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

They got 3,000 for their last game. That's about as much as Huddersfield get without away fans...

I loved the day out up in Newcastle, having missed the one there last year. I previously went to the Etihad twice, and up to Murrayfield once, all just for the day.

I love the concept of the magic weekend and the fact that you can mix with other supporters without an ounce of trouble. As I've said on the Hull forum, I think they should keep it up in Newcastle next year, then look to move it on to another location. If nothing else, it gives locals the opportunity to go and watch a game of rugby league. It would be nice if they then went along to their local club, such as Thunder, but the reality is the product on show would be much less at lower league clubs than the 3 or 6 games they will have watched in a stadium with 30-40,000 people in it.

I was talking to a couple of guys from Newcastle who had won tickets for the Sunday games. They seemed to enjoy their day out, and related to my nervousness before the Hull derby. The were both Newcastle season ticket holders, and admitted their recent derby form made them understand what it's like in the build up to the derbies! They had been along to watch Newcastle Falcons a couple of times, but had never been to a live league match. Having the opportunity to go to 3 in one day for free is a great advertisement for our game, and, if nothing else, hopefully it will add to the TV figures, and more of a national support for our international game.

It doesn't just have to be about increasing the crowds of local teams, nor trying to establish a new club in the area. It's a good day or weekend out with 70,000 other rugby league fans mingling and having a laugh together. There aren't many sports where that happens.

hope they return for the next home game



how many of the 3000 were actual newcastle fans and not the loyal rl fans that had travelled up for the weekend..

giants get abit more than 3k .. 4607 against catalans this season, catalans didnt bring many as you will know.

Newcastle get decent crowds relative to the league they are in, and FWIW local amateur team Cramlington Rockets sold over 500 tickets to the event.

But I still don't know why you're going on about Newcastle Thunder's crowds like that's the main reason for doing this, when really it's just a minor reason. The main reason being that it's a great event that makes a load of money for the RFL, generates a ton of publicity and everyone can enjoy.

ton of publicity ? 29k on sunday , too many empty seats didnt look good

Should be getting 40k both days at a minimum. Not having a bank holiday Monday doesn't help mind you.

Could be improved, that's for sure. But 50% of capacity's a sight better than the 25% some clubs seem to have settled on for their home games.

That's just not true. I looked the day of the announcement. Prices were indeed about £65 in the centre. I needed to confirm whether a member of my family could make it so couldn't book there and then- when I went to book TWO DAYS LATER the prices had risen to between £250-£300 for the same rooms.....

Significantly more publicity than a regular round of SL or really anything else except Finals and major internationals. Actually mentioned on sports news without being a little add-on at the end to keep the northerners happy.
Coverage on 5Live etc etc.

Miles more than a regular round which barely gets any and sometimes doesn't even make local news.

so where were the newcastle public?

sat next to us for the first match on sunday

stop being negative


too many fans want events on their own doorstep as they are too bone idle to travel

we were just 500 spectators better off -so either only 500 folk from the Newcastle area turned up- or it looks like usual suspects didn't attend!

Leigh Sports Village would be too big a venue if it was a nines weekend.

There are four pubs that are one minute walk from the Etihad.

It should be alternated between the two and the two cities should try and beat each other's attendance from the year before.

Although I wouldn't mind a trip to Dublin!

What we need is a 45k stadium in a city centre to promote the game. Newcastle is brilliant with the ground in the city centre all the bars are close by but 40k on the Saturday and 28k on the Sunday needs to be evened out