The Ladies Darts Organisation

Today I interviewed Julie Lambie, the CEO of the Ladies Darts Organisation.

GH          What is the LDO and why was it formed?

JL            The Ladies Darts Organisation. It was formed in January 2012 because of the lack of ladies darts that was going to be shown from Lakeside (Ladies World Professional Darts Championship). It was formed after we did an online petition to highlight the fact that the ladies game wasn’t getting shown, the petition got 3000 signatures in a week. Due to this ESPN and BBC showed the ladies final via the red button. This brought Ladies darts to the attention of the media and the LDO was formed.

GH          What is the LDO doing now?

JL            We are in the process of organising a nationwide ladies darts event. We have 15 venues lined up, including one in Northern Ireland. This could also include countries outside the UK. There will be regional playoffs leading to a final during the weekend of the Ladies Classic making it 2 large tournaments for ladies over the same weekend.

                We are increasing membership. We have new sponsors joining regularly we now have lots of merchandise including Shirts, Cases and Dartboard Surrounds

GH          What do you do with the money you raise?

JL            This organisation is nothing to do with the BDO so we put all the money back in to ladies darts. Most goes into the Ladies Classic for promotion and prize money. Some will also go to the Ladies Masters which is a LDO event. We now have an international rep, Santino Broer of Dart Youngsters Management (DYM), who will help with new things abroad – running competitions and benefitting our LDO members, also seeking out new members.

We are not affiliated with or recognised by the BDO yet but fingers crossed that will change in time. I have talks with them on my agenda. We will then be able to work closer with the BDO and be officially recognised – fingers crossed.

GH          What is your vision for Ladies Darts? Where do you want the LDO to go?

JL            First I want the BDO to recognise us so that we can apply for ranking points for our competitions, this would encourage international players to come over and take part in our events. Nationally entries are colossal but we need to get more internationals involved.

We need people to stand up, pay attention, take notice and giving ladies darts some bloody respect for a change instead of trying to shove it under the carpet.

GH          Is the LDO respected by men?

JL            Yes, Scott Mitchell is a massive follower of it, he promotes the LDO whenever he has a microphone in his hand. We’ve had men donating items of clothing to be auctioned to raise money for the LDO. Ross Montgomery, Phil Taylor and loads of others now recognise ladies darts. Men coming along to our events show support, some join in with marking games etc. We also have male members who like what we are doing and have encouraged wives and girlfriends to join us. This is all helping to get us recognised worldwide.

GH          Do you feel that the because of the time you have been going more people are actually starting to take you seriously?

JL            We did get negative comments at the start – as everybody does. They expected us to be over and done with in a couple of months but in January we will have been going for two years. We do have quiet spells as we are not like the BDO or other large organisations but there is always something going on. We are getting recognised by more organisations – Czech Darts, Polish Darts and others now support us. A lot of organisations have LDO members and they offer discount to our ladies on entry fees.

If people ask about ladies darts they are encouraged to visit our website and to join. We also have Twitter and Facebook pages, this all helps to get the name known.

We have some major sponsors like Winmau – which is amazing having a great big company like that totally behind us, I’ve talked a lot with Ian Flack a top man from Winmau. Winmau are sponsoring our new event the Ladies Masters and they are going to be our event sponsors next year. We are actually a member now of Winmau Global Darts.

GH          How many members do you have?

JL            Roughly 200, give or take a few.

GH          This all started with the World Pro, are you looking for more improvements in time for ladies at that competition?

JL            Although the World Pro is nothing to do with the LDO, it is a BDO competition, they have doubled the numbers of the Lakeside finals to 16. I think that because of our publicity the BDO have started to take notice and this may have influenced the decision to raise the numbers. This definitely shows the ladies game is on the rise – the BDO have also upped prize money for ladies events.

We are looking for sponsors, large and small to help with prize money etc. In return you will get good publicity at our events or on our website.

We are always looking for new members, to encourage this some companies offer our members discount. These companies are also promoted on our website, Facebook and Twitter.

The LDO also need the ladies to commit and enter all the competitions that are set up for them. They can’t moan about the lack of events if they don’t get off their backsides enter the events that are in place, not entering events will cause a decline in the ladies game again.