Newcastle to play at St James's Park

[Puja]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/42067034

Good move from the Falcons if they play it right. It's the weekend after the 6N, Northampton are an eminently beatable opponent while still being likely to bring a chunk of away support, and, if they take a leaf out of the Saracens book and offer free tickets to schools, service people, massively discounted tickets and hype it up as a big event, I reckon they could draw a decent crowd.

They'll need at least 20k for it to be any kind of a PR success, as anything less would leave them feeling lost in the 52k stadium. But they draw 7,400 on average, so trebling that for a special event should be within their grasp if they work at it.

Puja

[ad_tigger]

sounds like a cracking idea. I watched NZ-Tonga there during the RWC (from the Shepherd family box as it happens) and it's a lovely stadium.

[Tigersman]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/42067034

Good move from the Falcons if they play it right. It's the weekend after the 6N, Northampton are an eminently beatable opponent while still being likely to bring a chunk of away support, and, if they take a leaf out of the Saracens book and offer free tickets to schools, service people, massively discounted tickets and hype it up as a big event, I reckon they could draw a decent crowd.

They'll need at least 20k for it to be any kind of a PR success, as anything less would leave them feeling lost in the 52k stadium. But they draw 7,400 on average, so trebling that for a special event should be within their grasp if they work at it.

Puja

Shame their current run of form has ended hopefully they get another run like it.

[Dasheragain]

I went to university up there and went to Kingston Park far more than St James's park. I was always slightly surprised at how small the rugby set-up was and that whilst the town/toon are proud of their sports teams, they're not all flooding down to watch the rugby every weekend. As has been said, I hope they market this aggressively and make it super cheap, otherwise I could see it being a tad quiet...

[Mellsblue]

If it’s priced correctly I might take the kids to watch.