Arrow - you do realise that while Viv Richards Stadium holds "only" 20,000 people, the entire country of Antigua only has a population of 70,000. If anything, I'd say that the stadium design is either incredibly forward looking, or a massive over-investment - unless tickets to future events there are free or virtually free they'll never fill it after this WC.
For me, its a combination of the visa problems (which is not appropriate to solve by simply waiving the requirement for visas), a price point for tickets which effectively priced out most of the locals, and most significantly - the tournament is just too long and drawn out. Even for people who can get a visa and afford the airfares, they probably can't take 7 weeks off for the holiday, so they'll have to pick and choose. And I'd pick to come near the end of the tournament and see the semi finals and if possible the final, rather than the start of the Super 8 round, and certainly not the group stage.
The other thing I've heard, that I'm surprised hasn't been raised, is that apparently the officials at the ground have been incredibly tight in terms of acting as fun-police and banning any of the things that people normally like to do at the cricket - much of which has historically been central to the fun vibe of Caribbean cricket crowds. I understand food, drink, alcohol, musical instruments, flags and banners have all been banned from entry into the ground. Apparently the food and (strictly non-alcoholic) drinks available in the ground have the usual obscene mark ups for "official food providers" that are common at these events. Its one thing for Cricket Australia to act like idiots and pull this stuff ahead of the most eagerly anticipated Ashes series in a country where you'll fill the MCG to see a tiddly-winks contest. It's another thing when the price of tickets for a family already represents a sizeable chunk of your yearly salary to be asked to blow a weeks wages on some bad fast food and watered down Pepsi - which will be consumed in rapt silence, thank you, no trumpets, drums or flag-waving!!
