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Gold Coast 7's - 12 & 13 Oct

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Jets

Paul McLean (56)
Staff member
So to sum up re: Skilled Park as an International 7's venue:

PROS:
  1. Good atmosphere rugby ground (really a mini Suncorp)
  2. Located on the Gold Coast (tourist mecca)
  3. Has railway connection
CONS:

  1. Poor transport facilities generally (do they allow free bus travewl to the ground as like at Suncorp?)
  2. Ground is in the middle of nowhere (Robina shopping centre nearly 2 klms away)
  3. No nearby car parking
  4. Eastern side situated in the heat of the afternoon sun
  5. Poor marketing of a major event

While there is a train station at Robina part of the issue is that it doesn't serve the Gold Coast. It is for people coming from Brisbane and it takes 1.5 hours to get there.

There is a sight for sale outside the ground with approval for a pub. I think that you would make a killing if you owned a pub there over the 7's weekend as people would leave the ground when their team wasn't playing and drink in a pub with reasonable beer prices. Anyone want to invest in it?
 

Hugh Jarse

Rocky Elsom (76)
<snip>

There is a sight for sale outside the ground with approval for a pub. I think that you would make a killing if you owned a pub there over the 7's weekend as people would leave the ground when their team wasn't playing and drink in a pub with reasonable beer prices. Anyone want to invest in it?

Who would invest if there was no guarantee of the Sevens staying at Robina in the long term?

The Pulveriser was saying that GC had the hosting rights for 2014, no longer.

Based on the inability to draw a crowd so far, the GC would have to be favoured not to host the 2015 Australian leg of the IRB Sevens.
 

Scrubber2050

Mark Ella (57)
shit support from Gold Coast and 1.5 million people up the road in Bris Vegas.

Personally the stadium is good, but located terribly and access horrible.

As much as i hate saying it - maybe a move to Melbourne may be warranted
 

TheBigDog

Nev Cottrell (35)
Some mates and I just got back from a weekend at 7s and I won't re-hash what everyone has been saying about transport, location etc but I have to say I think Skilled Park and the Gold Coast in general could work if the GC could get their transport sorted.

Lets give them a little benefit of the doubt, with the construction of the new light rail there were plenty of road works which really slowed up all the traffic etc around the main areas, in 12 months time that won't be an issue. Im not saying it will solve all the problems but at least it will alleviate some of the hassle that happened this weekend. In saying that there really needs to be either a) more dedicated transport options available directly to the stadium or b) if there are already structures in place then they need to be advertising them better because my mates and I got stuck paying $40 for cabs to and from surfers each day simply because we had no idea what other options were around.

This might just be how I feel but I think the Gold Coast venue is part of what made the weekend special. Despite all the transport hassles I would definitely go again because spending some time down the coast really got us into what the whole 'festival' atmosphere that 7s is about and a boys weekend is always a good idea if you get the missus permission haha. For me it just wouldn't be as special rocking up to Ballymore or Suncorp to watch rugby all day, I would go probably for one of the days but not both and im sure the ARU would have looked into that type of issue before settling on the GC venue.

As long as their willing to roll up their sleeves and really market the event then I say let them keep it for another couple of years and see what happens.
 
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