Welcome to New York! On behalf of Metropolitan New York Rugby Union’s Host Committee, I am happy to welcome you to Emirates Airline USA Rugby All-Star Sevens, held in New York for the second straight year.
The Tournament
Opening Ceremonies to be at 9:40 am on Saturday, featuring renown opera singer Stephen Gaertner singing the national anthem. The match schedule will be posted shortly but matches will start at approximately 10 am Saturday and run all day until approximately 5 pm. Matches resume on Sunday at approximately 9:40 and run all day with short breaks until the womens and mens finals at 2:00 and 2:30 pm respectively. The afterparty is at Papillion Bistro, East 54th St between 5th and Madison from 4:3o0 onwards.
The VIP Enclosure
New for this year are VIP tickets, a limited number of which are available from http://emiratesairlineallstarrugby.eventbrite.com/ VIP tickets are $70 per day and include unlimited wine, beer, soft drinks and catered food all day, access to VIP bleachers, tent and enclosure, and an All Access pass.
The Venue and Facilities
The competition will be held on new high-quality artificial turf fields on Randall’s Island Both the match field and a warm-up field are dedicated to the tournament all day on Saturday August 28th and Sunday the 29th. Information about the facilities is posted here. There will be bleachers, tents for players, officials and VIPs, portajohns, food service including beer and wine, a videotaping service, athletic trainers and medical professionals on site, event T Shirts for sale, and a concession with merchandise and information about USA Sevens in Las Vegas 2011. We hope to repeat last year’s arrangements for laundry service and ice baths for competitors.
Travel Arrangements
Updated Hotel Information and Google maps of local amenities are under Pre-tournament Info. We suggest those staying in Manhattan need not rent cars, as parking in Manhattan is expensive and time consuming. Subway and bus connection to Randall’s Island from the tournament hotels in Manhattan are relatively swift, and we post volunteers to help people navigate the trip early on Saturday and to the extent possible on Friday afternoon when teams visit the island for practices.
Publicity
This website will contain press releases as they are issued, sample photographs and links to photographs of this year’s event from Official Tournament Photographer Jess Bunshaft. Look for us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Eventbrite. Streaming video of the event will be on Ustream.com, and live scores will be posted to Mobilescore.
Thanks
Please join me in thanking the members of our incredibly hard-working Host Committee, who have all contributed countless hours towards this weekend’s success. We would especially like to thank Emirates Airline, Gilbert, World Rugby Shop and Canterbury and Opro for their support of USA Rugby. We also heartily thank the following organizations for their loyal support of this event:
- Village Lions RFC
- Old Blue RFC
- Gotham Knights RFC
- New York Rugby Club
We hope you enjoy your visit to New York and look forward to hosting USA Rugby and its All Stars in future.
Metropolitan New York Rugby Football Union, Inc.
Toby Butterfield, Met NY President