Best media facilities - end of discussion.

Ground was good, outside entertainment was OK, transport links around Manchester were good and will be even better when the tram station at the ground opens, pubs in the city were fine.
Prices in the ground were expensive, and fed up with seeing our team losing every time we go.

7/10

loved it, 8/10

I would love to see it where 1st plays 2nd, 3rd plays 4th right down the table. Seems much fairer to me.

They can take it as the league table stands the week before. It would also cause some excitement wondering who might play who.

I have to declare an interest as I like the format and have been to all the magic weekends so far.

So my take on last weekend:

1) Weather - excellent for the specators - no danger of Edinburgh frostbite - but must have been punishing for the players. Got to be the one of the few things the RFL has managed successfully!
2) Venue - very impressed with the stadium - easy access, excellent view, and lots of legroom ( I could not walk straight for a week after being crammed into my seat at Elland Rd for the 4 Nations final). Yes food and drink was expensive - but it always is at this sort of ground.
3) Matches - 3 very tight games, but yes the two weakest sides - Widnes and Saints! should have been playing each other - especially when you think that would have given us Wigan v Warrington.
4) Attendance - from the pre-weekend publicity and the location I was expecting more. From the offical stats the ground must have been about 2/3rds full for the evening games. I did see some billboard adverts for the weekend in the - but talking to taxi drivers and shop and restuarant staff most people didn't seem to know what was going on?
5) Manchester - OK not a capital, but the wife liked the retail and we found some good restuarants. Cannot comment on the pubs as about 30 years ago accidentally had a pint of Tetley Walkers and vowed never to drink a beer in Manchester ever again.

So overall 7.5 out of 10. Would have been a bit higher if the Bulls had not reverted to the one up rugby the opposition defence must love, and am not convinced we could have scored in the 2nd half if the Rhinos had all gone off for a drinks break. As we don't seem to be able to get close to filling a 60/70,000 ground we should give the venue another go. The only other ground I can think of with similar size and quality would be the Emirates - must be something to do with being sponsored by an Gulf airline.

I have never attended a Magic Weekend. Not through any kind of boycott, but mainly due to circumstances. But I do not like the way it makes the league unfair. Why should Warrington (top of the league) get to play Widnes (bottom)? How is Catalans and London a derby? It's nonsense. And as someone on here already said, they may as well given Wire a two point start in the league.
A league to me is every team playing every other team twice - once home and once away.

If the Magic Weekend is going to continue then a random draw is the only fair way for me. Make it a big event like the CC draw and add some excitement.

The 1st v 2nd, 3rd v 4th idea seems impractical, as the teams could change places the week before, so you may have tickets for Sunday but your team then play Saturday!

How about Dublin for the next one?

Top drawer weekend - 90% of it not captured by watching from an armchair..

Well organised, well presented event, fabulous facilities, carnival atmosphere on the concourses, around the ground and in the stadium.

Great creativity from some fans in the fancy dress department, great cameraderie throughout, Catalan fans brought a touch of the internationals, were sociable, passionate and colourful, collecting photos of shirt swaps with any passing fans of other clubs.

Watched every minute of every game and enjoyed all of them - particular memories on field- Salford over Hudds, HKR's last minute winner, trying to work out who the outstanding Hull full back was (Now know - yet another Wigan star on the way!), Bulls workrate - could not ask for more in that temp with no subs left, Wigans style of rugby - something to aspire to and result of a few years hard work (I think). Off field - impressive magician! (but not as good as Dynamo), Bananas, Cows, Arab security guards, players past and present, Catalan fans having a ball, heat!

Plenty of food options in and outside the ground, loads going on around the stadium, Stobarts presence added to all this with the "celeb" drivers from the TV series drawing huge queues for photos (beyond me!)

Throughout the weekend - there were as many fans enjoying the music and other entertainment on the concourses as were watching the games. Had everyone sat in the stadium regardless - it would have "looked" better.

In summary - this is a no miss event of you truly enjoy TGG and its something RL can be proud off - the cops on duty just looked on in amazement. You will never ever understand this posting if you watch on TV.

Finally - on day one - the spoiler was the state of (some) people from Hull - who in our section were very drunk, abusive and provocative. This was reserved seating -fighting broke out in more than one area of the lower tiers and the stewards had all on to keep control. This continued as fans left the ground and police were scattering to quell it. As a result - on day two - city centre pubs would only issue plastic glasses to ANYONE wearing a rugby shirt!!!

