The mediated carnivalesque: Performance and fan culture in contemporary sport spectatorship

Abstract

Live sport events are increasingly characterised by highly visible and participatory spectator cultures, including costumes, signs/placards, collective singing and choreographed crowd practices. While such forms of engagement have been documented in existing research, less attention has been paid to how carnivalesque festivity, dramaturgical self-presentation and mediated fandom operate together as an integrated cultural formation. Drawing on the case of Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events, this article develops a Mediated Carnivalesque Model that brings together Bakhtin's theory of carnival, Goffman's dramaturgy, and scholarship on performative sport fandom and mediated spectatorship. The model conceptualises PDC darts as an illustrative and intensified example of contemporary mediated leisure in which spectators’ expressive participation is both enabled and structured through organisational scripting and broadcast visibility. It operationalises the carnivalesque through aesthetic inversion, norm suspension, collective excess and institutionally bounded transgression, and demonstrates how these dynamics function as resources for impression management, identity performance and co-production. In doing so, the framework advances understanding of fan culture by showing how commercial orchestration, attention economies and performative identity work interact within live sport settings, offering a lens for analysing spectator cultures across mediated sport environments.

Keywords

sport spectatorship carnival dramaturgy fandom fan performance mediated visibility sport media

Introduction

Live Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events have emerged as a highly visible and theatrically participatory spectacle in contemporary sport, combining competitive performance with exuberant crowd cultures. Costumes, 180 signs, collective singing, choreographed crowd movements and alcohol-fuelled sociability have become central to how the PDC brands and markets its product (Davis, 2018; 2024a). Televised coverage frequently foregrounds fans rather than players, indicating the degree to which crowd performance is embedded within the sport's economic and entertainment logics (Boyle and Haynes, 2009; Billings, 2011; Hutchins and Rowe, 2012; Rowe, 2011). These shifts reflect broader changes in sport and leisure where spectators increasingly participate in mediated and staged forms of collective expression (Crawford, 2004; Rinehart, 1998). Rather than treating PDC darts as exceptional in a categorical sense, this article positions it as an intensified and highly visible instance of broader transformations in mediated sport spectatorship, through which the dynamics of performative, carnivalesque, and commercially orchestrated fandom become especially legible.

Professional darts has also undergone substantial organisational and cultural change since the 1970s. Early developments under the British Darts Organisation established the sport's initial professional structure, while later transformations under the PDC from the late 1990s onward repositioned darts within a more commercial and media-driven landscape (Allen, 2017; Chaplin, 2009). The sport's official accreditation in 2005 further enabled expansion into a global arena circuit supported by strategic leadership and broadcast partnerships (Curtis, 2019; Kelso, 2005). These developments have relied on spectators’ visible participation. Drawing on the concept of prosumption, fans can be understood as producing user-generated content that animates both live and televised elements of the spectacle (Andrews and Ritzer, 2018). Within PDC events this co-creative dynamic has become integral to the sport's atmosphere and popular appeal (Davis and Gibbons, 2023).

Understanding this intensification requires situating PDC darts within wider developments in leisure and mediated sport. Contemporary spectator cultures are increasingly marked by playful expressiveness and collective festivity, conditions that make carnivalesque participation both culturally resonant and commercially valuable (Georgiou, 2015; Spracklen, 2022). Research on fandom emphasises that spectators enact visible identities and contribute actively to the production of atmospheres, often within mediated, commercialised and gendered contexts that shape participation and legitimacy (Abercrombie and Longhurst, 1998; Hills, 2002; Kerwin and Hoeber, 2022; Kitching et al., 2023; Pope, 2017; Sveinson and Hoeber, 2019). Although recent darts scholarship has addressed elements of these dynamics (Davis, 2024a; 2024b; 2025; Davis and Gibbons, 2023; Davis et al., 2025), existing studies have not yet developed a conceptual explanation for how these expressive, organisational and mediated dimensions combine to make PDC events an analytically generative case for theorising mediated sport spectatorship. This aligns with broader arguments that contemporary fandom operates as communicative leisure within commercialised entertainment systems (Majumdar and Naha, 2020; Spracklen, 2022).

Despite these insights, important conceptual gaps remain. Existing studies describe crowd behaviours and recognise the PDC's role in choreographing event experience, but they do not yet offer an integrated theoretical account explaining why darts fandom takes a distinctly carnivalesque and theatrical form. The separate frameworks of carnival, which illuminates humour, excess and collective festivity (Bakhtin, 1984), performativity, which explains how fans enact identity through visible rituals (Crawford, 2004; Hills, 2002), and dramaturgy, which examines impression management within staged environments (Goffman, 1959; Shulman, 2017), have not been synthesised to analyse darts as a hybrid cultural performance. Moreover, limited research has examined how fans themselves interpret the opportunities, expectations and constraints embedded within the event environment, or how mediated visibility shapes the meanings they attach to their performances, even though camera awareness is now understood as central to contemporary fandom (Hutchins and Rowe, 2012; Majumdar and Naha, 2020).

