THE AFL has sought to capitalise on the impact of the new Perth Stadium, targeting a home and away attendance record in 2018 on the back of the state of the art venue.

An extra Perth match has been scheduled in 2018, with Fremantle winning the rights to play Gold Coast in an 'away' game at the new stadium in round three.

AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan believes the League can break last year's attendance record of 6,732,601 with the help of the country's second largest AFL venue. 

"It's going to be an unbelievable venue," McLachlan said as he launched the 2018 fixture at the MCG on Tuesday. 

"We expect a lot of people to want to travel and go to this venue and its addition is going to have a huge impact on the 2018 fixture generally.

"We had an extraordinary year in 2017, posting our record ever home and away attendance of over 6.7 million attending 198 matches.

"We think we can beat that attendance record in 2018, certainly helped by the addition of the new stadium in Perth."