The Amateur Darts Circuit and the Women’s Amateur Darts Circuit are cutting annual membership to £5 in the UK and €5 in Ireland from Thursday 27th August, a move the organisations say removed the single biggest obstacle between new players and competitive darts.
The reduction applies across ADC UK, ADC Ireland and the WADC, and comes with two firm commitments attached. No existing member loses out, with every live membership recalculated at the new rate, and every prize fund already advertised will be paid in full, exactly as published.
For ADC Director Scott Hunt, the change is about what membership fees have historically stopped players doing before they’ve thrown a single dart.
“The cost of a membership should never be the thing that decides whether someone gets a shot at this sport,” he said, pointing to a pathway that already runs from local venue nights through the Vault series, Regional and National Finals, and on to the ADC Global Championship at the MODUS Live Lounge.
Rather than simply drop the price and leave existing members to feel short-changed, the ADC has converted every prior payment into extra time at the new rate. Anyone who paid the previous £20/€20 annual fee now holds four years of membership, and anyone who paid £10/€10 holds two years.
New members joining from 27th August pay the new fee for a single year.It’s a deliberate piece of housekeeping designed to avoid rewarding early adopters with a worse deal than the one now on offer, and it means every member ends up paying the same rate per year of access.
The cut lands at a significant moment for the WADC, which has grown to more than 1,200 members and staged its Vault series across over 100 venues since launching. Its competitive programme now spans the Vault series, Winmau Championship regional events, and the Red Dragon National Singles Finals.
WADC Director Michelle Amos framed the change as one more barrier removed for women considering competitive darts for the first time.
“Bringing membership down to a fiver takes away one more reason for someone to talk herself out of walking through the door,” she said.
“We want the room full.”
Crucially, the price cut doesn’t change what the players are competing for. The ADC continues to invest over £1 million annually into grassroots prize funds, distributed across regional tables rather than concentrated among a handful of top finishers, with more than 2,700 players having qualified for the most recent National Finals cycle across the Vault and Level Up categories.
Both organisations were clear that none of that is funded by membership income, so the fee reduction changes nothing about the money on the table
£5 Membership is available from 27th August at dartscircuit.com.
Images: ADC
