Thousands of people have been flocking to the Royal Arena this week to watch the world’s best badminton players in action.

It is the fifth time the Danish capital has staged the BWF’s flagship event but first to be held at its 13,000-capacity venue which was opened in 2017.

Lars Vallentin Christensen, senior manager for events at Wonderful Copenhagen, said he was thrilled to see so many seats filled at the arena before tomorrow’s finals.

"We predicted about 30,000 tickets sold but it’s going to be better than that," Vallentin Christensen told insidethegames.

"It’s going to be several thousand more than that which is going to be good.

"It’s exceeding [our expectations].

"We have had good media exposure as well which is good."

Vallentin Christensen hailed the efforts of Badminton Denmark to put on the the BWF World Championships.

"The federation has gone a really good job," said Vallentin Christensen.

"They have come up with new solutions and new ideas.

"The players coming out of the floor [when introduced] is something new that they wanted to try out.

"I think it’s going to be copied for some other events internationally."

Kristian Langbak, chief executive of Badminton Denmark, said he had been "overwhelmed" by the interest from Danish people in the BWF World Championships.

"When we got this World Championships, we knew this was a huge venue," Langbak told insidethegames.

"We wanted to make something extraordinary inside the arena and I think we have succeeded with that.

"The crowd we’ve experienced all week has been amazing.

"It’s been building up the whole week.

"It started much higher than we thought so we had almost 5,000 for a Thursday.

"I can say that it has been a success."

There had been high hopes that reigning Olympic and world champion Viktor Axelsen would deliver gold in front of his home crowd.

But Axelsen suffered a shock exit following a quarter-final defeat to HS Prannoy of India yesterday.

Despite Axelsen’s loss, Anders Antonsen clinched men’s singles bronze after reaching the semi-finals while fellow Danes Kim Astrup and Anders Skaarup Rasmussen have booked their place in the men’s doubles final.

"I am very disappointed and sad for Viktor because he is the one that wanted it the most," said Langbak.

"If I looked at it as a Denmark national team and as a high performance this is a huge success.

"We have made a final and a semi-final and that is amazing.

"Having done that without Viktor makes it more extraordinary."