Ten days, four titles and one room in Surrey. The WDF World Championship 2026 runs from Friday 27 November to Sunday 6 December at the Lakeside Country Club in Frimley Green, the same building where the BDO crowned its world champions from 1986 to 2019. This page gathers what is confirmed for Lakeside darts 2026: the day-by-day plan, the formats, the prize money, tickets and where to watch. The draw and the full WDF World Championship schedule are still to come, and both are added here as soon as the WDF publishes them.
Dates and the Lakeside day-by-day plan
The World Darts Federation set out the shape of the fortnight on 11 October. It starts gently, with six first-round ties in the Open event on the opening Friday, and builds to a Sunday with all four finals.
| Day | What is on |
|---|---|
| Fri 27 Nov | Open first round: the first six ties |
| Sat 28 Nov | Women’s World Championship begins |
| Wed 2 Dec | Open Youth event begins |
| Thu 3 Dec | Girls’ event begins; all eight Open last-16 ties; first two Youth quarter-finals; last two Women’s last-16 games |
| Fri 4 Dec | All Open and Women’s quarter-finals; the other two Youth quarter-finals |
| Sat 5 Dec | Semi-finals in all four events |
| Sun 6 Dec | Four finals: Open, Women’s, Youth and Girls’ |
The gaps in that table are not rest days. The days in between carry the rest of the early rounds, and which match lands in which session depends on the draw, which is why the full WDF World Championship schedule cannot exist yet. The WDF has promised it “no later than Monday, November 9th”.
WDF World Championship 2026 format: four events, all in sets
Every match is played in sets, and the distance grows round by round. The Open final over best of 11 sets is the longest match of the fortnight; a Girls’ first-round tie over best of three is the shortest.
| Round | Open | Women | Youth | Girls |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First round | best of 5 | best of 3 | best of 3 | best of 3 |
| Second round | best of 5 | – | – | – |
| Last 16 | best of 5 | best of 3 | – | – |
| Quarter-finals | best of 7 | best of 5 | best of 3 | – |
| Semi-finals | best of 9 | best of 5 | best of 5 | best of 3 |
| Final | best of 11 | best of 7 | best of 7 | best of 5 |
Set play is the format Lakeside was built on, and a best-of-11 final can swing three or four times before it settles. Anyone new to the format will find the basics on the 501 rules page.
Who is in: the field and how it qualified
The provisional list published on 11 October has room for 48 players in the Open, 24 in the Women’s event, 12 in the Youth and 6 in the Girls’. Qualification closes after the Lakeside Open on 31 October, and a last-chance qualifier at the venue on Sunday 1 November fills whatever places are left. Places come from the WDF ranking table, from wins at the biggest WDF events and from regional tables; a player who picks the PDC World Championship instead gives up the spot, and the next name moves up.
Mitchell Lawrie sits at the top of the provisional Open list. He was 15 when he reached last year’s Open final and lost 6–3 to Jimmy van Schie, then won the Youth title the same weekend. Whether he returns as a teenager trying to go one better or turns up at Alexandra Palace instead is the first real question of the season. Deta Hedman heads the Women’s list as the defending champion; she beat Lerena Rietbergen 4–1 in the 2025 final. The history of the women’s title at Lakeside goes back to 2001.
The draw: week of 2 November
The draw is due in the week starting Monday 2 November and will be shown on the WDF YouTube channel. Seeds have not been announced. In 2025 the 16 seeds skipped the first round and started in round two; the WDF has not said whether the same applies to the WDF World Championship 2026, so this page will not guess. Once the draw is out, the bracket for every event goes here, along with each first-round pairing and its session.
Schedule by session and tickets
Tickets are sold by WDF Promotions through its Eventbrite collection. The sessions on sale on 16 October:
| Day | Afternoon | Evening |
|---|---|---|
| Fri 27 Nov | – | from 6pm |
| Sat 28 Nov | from 12.30pm | from 6pm |
| Sun 29 Nov | from 12.30pm | from 6pm |
| Mon 30 Nov | – | from 6pm |
| Tue 1 Dec | – | from 6pm |
| Wed 2 Dec | – | from 6pm |
| Thu 3 Dec | from 12pm | from 6pm |
| Fri 4 Dec | – | quarter-finals, from 6.30pm |
| Sat 5 Dec | semi-finals, from 12pm | not on sale yet |
| Sun 6 Dec | finals, early afternoon to about 7.30pm | – |
The two weekend day tickets for 28 and 29 November cover both sessions and cost £60 (standard) or £80 (premium); other sessions are priced individually on the listings. A few house rules on every listing are worth knowing before you buy: there are no refunds, children under 12 are not admitted, and under-18s must come with an adult. The finals listing mentions free parking. The venue address is Wharf Road, Frimley Green, GU16 6PT, and the guide to the Lakeside Country Club covers the building itself.
The times above are the published start times. End times on the listings disagree with each other by up to an hour, so plan the last train home with some slack.
Prize money
The total for the WDF World Championship 2026 is £223,500, up slightly on the £221,000 of 2025.
| Stage | Open | Women | Youth | Girls |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winner | £50,000 | £25,000 | £3,250 | £1,650 |
| Runner-up | £16,000 | £8,000 | £1,600 | £1,000 |
| Semi-finalist | £8,000 | £4,000 | £1,000 | £500 |
| Quarter-finalist | £4,000 | £2,000 | £500 | – |
| Last 16 | £2,000 | £1,000 | – | – |
| Last 24 | – | £750 | – | – |
| Last 32 | £1,250 | – | – | – |
| Last 48 | £750 | – | – | – |
| First round | – | – | £350 | £300 |
Put the Open winner’s £50,000 next to the £1,000,000 on offer at Alexandra Palace five days after the Lakeside final and the gap between the two world championships is plain. It is also roughly double what Wayne Warren took home for the last BDO title in 2020. The full story of how the money fell and slowly came back is on the page about the WDF era after the BDO, and the PDC World Championship 2026/27 page has the Ally Pally numbers.
Where to watch
Every match is streamed live on the WDF YouTube channel, free. The WDF also lists S4C, BBC iPlayer and Sport One in Germany as broadcasters for 2026, with details still to follow. Times for each session will appear in the darts on TV guide once the schedule is out.
Lakeside darts 2026 and the room it is played in
Lakeside darts 2026 is the fifth WDF edition at Frimley Green and, counting the BDO years, the 39th world championship held at the club. The stage is the same one that saw Jocky Wilson beat Eric Bristow in 1989. Whether the event can ever fill the space the BDO left is argued on the Lakeside versus Ally Pally page; for ten days in December the argument mostly stops, because the darts is on.
