Building a Tailgate Trailer

[BullsOnParadeTG]

16 hours ago, puc86 said:

Congrats on your Tailgate victory, it was nice to congratulate your work in person.

Thanks for stopping by and saying Hi. Always good to meet up with Bulls Pen peeps. 

[chrisdashley]

Great getting to meet up. Your trailer looks great. See you in a couple weeks.

[BullsOnParadeTG]

3 hours ago, chrisdashley said:

Great getting to meet up. Your trailer looks great. See you in a couple weeks.

Yeah. Yours was great too. We will be there. We are getting the decals this week so it should be better. 

[Brad]

Brings back (bad) memories.  I never tailgated anywhere prior to USF's first season.

My first football tailgate - Kentucky Wesleyan - Subway sandwiches

We (wife and in-laws) felt odd and out of place.  Underachievers.

Graduated to the disposable grill. Scrapped that.  

Kept thinking small - brought the little portable grill with the green portable propane tank.

By about midseason, We went to a larger grill, but coals.

By the time I left Tampa (around 2005 I think) , we were full on canopy, tables, large propane grill, steaks and shrimp on the barbie, TV, music.

We even threw footballs until the lot nazis shut that down.

Back then, we only got three hours to tailgate, so my pregame was set it up for everybody, cook, break it down and run into the stadium.  I am glad you have so much longer now.

Anyway, I think had I stayed in the area, I might give you guys a run for your money... 

 

[MikeG]

3 minutes ago, Brad said:

Brings back (bad) memories.  I never tailgated anywhere prior to USF's first season.

My first football tailgate - Kentucky Wesleyan - Subway sandwiches

We (wife and in-laws) felt odd and out of place.  Underachievers.

Graduated to the disposable grill. Scrapped that.  

Kept thinking small - brought the little portable grill with the green portable propane tank.

By about midseason, We went to a larger grill, but coals.

By the time I left Tampa (around 2005 I think) , we were full on canopy, tables, large propane grill, steaks and shrimp on the barbie, TV, music.

We even threw footballs until the lot nazis shut that down.

Back then, we only got three hours to tailgate, so my pregame was set it up for everybody, cook, break it down and run into the stadium.  I am glad you have so much longer now.

Anyway, I think had I stayed in the area, I might give you guys a run for your money... 

 

you wouldn't just head over to the lot of Ohio and hang with the Bull Backers?

[Brad]

I did, after I moved out of town.

Back in those days I also parked/tailgated across the street from the stadium.

[MikeG]

as for the life cycle of a tailgater-- I can relate to Brad's post. The first game you ever go to -- someone else drives you and you hang out around all these other people who know what they are doing. The next step is driving yourself and starting to bring the food and coolers.... the grill..... now the tent/shade..... a generator would be nice so you can run a fan and what the heck-- a blender for some boat drinks..... Hey-- you have a generator-- why not bring a TV? --- wait is one tv enough-- there might be several games to watch... .... you start getting popular and recruiting friends who show up and drink all your booze (can't have that) so you start bringing keg.... next thing you know you are doing keg stands (maybe) or playing flip cup/ beer pong--- better bring that table/large piece of plywood...... well got too drunk at that last game-- maybe something a little less stressful--- horseshoes or cornhole gets added to the mix.....

and before you know it-- it takes you 45 minutes just to unpack and set up your "perfect" tailgate. You start to notice it is just you and maybe one other guy doing all this work. Then once you are done-- what do you know-- here come all the people to enjoy your hard work and ask you a billion questions or give you grief if you don't have a satellite dish...... not to worry-- they are there to help you pack up. But they don't know JACK about how the stuff fits in your completely pack SUV..... so you end up doing it yourself in stages as you slowly break down the tailgate around 30-45 minutes before kickoff (depends on how deep you have gone into this)..... and your friends stand around watching you sweat your arse off as you do all this work, occasionally throwing in a sarcastic comment at your expense as they grab another beer out of your cooler because the keg is dead (or worse-- they don't like draft beer?)... but before you are done-- they decide to leave (don't want to miss kickoff) and you are still breaking it all down and putting it away--- which you finish and the parking lot is practically empty  as you towel your sweat off and throw on your game shirt, grab a walk up beer or two, lock it up and start the trek into the game.

yeah--- at some point-- you just sort of think about and think-- hey, maybe I should dial this back a bit and just bring a cooler and couple of cheers and spend my time enjoying myself instead of hosting everyone's tailgate. You have officially burned out on be the tailgate all star.