Addressing these gaps requires a holistic conceptual approach capable of explaining how expressive participation emerges at the intersection of fan agency, organisational structures and mediated spectacle. The aim of this article is to develop an integrated theoretical analysis of live PDC events by examining how carnivalesque expression, dramaturgical performance and identity practices intersect within a commercially mediated spectator environment. The analysis advances this aim through three objectives:

First, it integrates Bakhtinian, performative and dramaturgical perspectives to conceptualise PDC darts as a hybrid form of contemporary carnival.

Second, it examines how fans interpret and negotiate opportunities for expressive and identity-focused participation.

Third, it develops a Mediated Carnivalesque Model to explain the interaction of fan agency, mediated spectacle and organisational design.

In doing so, this article offers an integrated theoretical account of contemporary fandom and clarifies the cultural and organisational logics that shape mediated sport environments.

Bakhtin, performativity and dramaturgy in contemporary sport fandom

Carnivalesque fandom in mediated sport

Mikhail Bakhtin's theorisation of the carnivalesque has been widely used in leisure and sport studies to explain how collective gatherings generate temporary social worlds marked by humour, excess and the suspension of everyday hierarchies. In Rabelais and His World, Bakhtin (1984) conceptualised carnival as a social condition in which individuals adopt playful, transgressive identities through parody, laughter and bodily expressiveness. Although developed in relation to early modern cultural forms, this framework has been productively extended to contemporary leisure contexts that display similar forms of collective exuberance.

However, historical scholarship complicates any direct translation of Bakhtin's model to modern settings. Georgiou (2015) demonstrates that by the late 19th and early 20th centuries, carnival in Britain had become an organised and often commercialised civic practice shaped by industrialisation, leisure expansion and mass entertainment. This suggests that contemporary carnivalesque practices are not spontaneous survivals of folk culture, but hybrid formations embedded within institutional and commercial structures. This distinction is important for analysing sport environments, where festivity appears transgressive but is frequently produced within carefully managed contexts.

Sport scholarship has drawn on Bakhtin to interpret supporter cultures that display humour, irreverence and collective sociability. Studies of football fandom show how chanting, drinking and travel can generate forms of playful disorder and shared identity (Giulianotti, 1995; Pearson, 2012), while other work highlights how humour and embodied participation create moments of collective intensity aligned with carnivalesque expression (Hoy, 1994). At the same time, these studies emphasise that such practices are constrained by surveillance, policing and commercial regulation, limiting their transformative potential (Lebed and Morgulev, 2022; Webb, 2005).

This tension between transgression and regulation is particularly significant. Bakhtin's account foregrounds the suspension of hierarchy and the possibility of social inversion, yet contemporary sport environments are highly structured spaces in which behaviour is monitored, commodified and incorporated into entertainment logics. As Spracklen (2022) argues, modern fan cultures operate as communicative leisure within capitalist systems that both enable and constrain expression. Carnival in this context does not exist outside commercial structures but is produced through them.

PDC darts exemplify this hybrid form. Research shows that the sport's transformation into a media-driven entertainment product has relied on cultivating highly visible and participatory fan cultures (Davis, 2018; 2025; Davis and Gibbons, 2023). Venue design, broadcasting practices and event staging encourage costuming, chanting and humour, positioning fans as central contributors to the spectacle (Davis, 2025). The absence of audiences during the COVID-19 pandemic further demonstrated how essential these carnivalesque performances are to the sport's identity (Davis, 2022).

These dynamics suggest that the carnivalesque in contemporary sport should be understood not as a temporary escape from structure, but as a mode of participation that is actively organised, mediated and rendered commercially valuable. This creates a conceptual tension within carnival theory. While Bakhtin provides a powerful account of collective excess and symbolic inversion, his framework under-specifies how such expression is shaped by institutional design and media infrastructures in late modern contexts.

Performativity and identity in fandom

Alongside carnival, research on performativity provides a framework for understanding how fans enact identity through visible practices. Hills (2002) conceptualises fandom as a form of performative consumption in which cultural goods and rituals are mobilised to communicate belonging, expertise and distinction. Abercrombie and Longhurst (1998) extend this perspective by arguing that contemporary social life is increasingly organised around performance, with individuals acting as performers across multiple contexts and audiences.

In sport settings, this perspective has been developed through analyses of fandom as embodied and relational practice. Crawford (2004) argues that fans co-produce events through chanting, singing and emotional engagement, while subsequent work demonstrates how these performances are shaped by social interaction and contextual cues (Coombs and Osborne, 2022; Osborne and Coombs, 2013). Fandom is therefore not a fixed identity but an ongoing process of negotiation and display.

