WHEN an event takes place in front of more than 50,000 empty seats, it should be only natural for everyone concerned to try to think of ways of increasing the attendance in future years. And one of the first factors that people look at, because it so often has an influence on the size of the crowd, is price.

Which is why Phil Smith, the head coach of Heriot’s, suggested earlier this week that in future there might be free admission to BT Cup Finals day. He did not claim that such a move would come anywhere close to filling Murrayfield, where his own team will take on Melrose in this year’s final on Saturday (and where admission costs £10 for adults and £5 for concessions). But he did argue that it was worth trying out, if only as a one-off.

Certainly, there is no harm at all in assessing the worth of any idea that might improve the attendance at finals day and hence the prestige not only of the cup competition, but also of Scottish club rugby as a whole. For the players who get to take part in one of the six finals - the Cup, Shield and Bowl for men, and the Cup, Plate and Bowl for women - the experience remains a very special day out. But for the wider community the occasion simply lacks the appeal it once did.

The attendance over the course of the day was 10,074 last year, when the event returned to Murrayfield after being held at Broadwood in Cumbernauld in 2014. That is around half what it was in the early years of the tournament, and even if the weather is exceptionally good on Saturday we are unlikely to see a much bigger figure this time round. The capacity at the national stadium is 67,000, which means we will have roughly five vacant seats for every occupied one.

So is free admission the answer? Various Scottish football clubs have tried that out on a one-off basis, or invited fans to pay what they can or are willing to cough up, and according to one marketing man there is little or no long-term benefit.

“It's difficult to make a hard and fast rule, but traditionally, I would say no to making an event free or pay-what-you-can,” says Lawrence Broadie, owner of sports agency Electrify Marketing & Communications. “It doesn't create a sustainable culture. You want to engage people, and you need to establish that they're actually interested in being there, otherwise it's short-termism.

“Football clubs have found that when they've made matches free, or invited supporters to pay what they like, that there has been a very modest increase on the night. And that increase soon falls off in subsequent fixtures.

"We've seen football clubs have a pay-as-you-like match, and get about 200 extra people turning up. When it's just people putting money into a bucket on the way in, you don't know who they are or how to engage with them - or what might make them come back.”

Of course, parents who have the chance to take their children to a free event that lasts all day might not be so concerned with how they “engage” with Scottish Rugby, but you can understand that the governing body would prefer to look at the issue in marketing terms. So what else might be done?

Heriot’s have undertaken a sustained campaign to get supporters along this year and have distributed coming on for 2,000 tickets to schools in the Edinburgh area. Hawick, last year’s finalists, took 23 buses to Murrayfield. Other clubs also make a considerable effort to swell the attendance.

But there appears to be little or no broader, nationwide publicity drive. At the weekend, for example, quite a few supporters went on social media to ask how they could buy tickets for finals day, and how much they cost. Some of those supporters are known to be committed rugby enthusiasts - surely a key target group for any advertising campaign. So if they don’t know, how likely is it that anyone with a less active enthusiasm for the sport will know?

There have been some notable successes in marketing Scottish rugby in recent years, with the national team and Glasgow Warriors being the biggest and best examples. Both Scotland internationals at Murrayfield and Warriors games at Scotstoun have been sell-outs this season, and - just as importantly from a marketing point of view - many fans spend a fair amount of money once they are inside the stadium.

So it can be done. Advertising budgets are finite, of course, but it would hardly cost the earth to run a nationwide publicity campaign. After all, the clubs are largely run by volunteers, and there cannot be a single club in the country that would refuse to help publicise a tournament that it has entered. There would certainly be no harm in looking at the cost of admission before next year’s finals day, but it is the competition as a whole that needs to be better promoted, from the first round onwards.