The exit of World Cup teams such as Brazil, Argentina and England has seen dwindling interest at the city's only 3-D viewing venue, the distributor said yesterday.
The dominance of lesser-fancied teams in the knockout stages coupled with late broadcast times have been blamed for lower-than-expected attendance rates of 60 per cent.
Hours before the semi-final between Uruguay and the Netherlands was screened early today, more than 100 of the 500 seats at the Grand Ocean Cinema were unsold.
'If it were a match between Brazil and Uruguay, I am sure the turnout would be very different,' Belinda Tang, head of Hong Kong operations at Orange Sky Golden Harvest Entertainment, said.
However, she said the overall attendance rate was acceptable. 'Some matches start at 2.30am ... A lot of us need to work the next day,' she said.
Tang said that while the 2.30am matches in the first round drew audiences of 20 to 30 per cent of capacity, those between popular teams earlier in the night, such as the Netherlands v Japan, often brought a full house.
