"Here they all don't give a damn what you do, haha!" - Richard Veenstra compares spectators at World Darts Championship to Lakeside

It's a phenomenon you don't see at the World Championship of any other sport, some three-quarters of the spectators attending the Alexandra Palace, come in fancy dress.

Ranging from traffic cones to bananas to teletubbies, you name it and you'll see them appear at Alexandra Palace, home of the World Darts Championship. "Actually that has slowly grown that way as the tournament grew as well," sounds from the PDC to AD.nl. "When we moved from the Circus Tavern to Alexandra Palace and went from 64 to 72 and later 96 participants, we also started playing before Christmas. Because of the Christmas Parties around town, people came dressed up as Santa Claus or an elf, and slowly but surely people came dressed up in the craziest ways."

This year, massive numbers of Germans also descended on London. "All Germans come here just to party. In the summer they go to Majorca and in the winter they come here," said one German journalist.

Richard Veenstra, who made his debut at this year's World Championship, compares his experiences to those at the BDO/WDF World Championship. "At Lakeside there are people who love the game, watch the game and don't shout. Here they all don't give a damn what you do, haha!"