[mcrdev]

Yeah, I don’t understand the calls for a bigger arena or for bigger crowds. It looked huge on screen and the crowd felt full. Changing either thing would have zero effect on the programme or profit so there’s no incentive.

And as I wrote earlier in the thread, they could fit significantly more audience into the existing space if they desired. Maybe they underestimated the demand for tickets with it being a new series? Maybe they wanted to keep a feeling of exclusivity? Maybe they wanted to reduce the risk of people revealing the winners of the series? Could be any of several reasons, but there was plenty of space available for audience that went unused (e.g. most of the top half of the seating was cordoned off for extra lighting - you can see where it's hazard taped off a few rows up the second tier in the attached image - this could all have been released to the audience and fitted in several thousand more).