Happened to me. Happens to just about everyone I've ever watched go through this life cycle. It was fun and a learning experience and at first- a hell of a lot of fun. The key is probably to have a solid and well trained team. It is possible to do this without killing yourself. And a ready to go operation like you are shooting for with the trailer will definitely help. I got it down to a science by the time right before I left Tampa-- mini setup.....

 

[MikeG]

I might add-- that build up of what you are bringing (designated by all those "....... " above) is over the course of 4 or 5 seasons typically. You can go faster but usually it is monkey see, monkey do.

Edited September 11, 2018 by MikeG

[MikeG]

16 minutes ago, Brad said:

I did, after I moved out of town.

Back in those days I also parked/tailgated across the street from the stadium.

Yep- no doubt. Thy did open up the time you could start there a bit iirc but you still had to deal with those lot attendants who never seemed very friendly. A warning for throwing around a football? Yeesh-- that was the last time I parked in one of those lots.

MikeG blathers on forever below.... TLDR: we found a better place to tailgate

For Bulls games early on, we parked in the nice shady park-- but that ended because we were making too big a mess. Instead of simply raising the charge to use the park to hire people to clean up the next day-- they closed it off for USF and Bucs games-- Really it was probably the Glaziers who made it happen so they could grab more of that parking money.

Well after they found a way to stop people from parking at Al Lopez Park, the guys I parked with over there found the lot off Ohio and we started parking there for the Bucs games and eventually we used it for the Bulls. That whole lot to ourselves for a couple of seasons and it was just us with about 6-10 cars out there. Great times-- and the Bull Backers kept trying to park in the TSA lots-- which was so hard to coordinate-- you had 15 cars and they all had to come in like they were in a parade to park near each other-- which never worked because the TSA guys would wave us to different areas. It was a pain. I told them-- hey- try this lot over here. Come when you want-- early, late-- whatever. Cheaper, better facilities. An actual bathroom. It didn't take long to convince them.

 

[CousinRicky]

7 hours ago, MikeG said:

as for the life cycle of a tailgater-- I can relate to Brad's post. The first game you ever go to -- someone else drives you and you hang out around all these other people who know what they are doing. The next step is driving yourself and starting to bring the food and coolers.... the grill..... now the tent/shade..... a generator would be nice so you can run a fan and what the heck-- a blender for some boat drinks..... Hey-- you have a generator-- why not bring a TV? --- wait is one tv enough-- there might be several games to watch... .... you start getting popular and recruiting friends who show up and drink all your booze (can't have that) so you start bringing keg.... next thing you know you are doing keg stands (maybe) or playing flip cup/ beer pong--- better bring that table/large piece of plywood...... well got too drunk at that last game-- maybe something a little less stressful--- horseshoes or cornhole gets added to the mix.....

and before you know it-- it takes you 45 minutes just to unpack and set up your "perfect" tailgate. You start to notice it is just you and maybe one other guy doing all this work. Then once you are done-- what do you know-- here come all the people to enjoy your hard work and ask you a billion questions or give you grief if you don't have a satellite dish...... not to worry-- they are there to help you pack up. But they don't know JACK about how the stuff fits in your completely pack SUV..... so you end up doing it yourself in stages as you slowly break down the tailgate around 30-45 minutes before kickoff (depends on how deep you have gone into this)..... and your friends stand around watching you sweat your arse off as you do all this work, occasionally throwing in a sarcastic comment at your expense as they grab another beer out of your cooler because the keg is dead (or worse-- they don't like draft beer?)... but before you are done-- they decide to leave (don't want to miss kickoff) and you are still breaking it all down and putting it away--- which you finish and the parking lot is practically empty  as you towel your sweat off and throw on your game shirt, grab a walk up beer or two, lock it up and start the trek into the game.

yeah--- at some point-- you just sort of think about and think-- hey, maybe I should dial this back a bit and just bring a cooler and couple of cheers and spend my time enjoying myself instead of hosting everyone's tailgate. You have officially burned out on be the tailgate all star.

Happened to me. Happens to just about everyone I've ever watched go through this life cycle. It was fun and a learning experience and at first- a hell of a lot of fun. The key is probably to have a solid and well trained team. It is possible to do this without killing yourself. And a ready to go operation like you are shooting for with the trailer will definitely help. I got it down to a science by the time right before I left Tampa-- mini setup..... 

 

+1.  Gets to be a lot of work.  People have broken canopies not knowing how to open or close. Still doing it though. With ECU at night it should be a good tailgate.