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George, I entirely agree that Magic is suffering an identity crisis. It seems to lack appeal to the local audience, and without the derbies and initial novelty, it doesn't seem to want to make SL fans travel. RU have held Guiness Prem games at big venues on their fans' doorstep - shouldn't RL be doing the same? I'm all in favour of expansion, but I think a third full stadium at Murrayfield is counter-productive to the image of the game. Jamie Peacock suggested a big kick off idea, and I think that would be far more likely to be a success. 3 double headers hosting local derbies at places like Anfield, City of Manchester or Elland Road, and then maybe an expansion team hosting another expansion team with a local National League team making up a double header I.e Skolars when Quins hosting Cats, Toulouse when Cats host Quins. Seems we have alot to do to maximise our support closer to home and in current expansion areas, as oppossed to trying to do so in regions that have no enthusiasm for the game.

The problem is that the fans will travel the distance, but only if they can see a point to it. In cardiff, we were looking to promote crusaders. We could see a point to it. Plus there were derby matches. The matches last year, while not all derbies, were still important. But this year, the matches are relatively low profile, with the added problem that there is no lower league team we can be seen trying to promote, a team that can ride on the back of the event to promote itself. So the concept of a round like this needs to be promoting the sport meningfully, such as trying newcastle to promote gateshead. We could always try the old 'on the road' if this concept is ditched.

What's more, George, is you'll get to see a Melbourne-born player in the final of a world championship.

I'm sure Neil won't need to be checked for a second book of accounts, though ;)

I really couldnt be bothered to trek all the way north to see Rovers (as it happened) get trounced by Saints.
There is no "magic" in this weekend at all.
The best place for this would be either as a massive season starter or a fantastic way to end the season.
Imagine, going to a (hopefully) sunny venue, and over the course of 2 days deciding the league leaders shield & final playoff places?
That might just get more people interested in the game.

George
To a point I agree with your arguement without the derbies the magic wkend could be anywhere and all it becomes without them is a junket for the games controllers. You/ we the game (fans) need that extra incentive to drag ourselves out of our comfort zones and suport our teams and more importantly (though difficlut for some) The Game.
I and the guys I dragged across from Glasgow (I know not that far) enjoyed it if a little lacking in atmoshere, its a cavern of a stadium and even with 30,000 it can still seem empty.
I don't want to see the weekend disappear and for us more northern fans its a rare opportunity to see our teams and games. Regional fan bases are important to the game and this is a way of thanking them, remember you lot in th heartlands who moan about a trip away... cost etc and I know times are hard but put yourself in our positions we can't nip up and down the M74/M6 week in week out either. So its a treat like Christmas in May for us.
If as an event it is to be retained then the format needs looking at.
If not Derbies or super league matches what about and here's a stab in the dark an all day 7's style cup!!! A one off show case that could move annually around the counrty. I know it's different but its all about promotion in the end, isn't it?

PS Magic Weekend for Glasgow!!!! its better than Edinburgh Hampden Park is more compact for a start still holds 50,000+

and to follow on from Glas-Warrior how about making the 7s comp contribute to points in the league.

4 pools randomly drawn, 2 pools of 4 team, the other 2 with 3
games 10 minutes each way
winner of each pool qualifies for semis

First day you have the first 12 pool matches, start around 1pm finish around 9pm

Second day you have remaining 6 matches, then semis and final - less matches but you'll need to have more of a breather in between.

don't get through your pool - 0 points
lose in the semi's 1 points
lose in the final 2 points
winner 4 points

the maximum number of minutes a player could be on the field for would be 100 - (3 pools games, semi and final) and over the course of a weekend with subs that shouldn't be any worse than a normal weekend.

what's more you're more likely to have a full stadium as all the teams will play on the same day (admittedly that might be the down side with availability for accommodation )

is it a gimmick, yes of course it is, but would it be interesting, something new, and something getting RL talked about - definitely

In theory, the concept of a Magic weekend is good. Take the best players in Super League and show a non-heartland area what we can offer them in one stadium over one weekend. But how many locals, from both Cardiff and Edinburgh actually went? Not many. When you look at it like that, all we are doing is uprooting fans to far off places, where the locals don't really have an interest, to watch regular season games.

What has been served up in the last 4 years has been half empty stadiums watching 6 and now 7 games. Union fill these stadiums for just the one match. I'm not knocking the RFL for giving it a go. We have to try things. It is trail and error but I don't think Edinburgh has done anything different for the game. We should move on.

Edinburgh isn't child friendly. A lot of pubs don't allow children in to have a bottle of pop and this puts families off but the law is there for a reason so it's a tough one.

So how do we solve the problem?

Firstly, the stadium size has to be re-evaluated. Murrayfield is simply too big and it looks bad on TV when everyone comes dressed as empty seats. How does a half empty stadium sell the game to the wondering public? I'd look at a stadium of around 40k - Anfield perhaps. But this is the least of the worries. We should be more concerned about when the Magic weekend happens. I'd prefer, as has been discussed many times, for it to happen at week one. We labour into the season - lets start with a bang! I reckon we'd fill a stadium of Anfield size pretty well because everyone loves the first week after the post season. It is back to normality for the Leaguey.

Liverpool's nightlift is amazing too but I don't know much about their accomodation requirements.

The RFL may argue that Liverpool is on the heartlands corridor - I say so what? Cardiff didn't warm to RL, neither has Edinburgh - and why we are trying to expand a wafer thin code in terms of infrastructure is beyond me. Expand from within, let's get the Workington's, Whitehaven's and Keighley's improved first. Get that right first before including the likes of Toulouse.

This comes back to my belief that the game as a whole in Britain is not yet strong enough to expand and as such the Magic weekends serve only to visit somewhere different so we can all get sozzled. Good concept, bad planning IMO.