Latest news with #AlexandraPalace
The Sun
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Sun
PDC World Championship schedule released as fans hail ‘mind-melting amount of darts this Christmas'
SPORTS fans are in for a very merry footballdartsmas this year after the schedule for the Darts World Championship was released. The PDC have expanded the tournament to 128 players for the 2025/26 edition of the Alexandra Palace showpiece. 2 2 This comes with a record-breaking prize pot of £5million on the line, with this year's winner set to pocket an eye-watering £1m. And the schedule for the expanded competition has now been revealed by organisers. It will be a 20-day darts bonanza held across 36 sessions which is expected to welcome more than 100,000 fans. The likes of Luke Littler and Luke Humphries will have to wait to discover their fate in the draw, but they know the round one action will get underway from Thursday, December 11. Round one will last over a week through to Friday, December 19, with every day except for the opening day and Wednesday, December 17 featuring an afternoon and evening session. Those who progress will then commence with the second round from Saturday, December 20, which will be played through to Tuesday, December 23 when the competition then takes a break for Christmas. The darts then return with round three action on Saturday, December 27. That will last through to Monday, December 29, when three round three clashes play out at the same time as two round four games. The remainder of round four will be played out across two sessions on Tuesday, December 30. Similarly, the quarter-finals will take place across an afternoon and evening session on New Year's Day. Darts legend Bobby George sends stark message to Luke Littler as he warns sensation he can 'go from hero to zero quick' Friday, January 2 will see the semi-finals played out, before the darts festival then concludes on Saturday, January 3. Fans have called the tournament a "a mind-melting amount of darts". However, fans could be hard-pressed to get tickets as the popularity of darts continues to soar. A record 40,000 were bought by annual members in the first 30 minutes of pre-sale for the event last year. The PDC website struggled to cope with the traffic and some fans fumed as they got stuck on a "black screen". Other fans were left furious after touts got their hands on tickets before reselling them on some sites for a colossal £800. List of all-time Darts World Champions BELOW is a list of darts world champions by year. The list does not include winners from the pre-Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) era or BDO world champions. That means Raymond van Barneveld, for example, is only listed once - Barney also won four BDO titles - and none of Eric Bristow's five BDO titles are included. 1994 - Dennis Priestley 1995 - Phil Taylor 1996 - Phil Taylor (2) 1997 - Phil Taylor (3) 1998 - Phil Taylor (4) 1999 - Phil Taylor (5) 2000 - Phil Taylor (6) 2001 - Phil Taylor (7) 2002 - Phil Taylor (8) 2003 - John Part 2004 - Phil Taylor (9) 2005 - Phil Taylor (10) 2006 - Phil Taylor (11) 2007 - Raymond van Barneveld 2008 - John Part (2) 2009 - Phil Taylor (12) 2010 - Phil Taylor (13) 2011 - Adrian Lewis 2012 - Adrian Lewis (2) 2013 - Phil Taylor (14) 2014 - Michael van Gerwen 2015 - Gary Anderson 2016 - Gary Anderson (2) 2017 - Michael van Gerwen (2) 2018 - Rob Cross 2019 - Michael van Gerwen (3) 2020 - Peter Wright 2021 - Gerwyn Price 2022 - Peter Wright (2) 2023 - Michael Smith 2024 - Luke Humphries 2025 - Luke Littler Most World Titles 14 - Phil Taylor 3 - Michael van Gerwen 2 - John Part, Adrian Lewis, Gary Anderson, Peter Wright 1 - Dennis Priestley, Raymond van Barneveld, Rob Cross, Gerwyn Price, Michael Smith, Luke Humphries, Luke Littler
Time Out
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Alexandra Palace is hosting a massive sleepover soundtracked by Max Richter
