Georgia Florida Game – A Bucket List Event
Sports

Georgia Florida Game – A Bucket List Event

There really isn’t a tailgate event that is more anticipated, participated and lived to the fullest than the Georgia/Florida game in Jacksonville, FL. The only other event that could possibly rival this is speed week at the Daytona 500 and that would still be a distant 2nd place.

Over the years, Tailgater Magazine staff, has had the opportunity to tailgate at some of the largest and most celebrated sports events across the country including Super Bowls, College National Championships, MLB World Series, NCAA Final Four games, NASCAR races, Indy Car races, Metallica & Jimmy Buffet concerts and many more. However, the Florida/Georgia game is the mother of all tailgates bar none.

We challenge any reader to send info, photos and a story of the one tailgate that you think can rival this one. We’re not just talking smack here; instead, we’re going to give you all the reasons why this must be on every sports fan’s bucket list.

A group of us rented two RVs and towed our tailgate party trailer to Jacksonville. We didn’t get there until Thursday afternoon and as we pulled into our lot one of the police officers said, “you’re late aren’t ya”. Pretty crazy to think some of these people had been there for four days already.

It finally dawned on me why the NCAA no longer wants this event nicknamed “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party”. A cocktail party is typically a 3–4-hour social event including light food and adult beverages. This is NO cocktail party; it’s closer to Mardi Gras and Woodstock. We’re talking a 5-day full-out throwdown with ridiculous amounts of awesome southern food, live entertainment and enough adult beverages that could fill Olympic-size swimming pools. This is the ‘Tailgatepalooza”, “Tailgaters Nirvana” and “The Supergate of Tailgating” all rolled into one. Below are the reasons why:

1. Fans start to line up at Midnight on the Sunday before the Saturday afternoon game in the streets to get into the RV lots. 

2. The first RV tailgate lot opens at 6am on Wednesday before the game, and the party begins. 

3. The City of Jacksonville realizes this is the single largest revenue producing event for the city each year and fully embraces the fan enthusiasm. (Police Included) 

4. The most awesome tailgate set-ups you have ever seen, including RVs, buses, campers, trailers, trucks and cars. 

5. Enough tricked out golf carts to stage a world class golf cart show and the city allows you to drive with adult beverages all over downtown until about 9am on Saturday (gameday) morning. We drove a golf cart to a grocery store (a couple of miles away) to get more champagne and orange juice on gameday morning – mimosas anyone?

6. Did we mention an awesome police department that deals with 100,000 knuckleheads for five days with phenomenal tolerance? 

7. The only place we know of where two bitter rivals, Bulldogs and Gators can co-exist for five days sharing food, beverage, and fellowship without acting like idiots towards each other. It’s always well-behaved smack talking. 

8. With this game always being around Halloween Weekend, tailgaters not only decorate for their team but also for Halloween. On Friday night kids trick or treat through the RV lots. 

9. There are over 10 RV/tailgate lots to choose from that allow multi-day tailgating. There are the wide-open party lots, the nice spacious grass lots, the senior lots and the close to the stadium lots and the family lots. They are all no more than three or four blocks away. 

10. There are many vendors that provide a variety of services for tailgaters right to your door. These include pump out services for RVs and trailers, water fill service, ice deliveries, Porta potty deliveries, golf cart deliveries and food deliveries. You can even rent an RV already parked in the lot.

11. There are great bars/restaurants you can drive your golf carts to at night. 

12. Live entertainment in certain RV lots on the nights before the game. 

13. Plenty of kids, dogs and families, just pick the lot that fits your crew. 

14. You can rent an actual train car on the tracks to tailgate in at two different lots. 

15. You don’t mind spending four hours to setup because you have 4-5 days to enjoy it. 

16. Last but certainly not least, a great SEC rivalry football game. Exactly half of the tickets go to the Gators and half go to the Bulldogs. This is one of the hardest college tickets to get.

We are sure there are a lot more reasons to go to this event that we forgot, but if you like tailgating with a bunch of good folks this is a great time and should be experienced at least once in your tailgating life.