People! Come on. It has to be in a high profile city, i.e. the capitals to tempt people in making a weekend of it. The point is not to sell out, that defeats the whole point of coming and going to the rugby as you please. With proper marketing to get locals interested and full support from current fans it would be a massive success in Cardiff. That means adding another 10,000 on the gate from last weekend. Thats all the aim should be for the time being.

I could see some sense in it being at Eastlands, with the new Salford Media City. Newcastle would be a non-starter for mine. Jonny Wilkinson and the Falcons couldn't tap into that market, so what chance have Gateshead got?

Dublin or Paris would be wonderful, but they'll be played in empty stadia.

I'd say stick with Cardiff or go to London in the spring.

This.

The reason that the Magic Weekend exists at all is because the RFL gets a zonking big cheque from the local tourist development board. Invite 14 RL clubs and their fans down to their city and enough of them will be wanting somewhere to stay for the weekend.

Forgive my scepticism but I can't see Visit Yorkshire or Visit Manchester writing a fat cheque to the RFL when the target market for an event is people who live on your doorstep and, at most, an hour and a half down the road.

As someone who is firstly a Hull FC fan, then RL fan but lives in Sussex I fail to see how Newcastle is not too far for a day tripper like me, or Quins fans, Catalans fans etc etc. Even from Hull Newcastle is not so easy in a day.

Manchester has the GF. It would also probably mean fans only turning up for their teams game. Unlike with Cardiff for example which encourages fans to stick around and make a day of it, or weekend.

I am biased but give it to London and get Quins developed along with the Skolars. It would also attract people up from the South Coast where RL is developing well.

I dont know how many time people need to be told this.

It will never happen on a soccer pitch even in the off season!

It will never be at the city of Manchester as they can only hold so many non soccer events and go for concerts.

the whole point of the magic weekend is not to promote RL outside the heartlands that is the secondary reason. It is because Cardiff was used when wembley was closed. when everything went back to wembley they thought oh heck we are losting out of a ton of business. Those RL folk were well behaved when they came here. Let get them back and fill cardiff with nice northern folk with some from London and France and let them have a jolly up.

Oh and its not the locals that bump the prices it. Its the chain hotels.

There would have being a few more from Hull if they wouldn't have put the two teams who have the furthest to travel as the last game on the Sunday. Surely it was more sensible to put a Lancashire derby on last?

Wigan to Cardiff 3:22 hrs

Hull to Cardiff 4:23 hrs

Warrington to Cardiff 3:12 hrs

That would probably be the worst, i live in a student house with 2 geordie lads who refuse to watch anything but football when it comes to sport.

Plus the stadium is in the centre yes but there is very very little room around the ground for entertainment, especially for kids.

Paris would be a lovely idea, but what stadium are we going to use? A 20,000 seater? A 40,000? It would be impossible to guess how may fans wold go over, i bet it wouldnt be many.

Wouldn't be a bad idea, apparently it's where most teams go after they've finished the season anyway!

Keep it in Cardiff.

It showed signs of growing last time with attendances growing whereas Edinburgh went backwards.

I have said it once and I will say it again the advertising down here was rubbish. 2 lamp posts or whatever it was in Cardiff City centre was rubbish. Keep it in Cardiff and let it grow.

For those that want a full stadium then forget it. As I said even with 3 games on if the vast majority stayed for only their game it wouldn't be much more than a third full no matter what.

I think we can push it towards 70,000 over two days in the next few years with decent marketing and then events like these get a snowball effect.

Keep it in Cardiff, those that attend enjoy it. If you move it about the resident grumpy ***** will wait for it to be announced and find reasons not to go to that place anyway so whats the point. Keep it in a City where people who actually go to the event enjoy it and want to attend again.

Abu Dhabi.

I say cardiff as ive loved it every time, scotland imo was poor and no locals interested.

But if it moved my vote would be to catalans to give them 1 more boost to get it going in the area, but have it in Barca like the wire game

It does largely depend on which City is prepared to fund it.

Its not designed to attract a large local non rugby league following. If the city of Bradford put on a sport that I'd not seen live before I might be tempted to go along to see what its like. But I'm not going to be more likely to attend because there are multiple fixtures. If anything that would put me off. Sporting indigestion.

It should be accepted for what it is. A chance for RL fans to have a boozy weekend away. Its a sort of female friendly, toned down stag weekend.

Haha some interesting ideas.

I think Cardiff has been fantastic, but the RFL want to expand the game so I imagine it will move either for next year or the one after. They already have a Welsh team and I don't think there are any more that are capable of playing in the Super League.

The thing is if the RFL are planning to expand Super League and having more teams, they may be thinking about taking it somewhere else so that they can influence that area to get a RL team.

Personally, I think it should move back to the bank holiday weekend and stay in Cardiff. If they are to have 16 clubs in Super League I think they should promote Halifax and Widnes

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Prenton Park, Tranmere ....

Obviously one of the suggestions was Manchester, but clearly Sir Taggart and the Glazers won't go for seven games over the weekend .... How about using a bit of nous and having one day's games at Old Trafford and the second day's matches at City Of Manchester ? Both are fairly easy to get to from Manchester city centre and then neither wendyball team can complaint that their pitch is getting so much abuse ?

Dublin has both Croke Park and the Aviva / Landsdowne Road available. One holds 80k, the other 55K+ and both are easily accessible. Croke is about 20 minutes walk from the centre of Dublin, Landsdowne is about 10 - 15 mins on the Dart, so both dead easy.

The big problem with Dublin would be capacity to get 30K - 50K fans over by plane or ferry AND not only the hoteliers, but the likes of Ryanair hiking up the prices if they knew we were coming.

The other alternative would be to have all the 'Lancashire' derbies at a Manchester venue and all the Yorkshire ones at somewhere like Elland Road, with London and Catalans alternating between Birch and Hartshead Moor Service Areas on alternative years ....

Newcastle/Gateshead ticks all the boxes

Potential Expansion area
Large stadium to allow for unreserved seating
City Centre location
Excellent transport links to heartlands
Far enough away to encourage weekend trips (there are plenty who do it without the rugby as an extra incentive)
Easy day trip from the heartlands

If the local council's are willing to put a sweetener in that comes close to what Cardiff offer (if they still pay us anything) then the RFL should take it to the North East next May

I'm coming to the conclusion youre all a bunch of loonies

Very very expensive mate....

The local council don't own the stadium NUFC do, the will never allow 7 games in 2 days to be played on that pitch regardless of the date, they have turned down way more lucrative deals to host concerts so the RLF don't stand a chance.

Agreed

Try the other thread , it's taken me 3 pages to get some numptys to understand you can't have an odd number of games and an odd number of teams

The impression I get from the locals is that Mike Ashley would sell his own grandmother for the right price

My assumption is that Cardiff council paid us to go there for the boost to the economy, IF any move to the North East was to happen I would assume Newcastle/Gateshead would be paying for the probability off a similar boost, part of this payment, part of ticket and concession sales to Mr Ashley, job done. The IRB are taking a world cup game there so they may be more open to other sports.

I know it is unlikely but I hope it would be at least considered, the more possible locations the more the RFL should be able to negotiate from potential hosts

Yet they have turned down gigs like Take That and Bon Jovi for this summer.

It has to be a ground with a closing roof becuase of the weather at that time of the year. That narrows it down to Wembley or Cardiff (Wimbledon Centre Court aint big enough).

It should stay at Cardiff.