Doors open about an hour before tip-off here. Put in your tip-off time below and it works backward to when you need to leave the house.
Every row is editable. Tap the tip-off or any duration and the plan recomputes backward. The first travel row is your leave-by time.
NBA game night at Ball Arena, home of the Denver Nuggets. For a concert here, start from the concert night plan instead: a support act sets the deadline rather than the anthem.
The 20-minute drive is a typical run from Denver without game-day traffic (the optimistic number). In the app, set Ball Arena as the destination and Apple Maps fills in the time from where you’re leaving.
Then add for game day: thousands aiming at the same exit and lots (real drive to Ball Arena). Change the row and every step before it moves.
The time on your ticket is when the ball goes up. Both teams warm up on the floor before that, and the introductions run right up to it. Aim for ten to fifteen minutes earlier if you want to be in your seat for any of it.
Screening at the doors usually decides it. Every NBA arena runs walk-through detectors, and the queue is the gap between arriving and being inside. People who miss the start rarely misjudge the drive; they misjudge the lot walk and the line.
Start times here are the team's own. The NBA sells no national window, so a game goes on when the building and the market suit and there is nothing to convert from Eastern. These are the slots this team plays most often.
These are Ball Arena’s own times. The team publishes start times with the schedule in the summer and a few move again for television during the season, so take the time on your ticket over the one you remember.
Cup group games, Christmas Day, the Martin Luther King Jr. Day afternoon and a nationally televised night run their own times. Type those in on the tip-off row.
The light rail stops at the building. Ball Arena/Elitch Gardens is served by the C, E and W lines. The D and H lines are suspended while RTD rebuilds the downtown track, so a route that worked last season may not be running now, and the C line is what replaced the D. There is an RTD bus stop at 9th Street and Auraria Parkway, and the free MallRide runs the 16th Street Mall, currently on 15th and 17th while the mall is rebuilt.
Driving, the arena’s own directions send you off I-25 at exit 210B for Auraria Parkway from the south and exit 212B onto Chopper Circle from the north; from downtown it is Speer Boulevard to Auraria Parkway.
The lots are named after Toyota models and they ring the building, but only some of them take the public. 4Runner and Tundra are the general ones, Elitch’s Lot next door is open too, and RAV4 is the premier lot with the closest spaces. Corolla is permit-only on a game night and Tacoma is not open to the public at all, so aim at a lot by name rather than at the first sign you see.
They open three hours before the game, and buying the spot alongside the ticket on Ticketmaster locks the rate in ahead of the drive-up price. Accessible spaces are first come, first served, and most of them are in Camry North. Rideshare pick-up and drop-off happens in one place only, the entrance at 5th and Walnut inside the 4Runner West lot.
About an hour before tip-off
Doors open at Ball Arena
That is when you can get in, not when you have to. The official Ball Arena policies and FAQ has the real time for your game.
Bag rules are the arena's own here and they run from a wallet-sized clutch to a bag that fits under your seat. Getting it wrong usually means walking back to the car and re-entering the line. Check the arena's page for current sizes rather than a size you remember.
Doors open an hour before tip-off for most of the arena and ninety minutes if your ticket is a club seat or a suite, so the queue you meet depends on which one you hold. Screening is Evolv Express, which you walk through without emptying your pockets. Bags are strict: nothing over 4 by 6 by 1.5 inches, with diaper and medical bags allowed up to 14 by 14 by 6.
A bag that fails has somewhere to go, which is not true everywhere: bag check sits near the Infinity Sculpture in the Grand Atrium Plaza, starts at fifteen dollars, opens half an hour before general doors and closes an hour after the final whistle. There is no re-entry.
Ball Arena was previously called Pepsi Center, so older directions and tickets may still use that name.
Doors, lots and bag rules change; the official site is the live source.
Save this plan in Ready Time and every step gets its own alert on game night.
Ready Time
You know what you need to do. Ready Time helps you know when to start.
Doors open about an hour before tip-off here; that is when the crowd starts arriving, not when you have to. Being through the doors about half an hour before tip-off covers screening, the walk to your section, and a stop on the concourse.
Work backward from tip-off: minutes in your seat beforehand, walk to your section, security screening, walk from the lot, parking, then the drive (20 minutes in the default plan). That puts leave-by at 5:52 PM for a 7:00 PM tip-off. Change the tip-off time and every row moves.
It is whatever the team has scheduled, and these are local times rather than a converted national window. On this arena's clock: a weekend matinee tips off at 3:00 PM, an early-evening game at 6:00 PM, a night game at 7:00 PM, a later start at 8:00 PM. This example uses the night game window. Cup games, holiday afternoons and nationally televised nights run their own times; the tip-off row is editable for those.
The plan allows 10 minutes for a normal walk-through queue. It runs longer in the twenty minutes before tip-off. Arriving fifteen minutes off that peak is usually enough.
About an hour before tip-off here. The official Ball Arena policies and FAQ publishes the real time for your game.
Not in the lots here. If you are meeting people somewhere else, add that as a step and everything before it moves earlier.
Assume the limit is small and check the arena's own. Check the arena's own page for current sizes. The timing risk is being turned around at the door and walking back to the car: the walk twice and a second trip through the queue.
Flying in? The airport pages. Taking Amtrak? The station pages. No stadium listed? The tailgate timeline is the same plan without a particular lot.
Ready Time keeps the plan and subtracts again when the tip-off changes. Put in next week's game and the same steps land on new times, with an alert on each one.
Get a nudge at the right moment, while there's still time to act.
Each step gets its own alert, so you know what's next and how long you have.
“A key part of my planning process. Well worth the investment.”App Store review
Ready Time
You know what you need to do. Ready Time helps you know when to start.
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