Whilst our game is watched & supported by people who cannot afford to travel, pay a reasonable price to keep clubs afloat we are trapped in a cycle of decline.
The game is now a business not a pastime. Why should it subsidise those that cannot afford to pay? The only way the poorest will enjoy the game is if wee ever achieve a mass audience where every one is fighting to get a slice of the action(as with soccer). If taking the magic weekend to ( insert country of your choice) then so be it.

Agreed sadly TrinTrin is Ralph Rimmer

Good answers then, seems the opinion is "get lost then" this way forward only ! As for being insulted of being a Ralph Rimmer, why get personal & a put down, stick to points of/at issue, and if as people quite rightly in their opinion, why should the few that can afford subsidise those that cannot afford constant high price travel, including those that already do not visit our home teams ! - - then that is what the fewer supporters will have to do, as clubs even so called bigger club s will have to do, get used to lower gates due to less travelling supporters - matter of financial facts.

There is a balance to be struck on where to stage "Magic" and there has to be some kind of purpose behind where it is held.

There is little doubt that some of the magic has gone and whether this is because of venue, the kind of games being played (ie big derby games) or, general apathy from fans, it's difficult to know.

When you think about the attendances, 30,000 per day (approx.) isn't great, especially when the event is close to the heartlands and this year, pretty much on the doorstep of 3 of Super Leagues "big" clubs.

It's quite sad that the usual 10,000 plus home crowds for these 3 clubs aren't interested in a short trip down the road to watch a "festival" of RL and we should be asking WHY.

Certainly, holding an event like this with half the cities roads closed for the marathon was just daft and there should be more thought given to the fans.
Very few want to sit though 3 games, especially in such cramped seats. So, there has to be something else, with in easy reach, to "entertain" them.

As for moving "magic" abroad, why not ?

However, there needs to be a nucleus of interested fans, plus easy access and travel for fans from over here.

Of course, if there was an appetite from the "locals", this is no problem but, there has to be a fair amount of certainty that the event wont flop.

Where would "we" want to go ?

The Nou Camp, Barcelona or Paris would be excellent locations plus maybe Dublin, Glasgow or Cardiff.
The one thing for sure is that the game does need new fans, ideally from outside the heartlands because, as we are, the same fans are being asked to pay out more and more each year to keep the game afloat and while there are plenty of fans with decent amounts of disposable income, there are many that cant afford to attend all of the events that there are and this is before our friends from North America join the big time.

Get rid of it, you get rid of magic weekend, you'll see an increase in challenge cup attendances.

Not saying its back to sell outs but it'll certainly go up by a few thousand neutrals

I dont follow your logic with that one.
The main reason for the fall off in interest in the Cup Final is that we hade The Grand Final as the end of season show piece event.
Back in the day, the end of the season was the Challenge Cup Final and what a great celebration of RL it was, something that will never come back.

Wembley was pretty much the only major event and packed full of neutrals from every club in the country (plus the fans of the two finalists) whereas now, those neutrals have so much more choice in which RL "event" they wish to attend.
Magic, Summer bash, a trip to France and/ or Canada, Grand Final, International fixtures etc, etc and the harsh reality is that they cant / wont attend every one.

Getting back to the Challenge Cup.
Despite the success of Bradford and Halifax this time around, with SL clubs (apart from the bottom 4) coming into the comp so late, the romance of the cup has long since disappeared and apart from the chance meeting of 2 big clubs, which would attract a decent attendance, the only way to significantly increase attendances would be to include Challenge Cup fixtures within season tickets, although this would be grossly unfair on the smaller clubs.

What's the capacity at Catalans ground.
They have a lot of enthusiastic local supporters and most of the visiting English fans who go seem to have a good time.

Somewhere approaching 13,000

Perhaps the last 16 matches of the challenge cup are played over 2 days at one venue as the magic weekend?

If you want to increase the attendance of the challenge cup you add more value to it. Playing 4 games to get to a major final simply isnt enough, its not hard enough anymore (unless you're Leeds).

Thanks, that would rule that out.
Shame because somewhere near there would be a good location especially if a Toulouse championship match was added to the programme

Magic weekend has to be taken to Barcelona. There is no point playing a one off game there and not following it up. A super league record crowd was the result of having it at the Nou camp and we need to build on this momentum so we can uncover the next generation of spanish rugby league legends like Adria Alonso and Carlos Jane

The Nou Camp isn't too far from Perpignan, hence Catalan playing the Wigan game there and the iconic status of that Stadium, plus it's proximity to the centre of Barcelona, would give the event far more than we had at Anfield. However, as the op intimated, it would be out of reach, financially, for many traditional fans. Not that the fans are considered too often.
More and more, the existing fans seem to be treated as cash cows and dispensable in equal measure.

Toulouse is a great city & easy to get to. The football & RU grounds hold >30,000 & 20,000.

I have been a fan of this idea since the first Magic weekend. The main reason is I don’t like the uneven number league of fixtures. The big problem I see is that magic WE is a sky driven idea & they don’t have full coverage of the cup? Look how much effort they put into it now, practically zero. If we had a super league of 14 teams we could get rid of uneven fixture lists & the two game Easter programme.