As I said non SL club fan, 1 st time albeit on a free ticket, the answer to the original question is

Why not

I agree. It got more coverage on both Sky and BBC news than just a regular round would.

Agree on the games too, maybe split the teams into day 1 and day 2 at the start of the season, so fans know which day their club will be playing so they can book hotels, transport etc then a day or so before the event do a draw?

This was my first magic weekend, been unable to go in the past due to work and uni etc. I will admit to having been a little sceptical about the whole thing, but I was completely bowled over by it.

The posters around Manchester were great and hopefully raised awareness, the city centre was buzzing and hopefully a few people will have enjoyed the atmosphere around the pubs etc and look into it for next year. The ground feels made for it, with the space around the outside and open bowl concourse. Loads of commercial opportunities for Heinz, Foxy, Iron Bru etc then having watched some of it today I think Eddie and pals did a great job of reflecting the carnival atmosphere.

If we can keep it in Manchester on the same date it could hopefully turn into a great jamboree which is firmly on the national sports calendar, attracting sports fans from far and wide. Now that they have found a formula which works we need to stick to it, don't go down the usual rugby league route of changing things based on knee jerk reactions.

The Cardiff weekends were the same, if not better due to the fact that a large proportion of fans stayed overnight and were present for all games.

The only people who criticized the Magic weekend in the past were those who had never attended, or thought it was something to do with some kind of 'Welsh experiment'. It's a great event.

Lets face it RL is never going to be bigger than RU or Football. We shouldn't be focusing on expanding the game to places which are dominated by the other code; we should be focusing on giving the fans that we already have a great experience and possibly more growth in the heartlands and I believe that's what having the Magic Weekend in Manchester achieves.

People complain about there not being enough cultural diversity in Super League when in reality I reckon if most of the clubs had a large contingent of Southerners/French at their ground, they wouldn't feel as welcome as your typical supporter (not that any decent supporter would want to make them feel this way).

At the end of the day many people in the heartlands know the we have the greatest game in the world to enjoy week in week out and if people in London for example can't see that then it's their loss IMO.

I'm not forcing anyone to see it the same way as me that's just how I see it. I'd rather see larger crowds at established clubs than at London/Catalan for example.

Why? In what way are Catalan not an 'established club'?

The original idea behind the MW was expansion, I think that aim has now been abandoned, however as an event it works quite well and any ' success ' is vital to the sports continuity and potential growth, so it works so try all you can to make it work better and bigger

Well there are 12 Heartland clubs compared to 2 outside of them and sorry an "Established Top Flight Club".

But success for London and Catalan doesn't come at the expense of 12 other clubs. I want all clubs to have good crowds. Anyway, the Magic weekend was previously held in Wales and Scotland, not London and France so I'm not sure what it has to do with them.

Hire another stadium and make the Quarter finals a day event, let sky and bbc show them at the same time.

Too many events and you'll start to dilute the effectiveness of them

They were just part of the point I put across about Super League not being multicultural enough for them. I would never wish that London and Catalan had bad crowds and Catalan have great crowds at the minute I think. I hope that one day there will be enough teams with good crowds in Europe to form a league similar to the Magners league that Union has.

It's a scrumdiddlyumptious televisual feast that allows one a perfect excuse to veg out on the sofa over the bank holiday eating copious amounts of pistachio nuts and bowls of strawberries drenched in carnation milk with a sprinkling of Tate & Lyle's finest.

It's a bit like watching too much porn though. After the fourth match it gets a "bit samey" and you long for something out of the ordinary to pop up on screen. Move over Sylvia Saint, hello Steve Ganson. What a "cock-up".

For the neutral it's a great weekend. Long may it continue.

Absolutely spot on... Even winning a league game at an event like this means more somehow... Look how we celebrated....

[urlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La8xSRfRwC8[/url

Now... If this is how we enjoy a late winning try at an event like this... Imagine how we are going to be if we actually win something.

Using the Magic Weekend for expansion was never going to have anything other than very limited short-term impact in the local areas. A few hundred locals might attend, but otherwise you just have 50-60k fans travelling in, drinking in local establishments and staying in local hotels, watching the games behind closed doors and travelling home again. Good for the local economy but little else.

Hosting the Magic as a festival of RL is a much better idea. I thought it was fantastic. Nothing I could fault about it, even the weather turned out again. The food & drink prices are normal for a sporting stadium or similar big event and as much as some might complain it's not like they were a surprise.

The banter in the crowd was good-natured and friendly - in fact I didn't witness any tension at all. Considering many people drank all day, that's a credit to every fan that attended. For me the atmosphere was far friendlier and without the underlying tension of the Grand Final, in fact I'd be happy for the GF to be moved there, even with a slightly lower attendance.

And another note, I thought the minute's silence for Lee Rigby was very touching. The spontaneous round of applause and well observed silence was moving.

Well done all concerned. (except Ganson

)

Small note to those saying the crowds haven't grown with the move to Etihad, perhaps you haven't noticed but a lot of the country are on their uppers...lets wait a couple of years till the current mob if unelected posh boys have finished dicking us then see how it gets on

The magic weekend is a superb event for the fans and it is an excellent carnival-style atmosphere with the fans of all 14 teams mingling in the bars and in the ground. My only reservations with it in it's current state is what it actually acheives in terms of the league table. The fixtures were much less mis-matched this season than when it has been kept as derby games but I still don't really like a fixture calendar that involves playing one team 3 times. Two double-headers for the CCQFs could work, although you lose 6 sets of participating fans.

In terms of venue I don't think we can really do much better than the Etihad tbh. Even aside from the extra travelling involved, the fact was the Millennium and Murrayfield, both with a capacity ~70k, were simply far too big for this purpose. I understand the argument that it was originally designed as a tool for expansion and it's more of a weekend away if you have to travel far but it looked a bit of a joke on TV when there were always at least 40/50 thousand empty seats. Manchester is still a great city and worth stopping over even if you don't have to travel the length of the country to get there.

The RFL have played about with the venue, the fixtures and the weekend which it is held. For me they now have 2 out of 3 of these spot on. They need to give it time to grow properly. Either look at ways to make the fixtures more "worthwhile" or just leave it as it is and attendances should increase year on year.

This could work for either the Challenge Cup and/or the early play off games.

The problem with doing it for the playoff games is that it means teams lose the home advantage. I'm all for it for the Cup quarter finals though.

I've been to all the Magic Weekend's not in Cardiff and loved them all. For me Manchester works better than Edinburgh, there's plenty to do not too far from the ground, those who want to do it in a day can do without too much time/cost and if you want to stay over there's plenty of choice.

Maybe mess about with the fixtures a little bit but even then not too much, they were much more competitive on paper this year than last and for most teams are one of their bigger games in a year.

I think the event could really boom with the proposed mid season split.

I would like to see the event take over the city though - some free events in the city centre - like when the athletics do the city games.

Even if its tug of war , the fastest man event , junior coaching clinics, trophy pics or just getting the oval ball into peoples hands etc.

This is great. Chuffed for you, if the Magic weekend does anything itll be for you boys and girls.

When I was studying in Sheffield a lot of my friends were actually from Manchester including my housemates. I was quite surprised to find that the locals in Sheffield knew more about Rugby League than the ones from Manchester who didn't even know that there are two separate codes and that Salford City Reds exist. I tried to convert them in my three years at university but it never worked. A few friends are based in Manchester again and some worked at last weekends event and saw some of the matches and they loved it. It's things like this which is why Manchester Magic is vital, for the most part people in and around the city don't know what a fantastic and value for money for sport they have in the region.