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Ikea Will Host Cross-Country Sleepovers, Because Why Not

If you're the type who wants to sleep in a store, mark your calendars for late February.
A mother and child at a Shanghai Ikea in June 2017.
Johannes Eisele / AFP via Getty Images
A mother and child at a Shanghai Ikea in June 2017.

Have you ever looked at Ikea's selection of cosy-looking Nesttun or Nordli or Malm bed frames and wanted to just curl up and go straight to sleep? If you live in one of 11 Canadian cities, you might soon be able to.

On Feb. 23, Ikea is hosting a "pyjama party" at locations around Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, the GTA, Ottawa and Halifax. About 100 to 200 people per store can RSVP on the website, and take part in yoga and meditation in-store. Also included: bedtime snacks and guidance from a sleep expert.

Of the nearly 2,000 people who will show up across the country, 10 from each store will be selected to actually sleepover, along with a guest. They can then go home with new sheets, an eye mask, earplugs, slippers, and other sleep essentials.

"We've always heard feedback from our customers that our showroom bedrooms look so comfortable that they'd love to take a nap or sleepover in them," Ikea's PR manager Kristin Newbigging told HuffPost Canada in an email.

Ikea customers love sleeping in their showrooms, according to a spokesperson.
Kevin Frayer via Getty Images
Ikea customers love sleeping in their showrooms, according to a spokesperson.

"We want to show that home is where we can feel safe and where we can recharge and regain balance. Sleep isn't just something we do when we're not working. A good night's sleep takes work."

Everyone will have a "semi-private area within a room setting," Newbigging explained. And yes, real bathrooms will be provided not far from the rooms — you won't have to use the show bathrooms, which as she points out "are not functional and not quite private enough to create a comfortable experience."

Ikea's initiative comes with a focus on sleep, something the vast majority of us don't get enough of. More than one-third of Canadians get less than the recommended seven hours of sleep per night, according to Statistics Canada. Dr. Brian Murray, a neurologist who works in the Sleep Disorder Clinic at Toronto's Sunnybrook Research Institute, has previously told HuffPost Canada that "our society is sleep-deprived."

Spending the night at the mall has become something of a YouTube trend in the last few years. Perhaps due in part from the fact that it's a common trope in a lot of teen entertainment, particularly in the 1980s. Security robots went rogue on rowdy teens in the cult movie "Chopping Mall," and troubled kids ran away to live somewhere they felt safe in Richard Peck's "Secrets of the Shopping Mall." And younger millennials, of course, will never forget the sparks flying between Ryan and Marissa in the mall sleepover episode of "The O.C."

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