This literature converges with carnival theory in recognising the centrality of performance and collective expression. Both perspectives emphasise that meaning emerges through shared, embodied practices rather than solely through symbolic affiliation. However, performative fandom scholarship places greater emphasis on identity work and social positioning, whereas carnival theory foregrounds affective intensity and collective excess. This difference highlights a conceptual gap: carnival explains the emotional and symbolic dimensions of collective participation, but it does not fully account for how these practices function as identity performances within structured social contexts.

Additional scholarship extends performative perspectives by highlighting diversity and power. Research on gendered fandom shows how women navigate legitimacy and visibility through performed expertise and participation (Kitching et al., 2023; Pope, 2017), while studies of fan identities demonstrate their fluid and context-dependent nature (Kerwin and Hoeber, 2022). Psychological approaches further emphasise that fandom fulfils needs for belonging, esteem and emotional connection (Wann et al., 2025). These insights reinforce the idea that fan performances are meaningful acts of identity construction.

At the same time, recent work highlights the importance of mediation. Fans increasingly perform with awareness of broadcast and digital audiences, shaping behaviour in ways that enhance visibility and recognition (Majumdar and Naha, 2020). In this sense, fandom is embedded within attention economies that reward expressive and exaggerated forms of participation. Studies of darts spectatorship show how fans use costumes, props and humour to contribute to the mediated spectacle, acting as prosumers who generate content for both live and remote audiences (Davis and Dixon, 2026; Davis and Gibbons, 2023).

Despite these advances, performative fandom scholarship often treats performance as emerging primarily from fan agency, with less attention to how organisational and media structures shape the conditions of possibility for these practices. While identity work is foregrounded, the role of event design, broadcast framing and commercial strategy in structuring performance is less fully theorised. This represents a second conceptual gap that becomes particularly visible in highly mediated sport environments such as live PDC darts events.

The sport venue as choreographed performance space

The performance of fandom does not occur in a vacuum but is shaped by the organisational and spatial characteristics of sport venues. Contemporary arenas operate as choreographed environments that use multimedia technologies, spatial design and event scripting to produce atmosphere and encourage participation (Rinehart, 1998; 2010). Fans are positioned not simply as spectators but as co-performers whose actions contribute to the entertainment value of the event (Crawford, 2004).

Research on mega-events and fan zones demonstrates how celebratory behaviour is invited while also being managed through commercial sponsorship, security and spatial organisation (Derom and Lee, 2014; Lee Ludvigsen, 2021). Broadcast scholarship further shows that media production practices shape how crowds perform by selecting, framing and amplifying particular forms of behaviour (Billings, 2011; Boyle and Haynes, 2009; Rowe, 2011). Fans often perform with the expectation of being seen, creating a feedback loop between audience behaviour and mediated representation. This perspective aligns with dramaturgical theory in recognising that performance is structured by situational cues and audience expectations. However, it also extends beyond traditional dramaturgical analysis by emphasising the role of institutional design and media technologies in shaping performance environments. Spaces that appear spontaneous are often carefully produced and maintained through organisational practices (Cleland, 2020).

PDC darts provides a clear example of this dynamic. Venue design, including table seating, alcohol service, music cues and announcer interaction, actively cultivates a participatory and festive atmosphere (Davis, 2024a; 2025). Broadcast practices foreground costumed and animated spectators, reinforcing expectations of visible performance. Fans understand themselves as part of the spectacle and engage in behaviour designed to resonate both in the arena and on screen (Majumdar and Naha, 2020). These dynamics highlight a further limitation in existing frameworks – while carnival theory captures the affective and symbolic dimensions of festivity, and performative fandom explains identity work, neither fully accounts for the extent to which participation is structured through organisational and mediated conditions. The sports venue is not merely a setting for performance but an active agent in shaping its form and meaning.

Dramaturgy and the performance of fandom

Erving Goffman's dramaturgical theory provides a framework for analysing how individuals manage performance within structured environments. In The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Goffman (1959) conceptualises social interaction as a series of performances in which individuals present themselves to specific audiences. Concepts such as front stage, backstage and impression management highlight how behaviour is shaped by situational expectations and audience perception.

Dramaturgical perspectives align with performative fandom scholarship in emphasising the strategic and relational nature of identity performance. Fans do not simply express themselves but manage impressions in relation to multiple audiences, including other spectators, players and mediated viewers. This is particularly evident in contemporary sport, where visibility and recognition are central to participation. However, dramaturgy also introduces a tension with carnival theory: where Bakhtin emphasises collective excess and the suspension of norms, Goffman focuses on the maintenance of social order through regulated performance. This raises a key question for analysing sport fandom - are carnivalesque performances moments of liberation from social constraint, or are they structured forms of expression that reproduce existing norms within a different register?

