No farewell after all: the World Darts Championship stays at Ally Pally — and gets bigger

For years the question hung in the air, and it was not a rhetorical one: how much longer would the World Darts Championship stay at Alexandra Palace? The Millennium Dome was mentioned. Saudi Arabia was mentioned. Barry Hearn was seen in the desert and kept a meaningful silence. Now the answer is in — and it is exactly what the fans were hoping for.

The World Championship stays at Ally Pally. Contract until 2031. And it is not getting smaller — it is getting considerably bigger.

What Barry Hearn said back then — and what is happening now

The sentence the whole debate revolved around came from the PDC chief himself:

"Realistically, I could sell 6,000, 7,000 or 8,000 tickets per session instead of 3,500."

That was the problem in a nutshell. The darts boom had outgrown the building. Tickets were gone within minutes, demand went unmet, and a promoter with Barry Hearn's instincts does not leave that lying around for ever.

There were exactly two ways out: move — or make more room at Ally Pally. The PDC chose the second. From the 2026/27 World Championship, the action moves out of the West Hall and into the Great Hall of the same building. The result: more than 5,000 spectators per session and up to 180,000 across the tournament.

So Hearn gets his numbers. And the fans keep their hill in north London. It is about as good a solution as anyone could have asked for.

What became of the plans to move

A reminder of everything that was on the table — and why each option fell away.

The Millennium Dome

On the other side of the Thames and well used to darts: the Premier League Darts play-offs are held there. Capacity would never have been an issue. But the move would have meant giving up exactly what makes the World Championship what it is — a hall that feels too small, with a crowd sitting at tables rather than in rows. An arena with 20,000 seats is impressive. A cauldron it is not.

Saudi Arabia

This was the option that made many people uneasy. Barry Hearn appeared in the desert, and the connection was obvious: his son Eddie promotes the big boxing nights there. A world final between Christmas and New Year, at 25 degrees and without beer in the stands — it would have been a different tournament.

And there was support from within the field, too. Gerwyn Price, world champion in 2021 and famously locked in a love-hate relationship with the Ally Pally crowd, said:

"I think it would be fair if the World Championship travelled around the world as well."

An argument you can accept. Just not this year.

Why it is the right decision for fans

It is worth being clear about what Ally Pally really stands for. It is not the building — it is everything that has grown up around it.

The walk from the station up the hill, in a procession of Vikings, bananas and Teletubbies. The tables instead of rows, where complete strangers squeeze up together. The "Stand up if you love the darts" that nobody announces and everybody knows. And the fact that only a few metres separate the crowd from the stage, not half a stadium.

None of that can be moved. It would have had to grow again somewhere else — and probably never in this form.

That the PDC found the bigger hall in the same building is therefore more than a technical fix: there are more tickets, and nobody has to give anything up.

The catch: tickets are now allocated by ballot

One thing does change, though, and it affects you directly. For the first time, the PDC is allocating tickets by ballot — a draw, no longer first come, first served.

That is fairer than a queue in which the fastest internet connection wins. But it also means you can no longer secure a ticket simply by being well prepared. If you are not drawn, you do not have a ticket — and you only find out in the autumn.

That is exactly why the second route is worth it: if you want to be there, book with a provider you can rely on. With us you book the session you want to see, together with your hotel in London — and you know straight away whether it works out.

And the field of players?

That has grown too. From 72 to 96 and most recently expanded once again — more players, more sessions, more chances for the stories this tournament thrives on.

For fans from Germany, that is the real news: the bigger the field, the more German players take part. At the last World Championship there were eight — more than ever before. Who makes it into the 2026/27 field, however, will only be decided in November.

Everything about the coming tournament — dates, contenders, getting there and what to expect at Ally Pally — is in our World Darts Championship overview. You will find the individual sessions on our PDC World Darts Championship page.

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Updated October 2026. The original version of this article dates from May 2025 and asked when we would have to say "Goodbye Ally Pally". The answer: not for now.