricing on Wednesday, stating that the exhibition was very expensive for the museum, a charity,...