Contemporary scholarship suggests that both dynamics are present. Performances are shaped by organisational routines, cultural scripts and power relations (Fine and Hallett, 2014; Schwalbe and Shay, 2014), while also allowing for creativity and variation. In gendered contexts, for example, fans may use performance to challenge or negotiate dominant expectations (Kitching et al., 2023; Pope, 2017).

At PDC darts events, research shows that fans perform identity with awareness of both live and mediated audiences, using costumes, gestures and humour to align with the event's entertainment values (Davis and Gibbons, 2023). These practices reflect impression management within a highly visible and structured environment. At the same time, they retain elements of playfulness and excess associated with carnival. This suggests that dramaturgy captures the organisational and interactional dimensions of performance but does not fully account for its collective, affective intensity. Carnival theory provides this dimension, but lacks a detailed account of how performances are organised and regulated. Together, these limitations highlight the need for an integrated framework.

Towards a theoretical synthesis: Carnival, dramaturgy and performative fandom in dialogue

While Bakhtinian carnival, Goffman's dramaturgy and scholarship on performative fandom each offer valuable insights into expressive participation in sport, they are rarely placed into direct conceptual dialogue. Doing so reveals important points of convergence, but also significant tensions and gaps that limit their explanatory capacity when applied in isolation.

Across all three traditions, there is a shared recognition that social life is inherently performative. Bakhtin's (1984) account of carnival foregrounds collective enactment through humour, parody and bodily excess; Goffman (1959) conceptualises everyday interaction as staged performance oriented toward audiences; and performative fandom scholarship (Crawford, 2004; Hills, 2002) demonstrates how fans enact identity through visible, embodied practices. Taken together, these perspectives converge in understanding expressive behaviour not as incidental but as constitutive of social meaning. Each framework also recognises, albeit in different ways, that performance is relational and audience-dependent, whether through the collective co-presence of carnival, the interactional dynamics of dramaturgy, or the socially situated nature of fan identity work.

However, placing these theories in dialogue also reveals key tensions. Most notably, Bakhtin's (1984) emphasis on transgression, inversion and the temporary suspension of hierarchy sits uneasily alongside Goffman's (1959) focus on impression management and the reproduction of social order through performance. Where carnival implies a loosening of norms and a collective release from constraint, dramaturgy highlights the strategic, regulated and situationally appropriate presentation of self. This raises a central question: are contemporary fan performances best understood as moments of liberation from social structure, or as performances that remain deeply shaped by it?

A further tension concerns the scale and affective register of performance. Bakhtin privileges collective excess, humour and embodied intensity, whereas Goffman's framework is primarily oriented toward micro-level interaction and the management of face. While performative fandom scholarship begins to bridge this divide by recognising both identity work and collective expression, it does not fully theorise how these dimensions intersect in highly intensified, festive environments such as live sport events.

In addition to these tensions, there are notable conceptual gaps across the three traditions. Neither Bakhtin nor Goffman adequately accounts for the role of mediation, commercialisation and broadcast visibility in structuring contemporary performance contexts (Hutchins and Rowe, 2012). Carnival theory underplays the extent to which modern festive spaces are organised, commodified and strategically produced, while dramaturgical theory does not fully engage with the ways in which performances are amplified, circulated and incentivised through media infrastructures. Similarly, although performative fandom scholarship recognises the importance of identity display, it often treats performance as emerging primarily from fan agency, without fully specifying the organisational and mediated conditions that shape what forms of expression are possible, visible or rewarded.

These tensions and gaps are particularly evident in the case of PDC darts, where expressive, carnivalesque participation unfolds within a highly structured, commercially orchestrated and mediatized environment (Davis and Dixon, 2026; Davis and Gibbons, 2023). Here, fans engage in collective excess and playful transgression, yet do so in ways that are visibly aligned with event scripting, broadcast logics and audience expectations. Existing theories can account for elements of this phenomenon, but none fully explains how collective festivity, impression management and identity performance operate together under conditions of mediated visibility and commercial design.

Therefore, the Mediated Carnivalesque Model is proposed as a theoretical synthesis that addresses these limitations. Rather than treating carnival, dramaturgy and performative fandom as separate explanatory lenses, the model integrates them to conceptualise contemporary sport spectatorship as a hybrid cultural formation in which expressive agency, institutional structuring and mediated visibility are mutually constitutive. In this formulation, carnival provides the affective and symbolic resources for collective excess and playful identity experimentation; dramaturgy explains how these performances are organised, oriented toward audiences and managed within situational constraints; and performative fandom accounts for the identity work and social meaning invested in these practices. Crucially, the model extends all three traditions by foregrounding the role of commercial orchestration and media infrastructures in shaping the conditions under which such performances emerge, are amplified and become culturally valuable.

