The Final is set... 🏆 Luke Littler 🆚 Luke Humphries 🏆 The Sid Waddell Trophy 💰 £500,000 prize Who will be crowned the 2023/24 Paddy Power World Darts Champion?
"Here they all don't give a damn what you do, haha!" - Richard Veenstra compares spectators at World Darts Championship to Lakeside
PDCWednesday, 03 January 2024 at 13:00
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!"
Read also
Just in
Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter today!
Oct 20, 22:28
0
Popular news
Latest comments
- It also gives new tour card holders something to aim for early season...Thomas Moffatt29-10-2024
- Loving the concept as I was a fan of the old BDO tournament and it is great to see they are following it...Thomas Moffatt29-10-2024
- That's the thing, Richie. I used to love the Lakeside walk on; Fitton, Madness, and many others too. As I stated in a much earlier post, I used to attend Lakeside (when the cash allowed it) with my late old man - late 80s, early 90s and enjoyed it immensely. How times have changed, sadly.MrYnyslas197129-10-2024
- Yes, indeed. I have been watching darts for over 40 years and like to think I have good knowledge of the sport, but I haven't heard of most of these players. I really miss the characters like Wolfie, 2 Hotty, Fitton, O Shea, Hankey etc. All my friends ask what happened to the Lakeside darts as they were casual fans who never had SKY and only watched and attended Lakeside. I understand age is probably an issue now and form, but only Paul Lim would motivate me to attend and cheer on. Maendl-Lawrance will send the crowd to sleep. He makes Justin Pipe look like Ricky Evans. If this tournament was mixed, Beau would be the outright World Championrichieburnettrocks29-10-2024
- This tournament is now pretty pointless. Years ago,it was fantastic, Wolfie, Waites,Atkins, Robson etc. But now not many average above 80!!rick6728-10-2024