THE AFL's all-time crowd record for a week of finals football has been broken, with close to 300,000 people coming through the gates over the weekend.

More than 92,000 flocked to the MCG on both Thursday and Friday nights before a crowd of 68,465 on Saturday afternoon and a sold-out Gabba on Saturday night saw the total for the four games reach 289,147 people.

It surpasses the 283,150 fans who attended week one of the finals back in 2018.

The 92,636 that watched the qualifying final between Collingwood and Melbourne on Thursday night was the biggest to watch a game between the two clubs since 1964.

And the 92,026 that saw Carlton beat Sydney 24 hours later was also a record between the two clubs, surpassing the previous mark of 66,106 in the 1986 qualifying final.

The previous best attended finals weekend in history came five years ago when crowds of more than 90,000 came to the MCG for the Richmond v Hawthorn and Melbourne v Geelong games. Close to 60,000 watched West Coast beat Collingwood at Optus Stadium in Perth and 40,000 saw GWS beat Sydney at the SCG.

This weekend was the first time since 2013 that three finals at the MCG had been held on the same weekend.

There's expected to be more huge crowd numbers for the upcoming semi-finals, with Melbourne v Carlton at the MCG and Port Adelaide v Greater Western Sydney at Adelaide Oval. Tickets for those matches go on sale on Monday.

The crowds for week one of finals come after the AFL broke its own crowd record during the regular season, breaking through the seven million barrier for the first time.

BIGGEST CROWD FOR ONE WEEK OF FINALS

2023 - 289,147
2018 - 283,150
2011 - 270,678
2022 - 263,897
2009 - 241,315