By placing these frameworks into direct dialogue, the analysis moves beyond parallel application toward an integrated theoretical account that clarifies both the complementarities and limitations of existing approaches. This synthesis provides the conceptual foundation for understanding PDC darts as a mediated carnival and, more broadly, for analysing the increasingly performative, visible and commercially structured nature of contemporary sport spectatorship.

Methodology

This article adopts a theoretical synthesis methodology to develop an integrated conceptual framework for understanding the cultural dynamics of PDC darts spectatorship. Such an approach aligns with traditions in cultural sociology and sport studies that treat theory-building as a form of empirical inquiry in its own right, allowing researchers to interrogate how meaning, identity and performance are constituted within mediated leisure environments (Abercrombie and Longhurst, 1998; Crawford, 2004; Hutchins and Rowe, 2012). It also reflects broader methodological arguments that theorising is a distinctive and necessary mode of sociological inquiry, situated within the context of discovery rather than empirical verification (Swedberg, 2012, 2014).

Rather than collecting new primary data, the analysis proceeds through a structured integration of existing theories and scholarship to produce an interpretive model capable of explaining the hybrid character of contemporary darts fandom. Although this article does not involve primary data collection, the development of the model is informed by a sociological perspective attentive to questions of power, identity and mediated structure. In selecting material for this synthesis, the analysis concentrated on foundational and widely cited texts in each of the three theoretical traditions, alongside recent work that directly addresses darts, sport fandom and mediated sport. The intention was not to provide an exhaustive review, but to assemble a theoretically coherent body of scholarship that could be brought into dialogue in order to construct the model.

The methodological process unfolded in three stages. First, a focused analytical reading of scholarship on carnival (Bakhtin, 1984; Georgiou, 2015), dramaturgical theory (Edgley, 2013; Goffman, 1959) and performative fandom (Hills, 2002; Majumdar and Naha, 2020; Spracklen, 2022) was conducted to identify the conceptual logics through which each tradition interprets expressive behaviour, identity performance and the structuring of social interaction. This stage also follows methodological guidance on the analytic work required to construct and refine conceptual categories during theory development (Corbin and Strauss, 2015). It illuminated how each framework conceptualises agency, institutional influence and the mediated environments characteristic of late-modern sport.

Second, the study employed comparative theoretical mapping, examining points of convergence, complementarity and tension among the three traditions. This analytical step reflects established practices in sociological theory-building, in which existing frameworks are placed into dialogue to identify conceptual gaps or opportunities for synthesis (Crawford, 2004; Timmermans and Tavory, 2012). The mapping process identified several cross-cutting themes, including role-play, humour, visibility and commercial orchestration, which revealed the suitability of an integrated approach for interpreting PDC darts. While carnival theory illuminates collective excess, dramaturgy clarifies impression management, and performative fandom explains identity display, each perspective only partially captures the dynamics of contemporary sport spectatorship. The Mediated Carnivalesque Model is therefore proposed as a synthesis that addresses the institutional, affective and interactional dimensions these approaches cannot fully explain in isolation. This iterative process aligns with broader traditions of theory construction that emphasise comparison, conceptual refinement and abductive reasoning as key drivers of analytical development (Swedberg, 2014; Timmermans and Tavory, 2012).

Third, a process of theoretical integration was undertaken to develop the Mediated Carnivalesque Model. Through interpretive abstraction, the model synthesises insights from carnival studies, dramaturgical sociology and fandom research to conceptualise live darts events as sites where expressive agency, mediated visibility and organisational scripting intersect. This form of theory construction also mirrors iterative approaches to model-building that emphasise the integration of diverse conceptual elements to generate explanatory coherence (Corbin and Strauss, 2015; Eisenhardt, 1989). The process follows broader moves in sport sociology to conceptualise fans as co-producers of atmosphere and meaning (Crawford, 2004; Davis and Gibbons, 2023; Rinehart, 1998, 2010), while also recognising that their performances are shaped by structural and commercial conditions.

This methodology is appropriate because the study aims not to classify or measure fan behaviours but to offer a holistic, theoretically grounded explanation of why PDC darts produces such intensified forms of expressive participation. By drawing together disparate theoretical traditions, the analysis advances conceptual understanding of how spectators negotiate identity, belonging and visibility within contemporary mediated sport environments. This strategy of theoretical sampling and integration is intended to ensure both conceptual depth and analytical clarity, while remaining transparent about the interpretive nature of the claims advanced. The next section applies this integrated framework to interpret the cultural dynamics of fan performance at live PDC darts events.

Discussion

The Mediated Carnivalesque Model developed in this article provides a theoretically integrated account of the highly visible expressive culture that characterises live PDC darts events (Figure 1). By addressing tensions between Bakhtinian carnival and dramaturgical regulation, and extending performative fandom to account for mediated visibility, the model explains how humour, excess and identity performance emerge through the interaction of fan agency, commercial orchestration and broadcast mediation. In doing so, the analysis situates darts within wider transformations in mediated sport spectatorship, where visibility, performance and commercial orchestration increasingly shape fan experience (Crawford, 2004; Hutchins and Rowe, 2012; Spracklen, 2022).

