Good morning Texans Fam, we’re super stoked! so after 20 years of waiting on the waitlist we were finally able to get season tickets. We bought the yellow lot parking pass. My question is; is how does the tailgating system work? Never done it before but we’re excited to start a new tradition for every season going forward. What should I bring to contribute? What time should we get there? Is there fees to pay? Thanks in advance for any tips or suggestions.
Having lived in the Yellow Low for 19 seasons, it pretty much depends on you and/or your group.
You and your group can do your own thing or you can see about joining another group. I can’t speak to joining a group since we did our own thing. But once you’re there enough, see the same people every game, and start making friends, it shouldn’t be a big deal to join in.
If you do your own thing, first of all your group, of course, needs to park together. Getting there early would pretty much guarantee that. How early? That really depends on where you want to park. When the gates open it’s open season on where to park. We always parked in the 1st row up front on the grass so we had to be there pretty early to secure that real estate. For a noon game gates would open at 8 am. We would be parked, lined up on Main Street an hour or more, usually more, before. Again when the gates finally open you pretty much have your pick of where to park. It’s a big lot and only about a quarter to a third of it is grass parking. Personally I prefer the grass, especially early in the season, over the concrete jungle. But things can get a little messy on the grass if the weather is bad.
You’ll definitely need some popup canopies. How many will depend on how big you group is and how many parking spots you have together. Some stakes or sand bags or tying them down to heavy objects like coolers and such is necessary because it can get windy at times and you don’t want your canopy flying off and scraping and scratching somebody’s vehicle. You’ll also need chairs and tables and coolers with plenty of drinks of your choice.
Early in the season we had a generator run a big ass shop fan. That kept those 95 degree days much much more tolerable. Late in the season we had a fire pit for the colder days.
If you’re cooking you’ll need something to cook on, grill, camp stove or something of that nature, and you’ll need all the utensils and essentials that go with it. Charcoal or propane, spatulas, knives, forks, spoons, plates, bowls, paper towels, spices, trash bags and stuff like that.
Sounds like a lot but with a group you can get organized fairly easy. And of course the more you do it the more routine it becomes.
As for game time, we would start breaking things down around 11 and start the long walk to the stadium around 11:20 or so. That gave us plenty of time to get to our seats before kickoff.
So that’s just a small rundown of how we used to go about it. Of course this will be the 5th season since I’ve been out there so I don’t know how much has changed.
Oh, and being a new resident of Yellow Lot, you’ll need to hunt down Shotgun 30. Every 30 minutes, top and bottom of the hour. They’re always up front, 1st row on the grass.
