For example, when you mention the name Stephen Bunting to sports fans in England, fans will look forward to singing Titanium by David Guetta and Sia with him at the 2026 World Darts.
A similar case is also Nathan Aspinall, who entertains the audience with a song by The Killers Mr. Brightside.
The atmosphere during the darts championship, which annually spices up the Christmas holidays, is immediate.
How did the fun that took place in the local pubs at the priva become a sport that is played by thousands of people all over the world?
Crazy costumes
It has become a tradition for darts fans in recent decades to come up with some kind of costume to set themselves apart from others.
You can see it especially at the world championship, which is the most watched event of the year. The audience is watched by dozens of cameras, and being as extravagant as possible increases the chance of getting your five seconds of TV fame.
During this year’s championship, spectators in the audience could see various costumes, such as Shrek, Fiona, a character from the Paw Patrol fairy tale, a priest, a pope or a man in protective clothing against insects.
When did the turning point occur?
Older people in particular shake their heads in disbelief when they remember how a pub sport they played with friends over a beer became such a phenomenon.
In some older pictures, you can see a few people sitting in the audience, drinking a drink and sometimes clapping if the player succeeds in rolling a high number.
Today, however, the situation is completely different. We can consider the year 2008 as a turning point, when the PDC organizer decided to change the venue of the WC.
While they have been held at the 1,100-capacity Circus Tavern since 1994, Alexandra Palace in London has hosted the championship for the past eighteen years. It has three times the capacity.
The reason for this step was the PDC’s effort to definitively overtake the competing organization BDO in terms of prestige, amount of rewards for players and overall image.
In this period, Darts began to profile itself purposefully as a show, not just as an ordinary sports broadcast.
Larger spaces also brought a party atmosphere with them. With thousands of people in the audience, it was no longer possible to maintain the traditional silence, so chaos, singing and drinking beer became the new norm, which the organizers began to actively sell as a key experience.
Starting next year, even the championship within Alexandra Palace will move to a larger hall, which can accommodate up to 5,000 spectators.
VIDEO: Spectators during Stephen Bunting’s entrance to the 2026 World Darts Championship
Beer flows in a stream
The favorite drink of fans at the World Cup is beer. During the entire championship, they can drink up to half a million glasses with a volume of 0.5 liters.
If we take a closer look at this statistic, approximately 31,000 beers are drunk daily. For one person, if the capacity of the auditorium is full, that’s 4-5 beers for one played part, whether it’s in the afternoon or in the evening.
This also contributes to the fact that fans are more engaged during the championship than on weekdays. It is enough for them if they see someone more famous in the audience and can sing his name.
However, they have the most fun during the introductions of the players, when they sing their favorite songs and have fun even before the match itself begins.
They can also get angry
Fans have their favorite, but also unpopular players.
Darts can gain affection through good performances, interaction with fans, a catchy starting song, or overall performance both on and off the target.
However, if the audience doesn’t like someone, they have no problem letting them know.
Cameron Menzies from Scotland is not making a very good name for himself. During the World Cup, the spectators in the hall mocked him or sang anti-Scottish chants. That brought him to tears.
VIDEO: Emotions of Cameron Menzies
He did not win fans even in the current championship, where after losing in the opening round with Charlie Manby 2:3, he seemed to lose his mind for a few seconds.
He “extinguished” the sparkling fountains with his right hand and later hit the table several times. The audience did not give it to him and booed him. He later apologized for his actions.
However, the player who perhaps polarized the audience the most was Gerwyn Price. The past tense can be used because the relationship between him and the fans will improve significantly even compared to perhaps WC 2023.
In the quarter-final match against Gabriel Clemens, he came on stage with headphones on his head to drown out the boos and screams of the crowd at Alexandra Palace. However, he could not concentrate and lost smoothly 1:5.
Price, as a former rugby player, is used to reacting emotionally after a good throw in important moments, which is more or less distracting for opponents.
Probably the most tense was in the final of the Grand Slam of Darts 2018, when he had a conflict with fan favorite Gary Anderson and since then he has been in their displeasure for a long time.
