Can't decide if this is a good idea or not.

Weather has been grim and that hasn't helped, but an odd atmosphere with a lot of Saints and Fax fans not turning up until the 2nd half of the 1st game which left a lot of gaps in the ground.

Now we have the opposite, almost all Hull and Wire fans have gone, while the Saints fans are stuffed onto the top tier. Leaving the bottom tiers empty.

But at the same time would say Hull-Wire at Hudds or Salford and Saints-Fax at Leigh have generated a bigger crowd as separate games?

As always questions to be asked about the RFL's marketing, is a single person here from Bolton? Has anyone neutral or new been attracted?

Still a good first game despite the result!

I went to the Championship Summer Bash earlier this year and although my friends and I stayed for the whole day, the majority of fans came into the ground for their team's game then left.
It seems to be a similar situation today as there doesn't seem to be many Hull or Wire fans left in the ground

It's great on th' telly.
Been watching RL since this morning, all been good games.
I can see why it might hot have been so good at the ground and i'd say that Auntie has purposefully not had many wide pan shots of the crowd.

should make them come in for the first game and make them sit till the last game

looks poor from an outsider should be separate events for me

Yeah non starter for me, totally took away from the occasion.

One of the worst things they have ever done

Think it looks terrible with all the empty seats.

I’ve been to many semis this decade where Wire have sold twice as many tickets as they have done both years at Bolton.

Wire took more to Widnes in 2009 against Wigan than we’ve taken both years to Bolton combined; in 2010 and 2012 at Widnes and Salford we had pretty much the whole attendance against Catalans (12000) and Hudds (9000); for some reason, granted, we only took about 4000 to Hudds for the semi against Hull in 2013; but about 6000 to all semis at St Helens against Leeds in 2014, at Leeds against HKR in 2015 and at Leigh against Wakey in 2016.

It’s strange, it’s like the less tickets a club is offered thousands who would usually go don’t bother. If we all knew we could have half of Bolton’s ground over two days, all four clubs would sell thousands more tickets.

Doesn’t work for me.

It should have been Wire v Hull 15:00 Saturday and Saints v Fax 15:00 Sunday. Both at Bolton.

Bolton should now be the home of CC semifinals but do it over two days. We all know in advance that’s the aim, we’d all sell loads more tickets if we knew we had a whole half of the ground to ourselves for one match on the day. We’ve all sold more tickets to our home cup games than we took to the semi yesterday (and last year). Bizarre!

Sorry but I don’t think anyone thinks in that fashion when deciding whether to buy tickets or not.

It’s a bizarre argument to say that clubs didn’t sell their small allocation so giving them a bigger one would sell more tickets.

Double headers are definitely the way to go in my opinion. But the clubs and the sport has to start selling it as an event. I didn’t see any advertising for it anywhere. I’m signed up to loads of RL stuff including about 4 different clubs email lists and the Our League membership and didn’t get 1 email trying to get me to go. In all honesty, because my team wasn’t in it, I’d forgotten it was happening. That’s something the sport has to change if it wants the semi finals to be a success.

Also I don’t think of the choice of venue was great. Nobody gets excited about a trip to Bolton.

Spot on. Its the Marketing that is the issue. If say 1k 'neutral' fans from around Bolton had gone, id have said it was worthwhile, but given almost everyone in the ground was in club colours it looked like just the usual RL crowd had gone. Why not offer Bolton Wanderers season ticket holders cheap tickets? They could have offered Bolton players (who haven't been paid for weeks) free tickets for their families for some free PR in the local press.

The Semi's could be used to promote RL in the non-heartlands World Cup 2021 grounds such as Bolton, Middlesbrough, Coventry and Sheffield but again only if they are going to spend some time and money marketing. Otherwise we may as well be giving the crowd and gate money to smaller RL grounds.

Given that Hull had to travel the furthest, the support which followed as amazing.

You are right about Bolton (no offence to Bolton folk). The stadium had little around it to attract people in before game.

Ideal venue for Wirte / Hull would have been Headingley. For St's v Fax ideal venue would have been Salford.

it doesn't help that Bolton is a 541t hole, but now the BBC are firmly encamped in Manchester expect more of the same, the CC final leaving Wembley wouldn't surprise me.

The RFL are clueless.

How about 2 double headers - Sat & Sun, but each day game 1 is an 1895 semi and game 2 a CC semi?

That's not a bad idea, would give fans a chance to watch a couple of teams they don't normally watch too if they stayed for both.

Spot on, the only good thing about Horwich is the motorway links.