THE FIRST four rounds of the AFL season have produced some of the best attendances ever seen.

The attendances are more than five per cent ahead of where they were at the same stage of the all-time record set last year in the 2007 season.

The eight matches in round four drew a combined attendance of 315,414 fans, taking the total already this season to 1,297,678 fans - 5.1 per cent ahead of last year's equivalent total of 1,234,386 after four rounds.

AFL Chief Executive Officer Andrew Demetriou said the high crowd numbers were due to hard work from the 16 clubs.

"We were privileged to be able to break our all-time attendance record in 2007 and that has been followed up this season by continued strong attendances, and tremendous work by all clubs in bringing people to our games,” Demetriou said.

"The quality of the football we are watching across the competition has been of a very high standard and the AFL is always appreciative of those supporters who attend matches in person.”