Day two was devoid of any trouble (as far as I experienced)

it would have been but the jubliee has meant it moved back one week.

Perfect venue for the magic weekend.

The faciliies were outstanding, it's a lovely stadium.

Agree with comments, even if they'd have had Wire vs Catalans and Widnes v London it would have been fairer.

Think league position would be fairer, but would there have been the same amount of Wigan/Saints fans (they were the best supported teams on sunday)

IIRC the RFL changed it from derbies to league positions but then changed it abck as there was less interest in the positions option. Derbies for me.

Yeah, there's the problem.

Derbies will get the crowds (which is obviously why RFL go with it), but it still feels like there's something wrong as they're never going to all be derbies and you get complete mismatches and non-derbies aswell.

Even though I loved the day out, I still have concerns about the event when (it wont affect Bradford or Cas though!) Warrington get given Widnes, Catalans-London etc.

But if it can pull in a decent crowd and most of the games are a good advert for RL then the RFL won't scrap it.

Personally id keep the derby games but make a slight amendment and have - Wire Vs Catalans & Widnes Vs London, for me that would of been more entertaining regardless of wire/widnes being a derby

No I wasn't, I watched at home. It looked 50% full at best at its busiest. Based on the ticket sales even if everyone who bought a ticket was in the stadium at the same time it wouldn't even be at 60% capacity.

Wasnt that because the 3rd tier wasnt opened tho anyway, from what i could make out throughout our game with leeds is that the lower tier was more or less full and the second tier becoming clsoe to filling up, so that 2 tiers of a fairly big stadium that were more or less full, id say that was a good turnout and also wasnt the attendance for sunday about 32,000 ??

Didn't go on Saturday but it looked to me that the attendance in the ground on Sunday peaked at the start of the Wigan v saints game at 20-25,000

I went on Sunday and during the Bulls v Rhinos it felt and looked fairly full. Generally there were tonnes of people outside going round the fanzone. I think people need to get over looking at the inside of the stadium as a measure of how popular or not the event is, the bits outside make it different to a normal league game and as such people spend time there.

A really good event overall

I agree. Very few fans are going to sit through several hours of continuous rl. They're just not used to it, don't have the appetite. If they're going to continue with the event there has to be an acceptance that large numbers will be outside the ground. And that's a legitimate part of the entertainment

I really enjoyed it. the lower tier was unreserved hence it could only ever be 80 per cent full as they cant sell every ticket. Add to that big numbers watching on the screens outside in the bars and fan zone areas and yes it looks less that full inside the stadium. Lots of fans watched their game in the stadium and then wandered around a bit taking in all the other things going on!!
I was in cardiff last year and it seemed far far busier than there.
I'm sure due to the weather people stayed around longer and watched more of the games. We watched the 2nd half of catalans, most of hudds, all the bulls game and the 1st half of the wigan game - missed the fight !!! - but saw it on the telly later !!!

If you watched it at home then you missed out big time imo

I think the fact that all the extra-curricular stuff has been organised, and a 'passout' system put in place, means it's all intended to be part of the event and that people can pick and choose.

For what it's worth, I just went on Sunday and watched all the games up to half time in the Wigan/Saints match, then went for a walk round the ground; even the luxuriously cussioned Seats in the Etihad were getting a bit harder by that time....

So, for someone who has never been, what sort of things are going on outside the ground?

The usual - car jackings, muggings, drug dealing, arson, burglary, etc..

By the time I went round (during second half of the Wigan game) there was nothing 'going on' as such, apart from several food vans clearing the decks...

They closed the bars and big screens, ended the entertainment outside the ground, during the Wigan game. They obviously wanted to get as many people as possible in the ground for the "finale". Unfortunately quite a few fans left the ground at the end of the Bulls game, saw that nothing was happening, and went home.

From what I saw through the afternoon there were plenty who only came in for their own club's game, but I guess that was fairly inevitable to be honest. For myself, I enjoy a good match as much as the next but I'd definitely had enough after 3 and a half games; it's a long time on your bum even with the 'extra comfy' seating!

Was the finale after the Wigan-Saints game? What happened?