Rhinos Challenge, one of the Leeds Rhinos Foundation’s flagship events took place this weekend, and the annual Rugby League festival which is run in partnership with ESF Events once again proved to be a big success for 70 teams from across the country.
The event, which was held at the Butlins resort in Skegness and was played across two days, is the largest festival of Rugby League in the country and this year brought in over 3000 players and spectators to the resort to take part in the unique tour experience.
Among some of the highlights of this year’s event were visits from special guest Leeds Rhinos stars Jamie Jones-Buchanan and Tom Briscoe, who met players and supporters at the festival and were present at the spectacular presentation events on the final day.
Commenting on the event Briscoe said: “It’s great to see so many teams and players participating over the weekend. There are over 70 teams here from all over the country, so that’s pretty incredible for the Leeds Rhinos Foundation to set up a programme like that.
“It will be great for the kids to come and get a bit of personal time on stage and get a picture as something to remember, it’s a brilliant concept and a great idea. ESF events and the Leeds Rhinos Foundation have done a great job organising it, if you take a look around here everything is running on schedule, they’ve done a great job and it looks like everyone is having a good time.”
Leon Crick, Leeds Rhinos Foundation's Community Manager, who worked in partnership with ESF Events to organise this year’s event said: “It’s been a real success this year to provide the festival for this many teams, we can’t speak highly enough of the level of organisation and the highly professional approach from the ESF team to make it such a spectacle and memorable event for all the teams who have made the trip over to Skegness this weekend.
“We’ve had teams from all over the region that are from traditional Rugby League areas in Yorkshire and Lancashire but also from further afield and coming from as far as Sussex this year, so the event has grown and clearly the Rhinos Challenge is a household name and hopefully first on the list of tour destinations again next year.”
Speaking on the first day of the event, Martyn Young from ESF events said: “We’ve been working with Leeds Rhinos and the Leeds Rhinos Foundation for three years now, the numbers have grown each year, last year we had about 45 to 50 teams and 2000 people, we are up to 3000 people and 70 teams from all over the United Kingdom.
“We couldn’t actually cope with the demand this year so we sold out in about November time and had to turn away clubs which is always a shame, so we are speaking to Butlins at the moment to see if we can expand next year and really turn this into a huge festival and the go-to event for Rugby League teams around the country.”
For more information on getting involved in the event next year contact leon.crick@leedsrugbyfoundation.org
A video from the event can be seen below: