Bayeux Tapestry ticket sale outpaces The Odyssey opening, bank data shows

The Bayeux Tapestry attracted a bigger rush of spending than Hollywood blockbuster opening mornings or a typical Saturday night out, as the 1,000-year-old embroidery draws in younger culture enthusiasts, data shows.

Monzo’s customer data showed a surge in spending around the second tranche of public tickets to the British Museum being released.

Thousands joined a queue online to secure tickets when they went on sale at 10am last Wednesday, leading fans to draw comparisons to major ticketed events like Glastonbury Festival and the Oasis reunion tour.

The launch triggered payments to the museum of 48 times that of a normal Wednesday morning, according to Monzo’s spending data across its 16 million customers.

In the first hour, cardholders spent £14,100 on tickets to the exhibition – double the opening mornings for this year’s blockbuster films The Odyssey, at £7,000, and Spider-Man: Brand New Day, at £6,300.

The section of the Bayeux Tapestry depicting the ‘arrow in the eye’ moment and the death of Harold, on display at the British Museum in London (Jonathan Brady/PA)

PA Wire

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% 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 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.

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% 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.