Index
All 27 guides
The complete register, in the order the day runs. Every section landing page carries the same list for its own guides.
01 · The Lots
- Why the lots open at dawnGates open six or seven hours before kick-off, and the time is not idle. It is setup, cooking, holding, eating and breaking down again — a whole event that happens before the one people bought tickets for, and for a good many people it is the better half.
- Claiming a spaceArrival order decides everything about the day, including whether you get shade.
- Power in the lotMost setups have none, which is the constraint the rest of the day is built around.
02 · Cooking for Twenty
- Cooking off one vehicleEverything must travel, work on asphalt and pack away dirty. That rules out most of a kitchen.
- What travels and what does notAnything that has to be finished at temperature is a risk; anything that improves sitting in a covered tray is an asset.
- Holding without powerInsulated boxes, hot bricks and volume. Mass is what keeps food hot.
- One pot for twentyScaling down the number of things rather than up the size of each.
03 · Ice as a Budget
04 · The Table Plan
- Serve from one long sideA queue needs a direction. Tables accessible from all sides produce a scrum.
- Shade at noonA canopy's footprint moves through the day, and where you pitch at nine is not where the shade is at one.
- Standing room, kept clearThe space people occupy is a bigger constraint than the space the kit occupies.
- DownwindWhere the grill goes relative to everybody else.
05 · The Walk In
06 · Making Noise
- The student sectionStanding, dense and organised — a crowd arranged to be loud, which is a different thing from a crowd that happens to be.
- Call and responseChants that need two halves of a stadium and work because they are simple enough to learn in one hearing.
- The marching bandA hundred-odd musicians functioning as the crowd's tempo section, and the drill that makes it possible.
- Why noise mattersIt genuinely interferes with the visiting side's communication.
07 · Pack-Down
08 · A Town That Doubles
- A town that doublesSix Saturdays a year a small city takes on a second population, and everything from water pressure to policing is sized for it.
- The economics of six SaturdaysBusinesses that make a large share of the year's takings in a handful of days.
- The rest of the yearWhat an enormous stadium is for on the other three hundred and fifty-nine days.