Dart fans on the pantomime of watching live | Global News Avenue

Just meters away from the stage of precise sports drama, five young men dressed as seagulls bob their heads up and down to the screeching noise of darts hitting each other.

As teen star Luke Littler once again turns 180, hundreds of people in bizarre costumes waved bizarre messages in front of the camera to grab TV viewers’ attention.

In a raucous party atmosphere, one unlucky guy destined for TikTok fame struggled to bring five large cans of beer back to his waiting friends, only to find most of the contents spilled on the floor.

Welcome to Ally Pally 2025 – the site of the PDC World Darts Championship and the most unique live viewing experience on the sports fan’s calendar. Wimbledon, this is not it.

“You know it’s going to be fun,” said Anna Heneghan, 28, from Harpenden, as she headed to London’s Alexandra Palace (the venue’s official name) dressed as Average Joe from the 2004 film Watched this event. Dodgeball.

She said the frenzy surrounding Littler last year was the main reason she entered this year’s tournament. “When you watch a TV show, you can see that atmosphere in the room.”

“People are just there to have fun,” she added.

Littler’s stunning rise in the sport has seen him Entering the finals of the PDC World Darts Championship Last year, I was only 16 years old.

Littler will face Michael van Gerwen in Friday’s final and if he wins he will become the youngest player to lift the trophy.

Every year, when the tournament is held around Christmas, darts enthusiasts from all over the world (particularly from the UK and the Netherlands) compete for a coveted spot at the Ally Pally, another occasion where the atmosphere is particularly festive. reason.

Tickets can cost hundreds of pounds and some fans plan their outfits months in advance, but it’s largely not a formal event.

The spectators were dressed in their finest: there were monks and nuns, bananas and vegetables, traffic cones and dart boards, cartoon characters and Vikings. And, of course, there were the Dutch crowd, who brought plenty of orange to the proceedings.

They were given signs on which they could write joke messages in response to television cameras. Sing a dedicated chant for each player. No matter who wins the match, the crowd erupts in cheers.

Alcohol is flowing too.

“The biggest thing people value is the atmosphere,” said Charlie Murphy, a darts TikTok player from Ripon. “They can’t actually see much, you probably can’t see from your seat where the darts are landing” because the dart boards are so small and so far apart, he said.

“You don’t have to know darts to have fun,” says Jessie Sale, a 25-year-old sports journalist from Manchester.

When she interviewed members of the public at games, “some of them were very knowledgeable about the sport, while others had absolutely no clue and couldn’t name three players,” she said.

“You look around and you see people holding a four-pint pitcher in each hand, singing, chanting, writing whatever nonsense they want on 180 cards and basically having a huge party ,” Jesse added.

Tickets are in high demand. Barry Hearn, President and former Chairman of Professional Darts, explain All 90,000 tickets for this year’s championship game were sold out within 15 minutes.

Anna got a PDC membership so she should buy early bird tickets in the summer, But even so, it’s “like a mini oasis” In the process of grabbing tickets.

In the end, she bought six weekday afternoon standing tickets for about £57 each.

Amanda Worthington, 62, from Hertfordshire, was unable to get a ticket through the PDC website. “The tickets are actually taken away as soon as you log in.”

Instead, she bought six quarter-final tickets from a resale website, priced at around £130 each. She said her team could “almost” make out the darts from where they were sitting.

Amanda had attended an Ally Pally tournament the previous year and found the experience “awesome”.

This year is no exception. “You really get carried away by that wave of excitement,” she said.

“I sang and laughed until my voice was hoarse by the end.”

Like Anna, CEO Renee Rogers, 38, from Borehamwood, joined PDC because of Luke Littler.

In the past, she says, darts “always turned me off and maybe even made me roll my eyes”.

But she became “obsessed” with watching the game last year and eventually booked a ticket for Thursday’s semi-final. She and her husband dressed up as characters from the TV show Squidward.

“It all starts the moment you park your car,” Renee said. “You could hear the shouting. You drive through Ellipali and you see the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on one side and the Vikings on the other.”

Renee said the atmosphere of chanting and booing was “like pantomime”. “The rivalry between fans is not as fierce as in football.”

Even if people bring their favorites to the game, they will cheer for all the contestants.

Luke Bodily, another TikTok creator, said viewers will “start cheering for the guy who’s about to lose, encouraging him to get back into the game… They don’t want the game to end because they don’t want to go home.”

Darts remains a male-dominated sport – both in terms of players in tournaments and spectators. But Jessie says women’s sports have boomed in recent years.

When she started college, she was the only female player on the darts team. Some universities now have dedicated women’s darts teams, and Jess says she gets messages on TikTok from girls who love the sport.

England’s Fallon Sherrock – became a player in 2019 first female player Won a match at the PDC World Darts Championship – playing the tournament for the fifth time in December.

Anna is not a darts player, but she said she and her friends enjoyed watching darts so much they even organized their own mini-tournaments.

As for Ally Pally’s PDC? “We’re already planning to go next year,” she said.