London's arts institutions love a good sleepover. You can already get 40 winks at the Natural History Museum' Dino Snores nights, the Science Museum's Astronights and the British Museum's sleepovers, and now another beloved London arts venue is hosting a truly special, limited-edition overnight experience this September in collaboration with British-German composer Max Richter in celebration of the tenth anniversary of his opus, SLEEP. Comprising 204 individual tracks, SLEEP is an epic, 8 hour and 30 minute-long lullaby created for listeners to fall asleep to, and has previously been performed live at overnight events in a bunch of iconic global settings, including Sydney Opera House, the Philharmonie de Paris and The Great Wall of China. The events – and the mammoth task of preparing for such lengthy performances – were also captured in a documentary of the same name, directed by Richter's creative partner Yulia Mahr. And now it's the turn of Alexandra Palace to host more of his truly special all-nighters. The north London music venue will be hosting two performances of SLEEP this September, marking the first time the piece has been performed in London since 2017. The concerts will start at 10pm and finish at around 6am as the sun rises, and audiences will be provided with beds and bedding, as well as being served a light breakfast at the end of the night. Fancy bunkering down in the Grade II-listed Great Hall for the night? Tickets for the event are on sale now via the Alexandra Palace website, with prices starting at £249.75 (steep for a concert, yes, but not unreasonable for a one-night stay in one of London's fancier hotels, which is how we prefer to think of the experience!)
Daily Record
19-06-2025
- Sport
- Daily Record
Cameron Menzies lands World Cup nod as Scotland legends brutally warned over end of era
Gary Anderson and Peter Wright may not team up again says ex-World No.1 Colin Lloyd Rising Cameron Menzies has been touted as Scotland's next World Cup star with legends Gary Anderson and Peter Wright warned their time could be over. The terrific Tartan pair have led a historic period in the country's darts history with their magnificent successes as individuals and as a unit. Anderson collected back-to-back PDC World Championship crown in 2015 and 2016 as he cemented his place in the game's folklore. Wright then joined him as he won the Alexandra Palace title twice himself in 2020 and 2022 to take his place amongst the greats. Anderson and Wright also teamed-up to win a World Cup in 2019 having twice been defeated in the Final beforehand in 2015 and 2018. However, after last weekend's brutal and horrific 8-0 whitewash loss to Netherlands, former World No.1 Colin Lloyd thinks it's might be the right time for new faces. Menzies is amongst those in with a shot of storming up onto the scene having quit his job as a plumber to go full-time onto the PDC scene in his quest to get to the top. Lloyd said: 'Will it be those two performing next year for Scotland? Who knows. Cameron Menzies is blasting up the rankings, so we might have a different pairing next year for Scotland. 'It was a sloppy performance. They averaged 78 between them as a team. It was very unlike Gary and Peter. 'I will defend them on that front, but let's not take away the level of performance the Dutch put in averaging 100 as a pair. They had plenty of opportunities and they took them all. You would not expect Gary Anderson and Peter Wright to put in a performance like that.' Anderson and Wright had a paltry three darts at double in the entire hame in Frankfurt as they were talen apart by Danny Noppert and Gian van Veen. The first seven legs of the game took just 13 minutes to complete as the Scots were svavaged and put out of their misery after the one leg played following the mid-match break. Lloyd could symapthise with the situation of the format, but not with the manner of the setback and the torturous nature of the outcome and the final scoreline which may have signalled a sad end to a special era at the World Cup. He said: 'Listen they would have been disappointed. It is a funny old game pairs. Sometimes you don't feel like you get the flow or rhythm going and it very much looked like that for those two guys. 'If they were going to get beat by Gian and Danny, I would not have expected it to be 8-0. That was a shock. Not that the Dutch beat the Scottish team but in the fashion that they did.'
