Has South Africa's first hosting of the Netball World Cup been a hit?

Well, it depends on who you ask.

Organising committee chair Patience Shikwambana and four other key figures fronted the media in Cape Town overnight (AEST) to talk about a range of issues, while encouraging reporters to focus on the positives.

And for the most part, the World Cup has been a pleasure to attend.

The locals are some of the friendliest people you will meet and have been very hospitable to overseas travellers.

The netball itself has been enjoyable to watch, with so many stories and milestones surfacing outside the usual top five-ranked teams, while crowds and supporter groups have delivered the energy.

Proteas fans have packed out every match featuring the home side, showing visitors how it is done as they cheer every goal, and sing and dance for a full 60 minutes.

But what about the netball diehards that have been locked out of the games?

Of these, there have been plenty.

Ticket sales and poor organisation has seen the World Cup fail to reach its full potential.

Everyone you speak to seems to have experienced some kind of stuff-up.

Hundreds of Australians bought premium packages for the tournament, ranging from $1,500 to $3,000 for return flights, accommodation and all Diamonds games, including finals.

But on arrival, these VIP packages have been a bit of a mess, and there is further worry about what may happen once we reach the later games in higher demand, and these pre-paying fans turn up each day without an allocated seat and are assigned random ones wherever there is space.

Luckily, there has been plenty of space in the stands throughout the preliminary stages — even at those matches featuring the world number one Diamonds — as there has been for every other country playing, except South Africa.

This is due in part to poor management and exorbitant prices.

Ahead of the tournament, it was announced tickets would be 500 rand for children and R700 for adults, converting to roughly $50 to $70 in Australian currency.

This is pretty reasonable by our standards in Australia, especially when you take into account that the tickets allow you to watch two matches in either a morning or a night session.

For the locals, however, it is a huge hike.

Tickets have actually been going for much more than that initial reported price, especially the in-demand Proteas games, which can cost up to R1,100 for gold seating.

South African residents have likened that to a ticket to see the Springboks in a rugby union Test.

Meanwhile, the final will set netball spectators back from anywhere up to R2,500.

For context, the Women's T20 World Cup was also played in South Africa in March this year, with fans paying R30 to attend cricket matches in the group stages and R50 for the final.

That may seem cheap as chips to Australians at $3 to $5, but the price point delivered a record crowd for a women's sports match in South Africa when 12,782 people turned up to Newlands for the decider between the hosts and Australia.

Talk about leaving a legacy.

This netball tournament is already struggling for coverage as it runs right in the middle of the FIFA Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, as well as a men's Ashes series in the UK.

As netballers play in front of empty stands in their showpiece event, you have to wonder what went wrong.

Was this World Cup bought for the South African people? Or was it bought purely for tourism?

Many say they simply cannot afford to attend and that their communities feel marginalised, while others have been saving for the past four years since Cape Town was confirmed as the World Cup's successful bidder.

Even then, glitches in the system have seen fans turn up to find their seats already occupied by someone else, sometimes double or triple-booked.

The event is being held at Cape Town's International Convention Centre, which is not a traditional netball venue but has been converted for the tournament, which may explain some of the costs. As may the venue's low capacity, pushing organisers to try to get a return on investment.

The main court holds 5,000 seats, while the secondary court — accessed in a different building via a sky bridge — can hold about 1,000. This has been another gripe among regulars who remember being able to watch both courts in the one stadium at the 2019 World Cup in Liverpool.

The Liverpool set-up was similar to what was used at the 2015 World Cup in Sydney, where a ticket bought you a seat to all games played at the Superdome across a single day.

When fans bought their tickets for the Cape Town iteration of the tournament, there was no detail about how the set-up might look and so many assumed they would be able to watch all the games in one venue again, or at least alternate between the two.

The whole debacle has been devastating for a group of young English girls who have been looking forward to watching the Roses play for quite some time in Cape Town.

The 24 players and four coaches from Oldham Netball Club have been raising money the past four years to afford their trip overseas.

Securing tickets to the semis and finals ahead of time, they have since arrived in South Africa and have not been able to gain access to any preliminary games.

The ticketing system run by Plankton requires group bookings of more than six to be made via a separate contact.

Although Debbie Hallas — managing director of Netball UK and Super League team Manchester Thunder — had reached out several times by phone and email at the time of the interview, she only received one reply stating Plankton was too busy to facilitate requests.

"It's just disappointing when you see all the empty seats in the arena and you've got 28 of us here on the doorstep of the tournament and we can't get in to watch the games," Hallas told ABC Sport.

"Instead, we've been filling in our itinerary with matches against other local teams here in Cape Town and finding touristy things to do.

"We'd even arranged to head to one of the fan parks on Wednesday to see the Roses, as three of them came through Oldham in their young playing careers and there are some links to Thunder too.

"But now that can't go ahead because of security risks. All the athlete visits have been cancelled."

The fan parks in each province were set up to offer those unable to afford tickets a fun place to watch the live games but they have had to be closed some days due to bad weather.

Plankton chief executive Carel Hoffmann, who was another of the key figures present at the media conference overnight (AEST), defended his company's handling of the tournament.

Although none of the locals ABC Sport spoke to had heard of Plankton before — with most major sporting events here run by iTickets or TicketPro — Hoffmann said it sold millions of tickets annually.

A quick look at its website shows it offers tickets to a number of smaller-scale activities and experiences, such as wine festivals, museum tours and music concerts.

World Cup tournament director Priscilla Masisi confirmed there had been a tender process, where various ticket sale companies could express their interest in being the exclusive provider.

But she stopped short of clarifying why Plankton specifically was selected.