They are supposed to consider appeals only on specific points of law, and their hearings are usually dry, poorly attended affairs.
Funerals for people in their 90s tend to be sparsely attended affairs, with but a sprinkling of contemporaries and maybe some friends of the children and grandchildren on hand for moral support.
They mount demos outside the council offices, and what should be dull, sparsely attended affairs turn into something more like a sports day, with hundreds of women dancing about.
News conferences in the Green Zone that were once clamorous free-for-alls are now mostly sparsely attended affairs, with shrunken posses of newsmen and women clustered around the beleaguered officials who shape the war's course.
Those events have mostly been downbeat, sparsely attended affairs, and there has been some debate over whether they should be held in the Albert Hall at all, or whether the Proms should revert to the policy of the 1970s and 1980s, when new-music concerts were scattered around other London locations.
After all, no one from the major leagues had to sit through the engagement dinner Mr. Rose gives for her in Episode 2, a depressing, sparsely attended affair.
This year's meeting of the Christian Coalition was a sparsely attended affair, which came to life only to roar its support for Israel's Ariel Sharon.In the past the Republicans have tried to make up for their shortage of foot soldiers by buying help off the shelf: so many consultants, so many paid advertisements, so many telemarketers and envelope-stuffers.
The 2016 Time Matters conference was a sparsely attended affair, in part because, as the organisers conceded, it was August, and lots of people were on holiday, and America's most enthusiastically pro-relaxation organisation was hardly going to complain about that.
At the last meeting of the women's caucus of the Monroe County Democratic Party ― normally a sparsely attended affair ― people spilled out the door onto the street.
Officers attend formal affairs in kimonos.