Figure 1.

The Mediated Carnivalesque Model – This framework illustrates how carnivalesque expression, dramaturgical performance and performative identity work intersect through organisational structures and mediated visibility to produce the hybrid cultural form of the mediated carnival at Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) darts events.

Carnivalesque expression and the production of socially playful space

The first dimension of the model highlights how PDC events enact a contemporary form of controlled carnival. Fans’ use of costumes, humorous signs (placards), chanting, singing and dancing resonates with Bakhtin's conceptualisation of carnival as a temporary suspension of normative hierarchies expressed through collective festivity, parody and bodily expressiveness (Bakhtin, 1984). This interpretation reflects historical accounts that emphasise the institutionalisation and commercialisation of modern carnival (Georgiou, 2015) and sport research that notes the carefully managed character of contemporary supporter festivity (Giulianotti, 1995; Pearson, 2012). The PDC darts environment, therefore, is not an unbounded space of transgression. Instead, the organisation cultivates carnival through spatial design, alcohol availability, music cues and broadcast practices that foreground fan participation (Davis, 2024a). This produces a hybrid atmosphere in which carnivalesque pleasures are encouraged but simultaneously shaped and limited by commercial imperatives, a dynamic that Spracklen (2022) describes as communicative leisure produced within capitalist leisure systems. This is reflected in the observed patterns of costumes, chanting and orchestrated crowd interaction documented across multiple seasons of ethnographic fieldwork at PDC events (see Davis and Dixon, 2026; Davis and Gibbons, 2023).

This structured permissiveness shapes the forms of humour and play enacted by fans. While spectators may feel liberated to adopt alternative personas or exaggerated identities, their performances remain aligned with the entertainment values promoted by the organisation. Carnival in this context therefore functions less as a rupture from everyday norms than as a socially sanctioned form of creativity that enhances the commercial and affective value of the event within a mediated entertainment environment.

In the Mediated Carnivalesque Model, the carnivalesque is operationalised through four interrelated features: aesthetic inversion (parody, costume and exaggerated identity), norm suspension (licensed loudness, intoxication and irreverence), collective excess (synchronised chanting, dancing and mass participation), and structured transgression (playful violations occurring within boundaries set by venue design, security, broadcast framing and branding).

Together, these elements distinguish the mediated carnival from everyday behaviour and from more community-rooted carnival traditions.

Dramaturgical performance and spectators as co-producers

The second dimension of the model demonstrates that PDC events operate as dramaturgically saturated environments. Goffman's (1959) front stage and backstage distinction provides a productive framework for understanding how fans manage their self-presentation in relation to multiple audiences, including other spectators, players, event personnel and broadcast cameras. As analyses of mediated sport emphasise, broadcasting practices actively shape spectator behaviour by creating a performance economy in which visibility, affective display and theatricalised conduct become central components of the event's cultural and commercial logics (Billings, 2011; Boyle and Haynes, 2009; Majumdar and Naha, 2020; Rowe, 2011).

Within this context, fans act as co-producers of the spectacle, which reflects broader arguments that contemporary sport events rely on participatory audience display (Crawford, 2004; Rinehart, 1998, 2010). Costuming, chanting and gesturing become impression management strategies that resonate within the mediated field of the event. The PDC's choreography of camera sweeps, music cues and the spotlighting of crowd behaviour constitute a mediated performance script, as broadcasters and organisers frame crowd visibility and content (Scollon, 1998), while the symbolic order and spatial design of venues structure and constrain how fans can express themselves (Bale, 2000; Manzenreiter and Horne, 2004). This relationship mirrors Davis and Gibbons’ (2023) conceptualisation of live (in-person) darts spectators as prosumers who actively generate content for both live and digital audiences. These dramaturgical dynamics reveal that darts fandom is not simply expressive but intentionally theatrical. Fans perform with acute awareness that their actions may circulate across screens, reinforcing the interdependence of live and mediated audiences in shaping contemporary sport atmospheres. In this sense, many live darts event fans are not peripheral to the event but central to its production, as their performances actively constitute the spectacle that is both experienced in situ and reproduced through broadcast media.

Performativity, identity and visibility within mediated fandom

The third dimension of the model highlights the performative and identity-based dimensions of darts fandom. Scholars of fandom argue that participation constitutes a form of visible identity work (Abercrombie and Longhurst, 1998; Hills, 2002), and the PDC environment provides a clear example of this dynamic. Fans’ expressive practices operate as signals of belonging (Kelly, 2015), as mechanisms for negotiating authenticity (Davis, 2015), and as avenues for satisfying social and psychological needs related to esteem, emotion, and connection (Wann et al., 2025). Within the mediated setting of darts, identity performance is shaped by attention economies that reward visibility (Majumdar and Naha, 2020). To appear on screen (whether through singing, costumes, 180 signage or dancing) – is to occupy a temporary position of prominence within the event. This incentive intensifies the performative stakes of participation and helps explain the prevalence of exaggerated, playful, or ironic self-presentations among fans.

