‘I lost my voice laughing’: Dart fans in pantomime for live viewing

Just a few meters away from the stage in perfect sports drama, five young men dressed as seagulls are bobbing their heads up and down in time with the cacophonous noise that greets every dart that hits the board.

As teen sensation Luke Littler arrived at the 180th, hundreds of people in fancy dress were pointing at the camera with their own quirky messages to capture the TV audience’s attention.

And amidst the noisy, party atmosphere a hapless man destined to go viral on TikTok struggles to carry five huge pitchers of lager back to his waiting friends and spills most of their contents on the floor. But sees it disintegrating.

Welcome to Ally Paly 2025 – the spectacle of the PDC World Darts Championship and the most exclusive live viewing experience in sports fans’ calendars. Wimbledon, it ain’t.

“You know it’s going to be fun,” says Anna Heneghan, 28, from Harpenden, who went to the event at London’s Alexandra Palace (to give the venue its formal name) dressed as Average Joe from the 2004 film . Dodge ball.

She says that the craze surrounding Littler last year was the main reason for going to this year’s championship. “When you’re watching television you can see what the atmosphere is like in the room.”

“People are just there to have a good time,” she adds.

Littler made unprecedented progress in the game Reach the final of the PDC World Darts Championship Last year at the age of just 16.

Littler plays Michael van Gerwen in Friday’s final – and if he wins, he will be the youngest player to take home the trophy.

Every year, darts fans from around the world – particularly from the UK and the Netherlands – vie for their coveted spot at Alley Pally as the championships are played either side of Christmas, another reason why the atmosphere is particularly festive. Is.

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

Spectators dress in their best fancy attire: there are monks and nuns, bananas and vegetables, traffic cones and dart boards, cartoon characters and Vikings. And of course the Dutch public who bring a big splash of orange to the proceedings.

They are given prompts on which they can write funny messages in front of the TV camera. Dedicated mantras are sung for each player. And regardless of who wins the match, the audience cheers.

Liquor is also flowing.

“People love the atmosphere more than anything,” says Charlie Murphy, a DART TikToker from Ripon. “They can’t really see much, you probably can’t see where the darts land from your seat” because the dart board is so small and so far away, he says.

“You don’t need to know about darts to have a good time,” says Jesse Sale, a 25-year-old sports journalist from Manchester.

When she interviews members of the public at matches, “some of them are very knowledgeable about the game, and some of them have no knowledge at all and can’t name three players,” she says. .

Jesse says, “You look around and see people carrying a four-pint pitcher in each hand, singing, chanting, writing whatever nonsense they want on 180 cards and basically having a Let’s have a big party.”

There is huge demand for tickets. Barry Hearn, Chairman and former Chairman of the Professional Darts Corporation, Said 90,000 tickets for this year’s championship games sold out within 15 minutes.

Anna got the PDC membership so she could buy tickets early in the summer, But even then it was “like a mini oasis” In the race to get tickets.

In the end he bought six standing tickets for the weekday afternoon session at about £57 per ticket.

Amanda Worthington, 62, from Hertfordshire, could not get a ticket from the PDC website. “Literally as soon as you logged on, tickets were taken.”

Instead, he bought six tickets for the quarter-finals from a resale website for around £130 each. From where they were sitting, she says, her group could “almost” make out the dart.

Amanda went to the championships in Ely Pally a year ago and found the experience “absolutely phenomenal”.

This year was no different. “You get swept up in that wave of excitement,” she says.

“My voice is hoarse from singing and laughing by the end of it.”

Like Anna, Renee Rogers, 38, CEO of Borehamwood, went to PDC because of Luke Littler.

In the past, she says, darts “were always something I would turn off and probably roll my eyes at.”

But she was “hooked” by watching the match last year – and booked tickets to go to the semi-finals on Thursday. She and her husband dressed like characters from the TV series Squid Game.

“It all starts the moment you park your car,” says Renee. “You can hear the chanting. You’re driving through Ely Pally and you see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on one side, Viking men on the other.”

Renee says the chanting and noisy atmosphere are “like a silly play.” “There is no intense rivalry between fans like in football.”

Even if people enter the match with a favorite, they will cheer on everyone participating.

Another TikTok creator, Luke Bodilli, says that viewers will “start cheering for the guy who’s about to lose to encourage him to get back in the match… They don’t want the match to end because They don’t want to go home”.

Darts is still largely male-dominated, both in terms of players and spectators watching the championships. But Jessie says the women’s game has come on the scene in a big way in recent years.

When she started university, she was the only female player on its darts team. Now, some universities have dedicated dart teams for women and Jessie says she gets messages on TikTok from girls who love the game.

England’s Fallon Sherrock – who became the 2019 first female player To win a match in the PDC World Darts Championship – played in the tournament for the fifth time in December.

Anna isn’t a darts player, but she says she and her friends enjoy watching darts so much that they’re even organizing their own mini tournament.

And for the PDC in Alli Palli? “We’re already definitely planning to go next year,” she says.