Over the last few years I have seen fewer and fewer people in London over the cup final weekend wearing replica shirts. I was in the west end this afternoon and saw none for the first time. Is this to do with the game being played on the bank holiday weekend or are there other factors (lack of money, trips to France for away games at Catalans) affecting things?

I think its more to do with the beeb being unwilling to interrupt their wall to wall coverage of the Empire Games for the semi's....I don't know for definite that this is why the semi's were pushed back to 2 weeks before the final, but It wouldn't surprise me.

How big is your local ? I was on coach number 35 out of Headingley , and there were still hundreds of people waiting to get on other coaches as we departed .

For the millionth time please stop exaggerating .

LOL !

Very poor turn out for the final, and this is not actually a dig about Leeds. No matter how many coaches you saw there were still HUGE empty spaces at Wembley which MAY have been better filled if there had been more time between the semis and the final.

SURELY it makes more sense to give people the maximum amount of time to make arrangements ???

That's counting the club Wembley seats though and obviously hardly any of those turned up

This

And make every ticket £25.

Who made that figure up?

As its an all-seater stadium, the attendance figure for the final is based on how many tickets have been sold for the event. This includes not only the club wembley seats but also any tickets which have been sold to 3rd party retails, whether or not they subsequently sold them and the bum arrived on the seat.

I think this could be the key issue here, I was in block 542 (top tier at Cas end), and a week before the final I am pretty sure the RFL website said this block and all of the top tier were sold out apart for the small block above the big screen.

If the RFL did indeed sell them they probably won't care as they will trouser the cash even if it looks horrible on T.V and made the atmosphere flat. So I would like to know who bought these tickets?, Amateur clubs?, lower league clubs?, Touts, individual opportunists who tried to sell them through E.bay etc?

If they didn't whoever was in charged with that stadium graphic on the website wants to be dragged into the bosses office in the morning!

Got to agree with others that the scheduling is bonkers, the other issue is that it gives the finalists very little time to sell Merchandise. In 2008 Hull made over £500K and a large part of that was selling a shedload of merchandise during the months gap between the Semi and the Final, 2 weeks barely gives a club chance to embroider/heatseal a few t-shirts never mind buy anything else in.

Personally i'd move the final to either the first weekend after the football season, or the weekend before the start of the new season. The media are always desperate to fill the sports pages during these lean weekends and the final would get more coverage.

Someone stop them placing the statue at wembley, it's time to move to another stadium.

Wembley used to be an event, neutrals would be there in thousands, weekend pub trips would run from villages across Yorkshire and Lancashire, this tradition has finished and whilst the final is in August I cannot see it being reversed.

The tickets are that cheap that a lot of people probably buy the heavily discounted ones and don't bother attending when their team doesn't make the final.

It's time for a rethink, Wembley is far too big and London is too far and too expensive for neutrals to attend in the numbers they used to.

Also train travel and hotels costs are at a premium on the Bank Holiday weekend.

I cannot work out if this is tongue firmly planted in cheek or serious .

If serious it is the most stereotypical RL FANS FORUM reply I have ever read.

Club Wembley seating accounts for 16,532 seats on the middle tier (AKA - the ring of indifference with respect to CC Finals) along with approximately 5,000 premium viewing seats on the lower tier around halfway where teams enter and presentations take place.

Given that hardly any Club Wembley seats were occupied at the CC Final on Saturday, a reasonable guesstimate as to the actual attendance would involve deducting around 20,000 from the official figure.

58,000 (around two-thirds full) out of a capacity of 90,000 would appear to be about right.

Whilst I agree the attendance looked less than 77k only bums on seats on the day count to the attendance not tickets sold. Club wembley tickets are only counted on those who turn up.

They have at least removed one band of pricing for next year (down from 7 categories to 6) which is a step in the right direction for making things simpler.

they've also finally seen sense and not put the top tier on sale for one side of the ground as yet, so that the areas facing the cameras are sold first.

I tried to get tickets for the main side in the centre and it was ale gladly sold out, but this was one of the emptiest areas. So what's that abut.

RFL had already allocated them to organisations / 3rd parties who didnt show. know people who couldnt get seats they wanted online and they rang the RFL and enquired about seats in "sold out" areas and got them.

I am fairly sure that is incorrect.

August is an expensive month for families, if most aren't on holiday they are spending to keep the kids entertained. We need the final shifting from August if we can.

On a side note believe England Footy team have a friendly at Wembley in a couple of weeks, it will be interesting what the crowd will be, ticket pricing etc

Well we used to get the 1st CC match free with your season ticket. However a certain Mr Hethrington complained when Leeds were drawn at home to Saints and around 15000 people got in for free.

That's not anywhere near being true.

Club Wembley tickets are counted as sold and part of the announced attendance.

Well maybe free is taking it too far, or if away fans also get it free there needs to be some kind of redress from the away club. But there needs to be some kind of scheme to incentivise people to attend and since people seem to prefer a season ticket system (season ticket games are higher attended than non-season ticket) then targeting those people would seem a decent idea.
Maybe a discounted ticket plus bring a friend discount?

Why it's mostly £21 and £27 tickets they are empty blocks.

The reason for the long gap between the 1/4 and 1/2 is the BBC who have a mountain of sport to ram into those weeks and not helped this year with the commonwealth games. They could of course bung it on the red button imagine the uproar on here if they did that.

exactly!! If we want the competition broadcast live on BBC 1 we have to accept the scheduling that that affords the competition. With Wimbledon, the football World Cup and the Commonwealth games all taking place in July (when the natural spot for the cup semi would be) we were never going to be able to get a prime slot on BBC TV. So we either accept the timings available, or look to an alternative broadcaster.

Next year may be different, not sure what other sporting events they will have on BBC in July. We also will have to contend with the split for the Super 8's taking place at some point, and the probable need to slot the cup in before the split.

^^^this plus another couple of weeks and Leeds might have learned how to spell Castleford.