Identity performance is also shaped by power relations. Gendered dynamics in sport fandom, identified in existing research (Kitching et al., 2023; Pope, 2017; Sveinson and Hoeber, 2019), influence who can participate in the carnivalesque on equal terms. Recent research on televised darts further shows how women spectators negotiate belonging, visibility, and gendered expectations within the sport's nostalgic and carnivalesque culture (Themen and Goddard, 2025). Women fans may therefore navigate expectations that mark them as less authentic or position them as spectacles, reflecting themes documented in sociological discourse on darts and gender (Davis et al., 2025). While carnival invites expressive liberation, it remains embedded in wider social hierarchies that condition the forms of participation available. As such, visibility within mediated fandom is not equally accessible, but is shaped by intersecting norms of gender, legitimacy, and audience recognition, which structure not only who is seen, but how their participation is framed, valued, and incorporated into the mediated spectacle.

Intersections and the production of the mediated carnival

Across these three domains, the model conceptualises PDC darts as a mediated carnival. This hybrid cultural formation emerges through the interplay of commercial scripting, dramaturgical awareness and fan agency. Carnival provides emotional energy and permission for playful performance. Dramaturgy structures how this performance is staged and interpreted. Performativity explains why fans invest in these expressive roles and how these performances relate to identity production. The resulting environment is at once spontaneous and choreographed, playful and commercialised, and transgressive yet shaped by formal organisational structures. This mirrors wider contradictions in late modern leisure (Crawford, 2004; Spracklen, 2022).

The theoretical synthesis presented here contributes to sport sociology by clarifying how contemporary fandom operates at the intersection of identity work, mediated visibility and institutional design. Spectators are not merely responding to external stimuli but are actively producing the meanings and affects that constitute the event. At the same time, the model specifies that fan agency is structured by organisational and technological conditions that both facilitate and limit expressive behaviour. This interpretation aligns with recent research on the co-constitutive relationship between fan performance and event orchestration (Cleland, 2020; Davis, 2024a; 2025). On this basis, it is possible to consider what the mediated carnivalesque at PDC darts reveals about broader developments in contemporary sport fandom and spectator culture.

Beyond professional darts, the Mediated Carnivalesque Model offers a framework for understanding how contemporary sport events increasingly depend on the orchestration of visible, performative spectatorship. As leagues and broadcasters seek atmospheres that translate across screens and platforms, fan expression becomes both a cultural resource and a site of governance. The model therefore contributes to wider debates about the commercialisation of participation and the role of spectators as co-producers within mediated leisure economies, positioning audience performance as a central mechanism through which contemporary sport spectacles are generated, circulated, and monetised.

Implications for understanding contemporary sport fandom

Conceptualising PDC darts as a mediated carnival has implications for understanding the cultural shifts that shape contemporary forms of sport spectatorship. First, the analysis indicates that the meaning of sport increasingly resides in spectators’ expressive and theatrical participation rather than solely in the athletic contest. This development reflects a broader transformation of leisure in late modernity in which performance, humour and visible self-presentation have become central modes of social engagement. Second, the mediated carnivalesque demonstrates how festive, playful and seemingly transgressive forms of behaviour are routinely incorporated into commercial entertainment systems. This dynamic aligns with wider debates on the commodification of leisure and the managed character of modern festivity, and it suggests that contemporary sport operates as a site where collective pleasure is cultivated through carefully designed organisational and media infrastructures.

Third, the analysis underscores the growing importance of visibility and performative identity work within mediated sport cultures. Fans’ desire to appear on screens and participate in digital circulation reflects broader cultural economies in which attention and recognition shape the terms of social belonging. This has implications for understanding how sport audiences negotiate identity in ways that transcend stadium boundaries and extend into online and broadcast spaces. Collectively, these implications position PDC darts as an instructive case for examining the reconfiguration of spectatorship in late modern societies. The mediated carnival foregrounds the entanglement of performance, visibility and commercialisation that characterises contemporary sport fandom and suggests these dynamics are intensifying across leisure settings.

While the implications outlined above speak to broader cultural transformations, the study also makes specific contributions to sociological scholarship on sport and fandom. These contributions concern the theoretical integration undertaken, the reconceptualisation of fan performance, and the insights generated regarding mediated visibility and agency.