The Guardian
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Meet Miss Sassy, the cat who sparked Trump's pet-eating ravings: Taryn Simon's thrilling election photographs
In 2016, almost by accident, the US artist Taryn Simon ended up making a video work about the most important moment in recent British political history. While scouting for a location for another work, she visited Alexandra Palace in London just as a rehearsal for the Brexit ballot-counting was taking place. 'I immediately asked if I could come back and film the actual count,' says Simon, whose request was approved, making her the only person in the world permitted to record a Brexit count. She's speaking with me from Paris, where the video has just gone on show. Presented on two screens, it is at first unremarkable: one view shows a wide frame of the historic Great Hall of the palace, with count staff seated at tables covered with black tablecloths and scattered with paper. A second screen offers a closeup view of two count staff in their official burgundy T-shirts, sorting papers into 'Leave' and 'Remain'. The tension mounts as each stack grows, but no climax is reached. 'It's a basic picture of the act,' says Simon, who was up until 4am filming the vote count. 'I was thinking about the things that trigger these decisions: how the process of counting up desires – and the fervour for change – happens literally in our sleep, deep in the night.' The undramatic and sober view of this monumental event becomes increasingly chilling with the endless, repetitive sound of paper-sorting, leading towards the outcome we all now know. 'Ultimately, it's just paper,' says Simon, 'but it has such a heavy outcome for so many people.' Simon sees the papers as 'surrogates' for citizens, the near weightlessness of the material at odds with the gravity of the decision. 'I remember sitting there in extreme shock as they were calling out the results and being amazed how something could turn so quickly. It felt unreal.' Simon, 50, is best known for her minimalist, index-like photographs, densely researched still lifes and portraits of things that are hidden – or so familiar they usually pass you by. Working with a large-format camera, she has often gone to extremes, to the edges of society. She has photographed Saddam Hussein's son Uday's body double, a nuclear waste storage facility in Washington State, a cryopreservation unit where bodies are frozen just after death, and the Church of Scientology. The Brexit video is part of The Game, a new exhibition of Simon's work at the Almine Rech gallery in Paris. The Game deals with the everyday objects and events that influence electoral outcomes, right down to a cat from Ohio called Miss Sassy. Alongside the Brexit video, Simon has installed artefact-like photographs, printed and framed in bright colours, chosen to catch your attention as if they're playful 'distractions'. However, as she points out, 'They are actually directions we're following – whether by force, ignorance, or both.' Each image is related to the 2024 presidential election in the US, where Simon lives. She travelled the country photographing things such as a Fox News microphone, Capitol police riot gear, McDonald's fries, and balloons on standby at a Republican National Convention. She also photographed Miss Sassy, the cat who was at the centre of a media maelstrom last year after her owner accused her Haitian immigrant neighbours in Springfield, Ohio, of abducting, killing and chopping her up – and Trump got hold of the story. 'It's just a cat,' says Simon. 'She had no idea what narrative she was part of, nor did she have any active participation. But she became this emblem of paranoia and conspiracy theory that consumed a town and created incredible discord. The cat was later found alive in her owner's basement – but the outcome doesn't matter. The story kept going. You can hang your hat on the lie and that's quite scary.' Simon turns Miss Sassy back into a straightforward image of a cat, but one that is now also a symbol of the disease and the proliferation of misinformation. It recalls one of her early, groundbreaking projects in the early 00s, The Innocents, in which the artist documented people who had been wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for violent crimes. She photographed many of them at the crime scenes after they'd been released – places they had no association with or had never been to. 'The fiction takes over, the story consumes, even when there's so much evidence of the opposite.' Another photograph is of false eyelashes worn by the Democratic politician Jasmine Crockett. Enshrined in their white and pink case, they are eerie and unseeing. 'I could have gone to CVS to buy a pair,' Simon says, 'but that's the horror of my work – I never fake it.' She photographed them after a fiery showdown – that later went viral – during a US House Committee meeting in 2024, triggered by Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene telling Crockett: 'I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you're reading.' She hit back with comments about Greene's bleached blonde hair. Crockett's office were somewhat taken aback by Simon's request to photograph her eyelashes, but agreed. 