Less than half the tickets sold for next week’s World Trophy

There could be quite a few empty seats at the BDO World Trophy next weekend.

With less than half of the tickets sold and only eight days before the tournament kicks off, there are growing fears that the £150,000 event could be played in front of a sparse crowd at the Lakeside Country Club.

Ticket sales have not been helped by the disorderly organising of the tournament, which was moved from the Victoria Warehouse in Manchester to the infamous venue at Frimley Green three weeks ago.

The BDO released ticket details a week later and, in an effort to try and fill up Lakeside, have priced tickets at £10 with the addition of a £2 booking fee.

The three-day event begins a week tomorrow and is being screened live on free to air broadcaster Dave.

But as we went to press last night the ticket sales for the tournament looked worrying, with less than half of the total 2,241 seats across the Bank Holiday weekend snapped up by darts fans.

The opening day begins with top seed Glen Durrant facing former world champion Andy Fordham in the pick of the first round ties, with tickets for Saturday’s action so far proving to be the most popular.

Sunday sees the first round reach its conclusion, before the men’s last 16 and ladies quarter-finals are contested to round off the penultimate day.

As it stands the final day on Bank Holiday Monday has sold the least amount of tickets, with just over 250 seats taken up to watch the men’s quarter-finals, semi-finals and final and the ladies semi-finals and final all in one session.