Bayeux Tapestry Breaks Ticket Sale Record at British Museum
3July 7, 2026
TheBritish Museumin London broke its own single-dayticket sale recordslast Wednesday, thanks to the impending one-year loan of theBayeux Tapestry. Ticket-seekers hoping to see the artefact this fall queued online for up to 9 hours, with up to 80,000 people waiting by mid-afternoon. Within 24 hours, all available slots were sold out.
The Bayeux Tapestry, a monumental 230 foot long medieval textile, depicts the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and the subsequent Norman Conquest of England. Created in England during the eleventh century, the tapestry has since been housed in the cathedral in Bayeux, France. Now, for the first time since it was made almost 1,000 years ago, the tapestry is returning to England in a historic loan from France.
The tapestry will be on display in London between September 10, 2026 and July 11, 2027. The tickets that went on sale on July 1 were for timeslots between September and December 2026. There will be two additional ticket releases in October and January, for admission to the museum between January and March 2027 and April and July 2027, respectively.
“This will be without a doubt the biggest year in the Museum’s history,” said George Osborne, the British Museum’s Chair of Trustees. “We expect 7.5 million people to visit and the Bayeux Tapestry returns to UK soil for the first time in 1,000 years.”