For me

Etihad
Pros- Manchester easily accessible, fantastic fans zone, more comfortable stadium, ability to move around the ground and sit with other fans
Cons- not allowed food, stadium isolated

St James
Pros- centre of city, can take food into stadium, locals brilliant
Cons- ridiculously expensive hotel prices, having to travel from hotels out of centre, poor fans zone, a long journey home on a Sunday night.

newcastle for me is the best location, city centre right on its door step ethihad was good because you could move around freely, but that was it, nothing close to the ground. bit of o/t www.rugby-league.com/article/375 ... magic-flag well done to cramlington rockets who sold 560 tickets for the magic weekend, probably more than a club who's chairman is throwing insults at an other club for not bringing many to away games

newcastle for me is the best location, city centre right on its door step ethihad was good because you could move around freely, but that was it, nothing close to the ground. bit of o/t www.rugby-league.com/article/375 ... magic-flag well done to cramlington rockets who sold 560 tickets for the magic weekend, probably more than a club who's chairman is throwing insults at an other club for not bringing many to away games

Newcastle for me! The only time I can get to a game in 40 minutes!

Newcastle for me, closely followed by Cardiff. I've been to them all, the stadium has to be in the centre, the atmosphere then is fantastic with all fans enjoying the games and evenings together.

The issue with the Eithad for me is there is nothing around it and because there's lots of clubs in the proximity a lot of people just choose to visit for the day rather than the weekend. Newcastle for a weekend trip was fantastic, the locals embraced everything about the weekend.

Camp Nou - OK, it's a long trip but flights can be pretty cheap as can hotels, major city in a sunny place different culture etc. Should pull in a few from Catalan too.

Unfortunately between Barcelona and Milles there aren't many stadiums above 30k capacity and a local airport.

Personally I've always been put off Newcastle by travel cost and expensive hotels. If it looks like it's going to stay there for years, though, I *might* try it in the next year or two. But it's just a fluke of geography, really; fans in the North-East and Scotland obviously are going to find Newcastle much more convenient. I'm used to travelling up to Wigan for games, and when the MW was at the Etihad, I stayed overnight in Wigan as I usually do. It's not a long journey by motorbike on a warm summer evening, and, as noted, the stadium is in a rather wasteland area of Manchester.

Cardiff (just an hour away) is definitely my favourite, though!

The Olympic stadium in Barca holds 54k. Wire played Catalans a few years back there .

They only sold non alcoholic beer, and didn't tell us either




I'm not a fan of newcastle, the stadium, agree that all the stuff outside and in the local area seems to be geared up to welcome visitors, but watching the game i felt like i was at odsal, that far back and that far up, plus you don't feel like your sat together with your fans, certainly not where warrington have been 'allocated' this last two years.

Surprised at people saying you couldn't move around the ground! You could.

Only the reserved stand had restrictions.

This absolutely, I watched out game with Wakey fans (obv) spent 1st half of next game with Saints fans in same stand.

Then for the Hull derby i spent the 1st half with FC fans, but they were too drunk and rowdy for me and so went and sat with the KR fans for the 2nd half.

It should be held at Hillsborough, easier/closer for fans from ALL clubs to get to as well as consideration for those of us not living in the heartlands and a 10 hour round trip drive to places like Newcastle.
The stadium has the required capacity and if the RFL sort out the games so they don't finish too late on a Sunday as they have this year then using the trains is less of an issue.
I also think the tickets are far too cheap, it continues to devalue the sport, £10 for a concession ticket two full days or £25 for a full priced adult ticket is ridiculous.

whats it done for gateshead thunders crowds? are the geordies going to watch them ?!

not really.

back to manchester for me.

but if we want to continue with this spread the game theme then maybe coventry next... do Ireland deserve magic weekend too?

You do realise that cities pay millions of pounds to host this event? It's not just some whimsical idea from the RFL to give a minor boost to the local semi pro team.

BTW you don't even know what Newcastle (not Gateshead) Thunder's crowds are, do you? Even though it's ridiculous to expect there to be any type of increase or even try to measure any increase based on a single one-off event, they could've received a massive boost and you wouldn't even know, you don't even know what the team is called.

Having it at the emptyhad hardly helped Salfords crowds did it

Regards

King james

If the RFL had any sense they'd get Newcastle and Manchester to enter a bidding war (both cash and marketing spend) and get the cash in, no doubt they'I'll have some other random idea though!

An increase of less than 500 compared to last year? Hardly the record-shattering event the RFL promised. I wonder if the RFL even make any money out of it?

Newcastle for me. The amateur game in the NE is building and this focus, long term, can only help it. A fantastic city and location of ground, only 2 hrs away from heartland RL. The whole weekend is an event. Going to Manchester makes it a day trip. I'd make it Newcastle for the next few years. Book early if you don't want sky high prices

While I agree the crowd increase was nothing to shout home about, as has been stated Newcastle pay to host the event, and it is an entire extra round of income for the game, so yes they do make money. It also does get the game more exposure, reports in the newspapers were much larger than usual this weekend, links to the live scores were on the BBC sport homepage etc things we don't usually get for a normal round of games.

Hotel prices are only expensive if you leave it late, if your organised and book early it's not expensive at all.

3 of us stayed at Newcastle central travelodge and for 3 nights it worked out at £62 each.

Anyone see the front cover of the Newcastle Chronicle newspaper on Monday morning?

Pleading with us to come back

Says it all

Not so true.. I looked at hotel prices a few hours after the magic weekend was announced and the nice city centre hotels had already jacked up the prices.

try booking hotels that offer free cancellation in the two weekends in may before the magic date is announced

yes i know the rfl gets money from it, so will it got to the highest bidder.... seems that way.

they get about 500... sorry forgot it changed to newcastle thunder, maybe if i saw a few more of their shirts at the stadium would have reminded me

may aswell just let the majority travel less hey, doesnt work going elsewhere to improve crowds, did it help wales.. oh they dont even have a super league team now

scotland?

just give it to the highest bidder, koukash and have it in dubai