Theoretical contribution

The article's central contribution lies in the development of an integrated theoretical framework that brings together perspectives which are typically treated separately in sport scholarship. By connecting Bakhtin's conception of carnival, Goffman's dramaturgical analysis of performance and recent work on performative fandom, this article has provided a model that clarifies how expressive participation in mediated sport environments is generated and sustained. Individually, carnival theory explains festivity but underplays institutional mediation; dramaturgy explains interaction but not collective excess; and performative fandom explains identity display but not its embedding in commercial spectacle. By integrating these traditions, the Mediated Carnivalesque Model explains how licensed transgression, identity performance and media orchestration operate together as a single cultural formation in contemporary sport.

A further contribution emerges from the article's rethinking of fan participation as a form of choreographed agency. The analysis shifts attention from the dichotomy of spontaneity versus control toward an understanding of spectatorship as a negotiated interplay between institutional scripting, media infrastructures and creative fan practices. This reframing deepens existing discussions of prosumption and co-production and highlights the organisational conditions that frame the expressive possibilities available to fans. The study also enhances sociological understandings of visibility and identity within sport fandom. By examining how fans orient their performances toward multiple audiences, including broadcast media, it illuminates the ways in which identity work is shaped by attention economies and the desire for mediated recognition. This insight opens pathways for further research on the politics of visibility in sport, including how gendered and other social hierarchies structure fan participation in highly mediatized environments.

In combination, these contributions advance theoretical debates within the sociology of sport by demonstrating how carnival, performance and identity intersect within the commercial and mediated infrastructures of late modern spectator cultures. The conceptual framework developed here enriches scholarly understanding of the cultural production of sport atmospheres and provides a platform for future empirical and theoretical inquiry.

Conclusion

This article has argued that live PDC darts events constitute a particularly visible form of contemporary mediated carnival. By integrating Bakhtinian carnival, Goffman's dramaturgy and scholarship on performativity and mediated fandom, the Mediated Carnivalesque Model offers a sociologically grounded explanation for why darts fandom takes such expressive, playful and highly visible forms. The model conceptualises fans’ costumes, 180 signs, chanting and theatricalised self-presentations as central to, rather than incidental to, the cultural and commercial logics that structure the event. These practices emerge at the intersection of individual agency, organisational design and media technologies, illuminating how contemporary spectators negotiate identity, belonging and visibility within orchestrated leisure spaces.

The study contributes to sociological understandings of fandom by showing how forms of carnival can be produced within, rather than outside, commercial and organisational systems. PDC events invite creative transgression and communal festivity, yet these expressions remain shaped by institutional scripting and mediated attention economies. This dynamic illustrates the co-productive role of spectators, who generate much of the affective and visual energy defining modern sport atmospheres (Crawford, 2004; Davis and Gibbons, 2023). At the same time, the study specifies how identity performances are negotiated under a particular configuration of conditions – carnivalesque licence, organisational scripting and mediated visibility – through which recognition and legitimacy are pursued within commercial sport spectacle. While prior scholarship has demonstrated that fan identities are negotiated in gendered and mediated contexts, the Mediated Carnivalesque Model clarifies how these conditions become mutually reinforcing within event formats that actively reward performative visibility.

More broadly, the model indicates how late modern sport environments function as stages for the enactment of playful, ironic and affectively charged identities. By situating the sport of darts within wider debates on spectacle, prosumption and mediated leisure, the article contributes to theoretical discussions on the changing nature of spectatorship. The framework presented here may be applied to other sports and cultural events where commercial orchestration and fan performance are mutually constitutive, inviting further research into how mediated carnivalesque forms evolve across contexts, technologies and social groups.

Although the Mediated Carnivalesque Model advances a theoretically integrated interpretation of darts fandom, the analysis remains conceptual and does not incorporate direct empirical engagement with fans, broadcasters, or organisers. As such, the framework captures broader structural and cultural logics but cannot fully account for variations in individual experience, resistance, or meaning-making. It is also grounded primarily in Anglophone sport contexts, and further research is required to assess its applicability across diverse national, gendered, and socio-economic settings. Added to this, consistent with Davis (2024a), the model does not assume that all spectators engage in expressive or carnivalesque forms of participation, but rather recognises such performances as contingent, uneven, and context-dependent.

Future research should further examine how fans interpret and navigate the performative and mediated conditions of PDC events through a range of methodological approaches, including in-person ethnography, digital observation, and audience-focused qualitative research. Such work would enable deeper insight into how spectators make sense of visibility, participation, and identity within mediated sporting environments. Comparative research across sports, media systems, and cultural contexts would also help refine the model by identifying how different configurations of commercialisation, gender norms, and broadcast infrastructures shape the emergence and expression of mediated carnivalesque forms. In doing so, future studies can extend the applicability of the model while clarifying the conditions under which performative fandom is enabled, constrained, or transformed.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Dr Tom Gibbons, Dr Kevin Dixon and Dr Daniel Kilvington for their support linked to this article and wider studies.

ORCID iD

Leon Davis

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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