www.superleague.co.uk/article.php?id=13928 According to the RFL the crowds were up for the Magic weekend even though they were actually down. This justifies them moving the event from Cardiff apparently. Sorry can someone explain to me why. Are they in fact only saying this as they have burnt their bridges with the South Wales tourist board, Millennium Stadium and WRU? Are the RFL capable of saying that an even was not a success/improvement on a previous year (please refer to the more competitive Leeds Vs Saints super league for further evidence) Don't get me wrong I enjoyed the weekend but the games I have watched were pretty poor and I can not see an improvement on the attendances next year. In the end I am asking one simple question. “When does PR just become plain lying?”

www.superleague.co.uk/article.php?id=13928 According to the RFL the crowds were up for the Magic weekend even though they were actually down. This justifies them moving the event from Cardiff apparently. Sorry can someone explain to me why. Are they in fact only saying this as they have burnt their bridges with the South Wales tourist board, Millennium Stadium and WRU? Are the RFL capable of saying that an even was not a success/improvement on a previous year (please refer to the more competitive Leeds Vs Saints super league for further evidence) Don't get me wrong I enjoyed the weekend but the games I have watched were pretty poor and I can not see an improvement on the attendances next year. In the end I am asking one simple question. “When does PR just become plain lying?”

Up on the first year at Cardiff. Makes sense to me.

From the article: "The combined total is down on last year’s aggregate of 63,144 at the Millennium Stadium.
But the RFL are taking encouragement from the fact that crowds were up on the 58,831 that attended the first Millennium Magic in 2007


A simple answer to a simple question.

Er, yes - but there was one more game this time with (theoretically, at least) two more sets of supporters travelling up for the occasion!

So were they up or down on the first Cardiff weekend?

Indeed, they were up.

Therefore, it's still true.

The second someone in PR opens his/her mouth.

HTH

I was very disapointed with the weekend it was a complete rip off the Jocks dont want us there these are my observations over the 2 days:-

Park and ride facilities were abismal every 30 min I asked if they were putting extra busses on answer what time does the last game finish I told him answer we are doing our best

Stadium was the coldest place I have ever watched rugby league in even in the depths of winter rugby a taxi driver told me you want to be here when its cold you come out with icicles hanging off you.

Cost of beer and food was extortionate and it was rubbish for the money meat pie and chips I got 15 chips plus lumpy gravy £6
Pxxs Beer out of plastic cups £3-80 a pint.

Give me Cardiff any time we wont be going back there in a hurry

Can't comment, but sounds like the driver answered you as best he could with the info he had.



You say the Scots didn't want you there. Is there some unique form of climate control in Edinburgh?

Oh, and from a KR fan?

Polar bears complain that it's too cold at Craven Park.



Major sports venue, in "expensive food and drink" shocker.

Considering a lot of people have less cash at the mooment i think the crowd was encouraging.

The buses were every 10-12 mins mate we used the park and ride both days, blame the police holding up the traffic for delays at the end of the day, once the buses got thru there were plenty.

REAL polar bears don't!

you should have gone to the bar that was selling beer at £3:50 a pint

I didn't use the park and ride so can't comment.

The weather was great, I have no idea what you are talking about. The irony is, you're a Rovers fan. Ever been to Craven Park?!

Beer was £3.50 where we was, which to be fair was a rip off. But that's event prices for you.

I would like to say the following improvement!

£2.50 a pint or bottle, would have kept the fans in the ground!

True. But where do you get £2.50 pints these days? Probably fair to say you do get some pubs but these are by and large small suburban outlets (or whetherspoons

).

You wont get any city centre pubs, or stadiums outlets where you can get anything under £3. I'd have thought £3 is pretty reasonable for a pint but that £3.50 is to be expected at stadia.....?

Remember though that you are in a major city. Things, unfortunately, cost more.

I've certainly paid (correction; the boss has certainly paid) more than £3.50 a pint in parts of London and to be honest, I'd have little trouble finding a bar in Leeds or Manchester City Centre charging that for a pint of ale (whether I'd buy one is another matter)

.

Even Warrington on a saturday night you can pay that in places

I was not trying to question the RFLs ability to add and subtract. I am just questioning the logic/ethics of comparing an attendance two years ago rather than last year (the usual choice). All for the purpose of claiming that the, quote "Magic Weekend crowd grows" and the event was a success justifying the move to Edinburgh. The former is not true and the later is very disputable.

The RFL will not compare the second years attendance figures with next years event. They will compare this years as they are lower.

Why could they have not said "Encouraging" rather than "Grows".

Using such logic just makes us look foolish.



Hmmmm Good answer. Maybe I am wasted in my job.



My thoughts exactly. OK you would suspect that Celtic probably did not affect the attendance figure too much but Salford would have. Also the RFL had introduced season ticket discounts making attending both days more attractive. This should have resulted in an increase on the 2008 figure. It also means that it is likely the gate money is down as the average fans ticket price will have decreased.

The argument for the event is worth £10m.
They miss "to the local economy" bit at the end quite a bit. The RFL get significantly less and the clubs, from what I have been told, receive nothing.

The average RL fan does not have a lot of disposable cash. Surely the RFL can think of better ways for us to spend our money than giving it to overpriced hotel chains, Virgin Rail and the owners of Man City.

I did enjoy the weekend but I have done the long weekend Edinburgh and am unsure if I will return next year. They will have to offer something significantly different to get me (and I suspect a number of other people) up their next year.

The failure to increase the attendance on last year would also indicate that there were few locals at the event. Which was one of the negative comments said about Cardiff when they announced the move.

All I ask is for marketing and innovation to replace spin and groundless optimism.

True I did not find the price of the food and drink too bad but the quality was not great. Cardiff was better in that way.

You want to try living in Ireland mate - standard money for a pint is 5 euro - more like 7 in Dublin and other cities.

Add to that the additional 295 Euro per month tax I have to pay after our last budget and £3.80 sounds like a bargain to me!!!

They reckon that 10% of the crowd were locals.

That's a crowd of 6000 for a place that doesn't even have a team!

If there were 14 teams + Edinburgh then on average each team contributed 3857 speccies whereas Edinburgh / locals contributed 6000.

Seems it was therefore probably better supported by locals than pretty much by fans of most of the individual clubs.

Put that in yer pipe and smoke it.

Thing is though, I've just watched Boots N All this week. Angela's report at the begining says there were no posters or any advertising for the event in the town and locals when asked had no idea that there was even anything going on. Ball badly dropped by the RFL there I think

Then I put it to you that Angela Powers "research" for the weekend is about on par with her "what is the best stadium in SL and I'm going to skew the results so its the team I support" articles a couple of years back.

How do they get in with the millions of KR fans?

They always let the polar bears in first, because someone told them they're sitting on a mint.