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About 500 people queued outside Hopewell Mall in Wan Chai on Wednesday (Jul 1) to snap up limited-edition Beyblades being sold in Hong Kong for the first time, after organizers closed the queue hours before the scheduled line-up time, sparking complaints from fans.
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The pop-up store planned to distribute 250 queue tickets on Wednesday (Jul 1), followed by 200 tickets on Thursday (Jul 2) and Friday (Jul 3).
Although organizers said the designated queueing area would only open at 10.30pm on Tuesday (Jun 30) and warned against lining up early, fans began arriving in the afternoon, with some joining the queue as early as 3pm.
At about 8pm, organizers announced the queue had been closed due to public safety concerns at the request of the shopping mall, triggering complaints from those who had planned to follow the published arrangements.
Some disappointed fans surrounded staff to protest the decision, prompting police to attend the scene. The situation was later brought under control.
The incident also sparked criticism online, with many social media users accusing the organizer of rewarding those who ignored its own queueing rules while leaving people who followed the announced arrangements empty-handed. Others questioned why early arrivals were allowed to form a queue despite the organizer's warning against lining up before the designated time.
By around 10am on Wednesday, about 500 people were still waiting outside the venue before sales began.
Among the first five in the queue was a 14-year-old collector who said he had waited for more than 18 hours after arriving at about 3pm the previous day.
"It wasn't hard," he said, adding that he hoped to buy "as many as possible."
He said the Beyblades were for his own collection and to play with friends, rather than for resale.
Police said they received a report at 9.07pm on Tuesday from a teenage boy who claimed four or five people had cut in line at the mall.
Officers attended and found the situation to be orderly. The incident was classified as a miscellaneous case.