'Sometimes, these quieter things that stand outside and fly by are actually the crux of the story.' The Game sees Simon – who had a solo exhibition at London's Tate Modern in 2011, aged 36 – returning to the kind of photographic work she made her name with, after years focusing on performance and installation work. 'Obviously, the photographic document can generate or reinscribe certainties that are wrong, but it's also an important tool for pushing against error. It can be that mushy. I don't think photography has to be clear. I think of photographs as their own creatures who help us see things we can't or don't see. They stop time and let you look, make you pause. That's incredibly valuable, even if I can't get them to answer.' The show also pays homage to Simon's father, an inventor of arcade and video games. 'He made pinball machines, air hockey tables, skeeball. I spent my whole childhood in arcades. I always wanted to make a game but I never found the thing that aligned with what I do.' But now she has – and it takes the form of her reimagining the kleroterion – an ancient Athenian device for randomly selecting male citizens for public roles. 'Only fragments of it exist,' she says animatedly, 'and no one really knows how it worked. It had hundreds of slots and any male citizen could insert a chip and have a chance at being chosen for public office or jury duty.' The kleroterion highlights an important and under-appreciated element of Simon's often hard-hitting work: humour. In the gallery in Paris, she has installed a red and blue Vegas-esque carpet. 'A weird collision,' she jokes, 'between the UN and a cruise ship.' Her work revels in life's more laughable absurdities – even if, in the past, it has been hard to see because of the gravity of her themes. For now, at least, she is happy to sit back and enjoy it. 'It's fun to watch people enter a serious gallery space and have to play a game.' Simon's kleroterion is an interactive sculpture that looks like a tall cabinet, with five slots for tokens arranged vertically, and another five horizontally – intended to reflect average family sizes, globally. It encourages us to think about how decision-making happens at a domestic and national level. It took a few years for Simon to figure out the engineering. 'The only way to really get a random result is by error,' she says, 'which was an interesting thought.' Simon's father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's soon after she decided to make the work. 'That's the sadness of it. He's been part of literally every single thing I've done, and now he's not totally present. But he loves it in his own way.' The work isn't just a tribute to her father – it could herald another career shift. 'I wouldn't mind quitting,' she says, 'and going into arcading.' Taryn Simon: The Game is at Almine Rech, Paris, until 26 July.
The Sun
17-06-2025
- Sport
- The Sun
Major change to PDC World Darts as Luke Littler forced to go through Wimbledon style format to win £1million jackpot
LUKE LITTLER will have to win SEVEN games to claim a £1million jackpot – as darts chiefs adopt a Wimbledon-style draw for the next PDC World Championship. And a minimum of four women will compete on the Alexandra Palace stage this Christmas at the sport's biggest ever tournament. 2 2 A record 128 darts players will participate in the lucrative flagship event, which starts in December 2025 and runs until the first week of January 2026. In a landmark move, the Professional Darts Corporation have increased the prize money for the winner of the Sid Waddell Trophy, doubling it from £500,000 to a record £1million. The total prize fund will top £5million for the first time. Littler – the sport's most high-profile figure – became the youngest world champion in history when he lifted the title aged 17 on January 3, beating 7-3 Dutchman Michael van Gerwen in the final at Ally Pally. In previous editions, when it was a 96-player field, the top names were parachuted into the competition via the second round. This time, however, it will be a straight 128-player draw with the top 32 in the world being seeded. This is a similar structure to the men's and women's singles draws at Wimbledon. Players ranked 33-64 will be drawn at random into the left-hand side of the draw against the remaining 64 qualifiers. The top 40 players from the PDC Order of Merit following November's Players Championship Finals at Butlin's Minehead will qualify automatically. The top 40 non-qualified players from the ProTour Order of Merit will also feature in this year's extravaganza – with the remaining 48 places allocated to international qualifiers. As the illegal war rages in Ukraine, players from Russia and Belarus may only enter 'subject to certain special conditions' – but the PDC have yet to clarify what that entails. Later this year, a historic Sky Sports £125million five-year TV deal will kick-in as more money than ever floods into the sport.
