PDC chief executive Matt Porter has confirmed the players will also hear artificial crowd noise during matches at the behind closed doors World Matchplay, which starts this weekend.

The popular summer event has been held at the Winter Gardens, in Blackpool, ever since its first staging back in 1994, but will instead take place at the Marshall Arena, in Milton Keynes, and with no crowd, this year due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

While the nine-day tournament still boasts a prize pot of £700,000, of which £150,000 will go to the winner a week on Sunday, there are fears that with the lack of a live crowd, the players may not be as animated on stage.

Porter hopes that the addition of artificial crowd noise into the venue will improve the atmosphere at the Marshall Arena, as well as help the players competing show the emotions they would usually after a big checkout or 180.

“There will be artificial crowd noise, which we’ll also be playing into the hall,” Porter told the Weekly Dartscast this week.

“We think it’ll make it a better atmosphere inside the hall than if it was just deafly silent and echoey, so that’ll probably make it a little bit more relaxed.

“And we will have a video wall behind the players with some comments, banners around the place and just try and liven it up. We don’t want it to look sterile, even though it’ll be played in a relatively sterile environment.

“We still want the players to react and engage, show some emotions. We want the viewing public at home to feel like they’re watching a real event, as best they can.”

Listen to our full interview with PDC chief executive Matt Porter on the new Weekly Dartscast podcast. Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts and all good podcast providers from Thursday morning.