Tapestry sales beat movie ticket spikes

Monzo customers spent £14,100 on British Museum tickets during the first hour of a new sales release last Wednesday. That figure was 48 times higher than the average spending on a typical Wednesday morning for the bank’s 16 million cardholders.

The surge coincided with the sale of a second batch of tickets for the Bayeux tapestry exhibition. During that opening hour, 55% of the buyers were under the age of 35. The bank’s data provides a financial snapshot of the demand for the 1,000-year-old embroidery, which is on display in England for the first time since the 11th century.

Spending on the museum tickets far outpaced the costs associated with two major film releases earlier this year. Monzo users paid £7,000 for tickets to The Odyssey and £6,300 for Spider-Man: Brand New Day during their respective opening mornings. The museum total was roughly double the amount recorded for either film.

The higher costs for museum entry reflect both price points and purchase volume. Standard adult admission ranges from £27 off-peak to £33 at peak times. The average checkout for a museum ticket release totaled £97. By contrast, the average spend for Spider-Man tickets on its opening morning was £19.

Within two hours of the ticket release beginning at 10am, total spending by Monzo customers reached £30,500. The available tickets sold out within three hours. This was much faster than the initial release, which took 24 hours to exhaust its supply.

Buyers were not limited to the London area. Nearly half of the purchasers were located outside the capital, with the furthest transactions recorded from Glasgow. The rapid sellout has drawn comparisons to the demand seen for the Glastonbury festival and the Oasis reunion tour.

The British Museum has adjusted its operations to manage the crowds. A ban on visitor photography was introduced to reduce queue times for ticket holders. The museum described the response since the exhibition opened last month as extraordinary, while reviews have cited the display’s technical quality and historical context.