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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.
The first travel row is your leave-by time. Put in your tip-off time, tap any duration, and the plan recomputes backward.
NBA game night at State Farm Arena, home of the Atlanta Hawks. For a concert here, start from the concert night plan instead: a support act sets the deadline rather than the anthem.
Want this on your phone? Ready Time sends an alert when it’s time to start each step.
Ready Time
You know what you need to do. Ready Time helps you know when to start.
The 20-minute drive is a typical run from Atlanta without game-day traffic (the optimistic number). In the app, set State Farm 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 State Farm 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 State Farm 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 train stops at the building: SEC District station is steps from Gates 2, 4 and 5. It was renamed at the end of 2025, so older directions call it GWCC/CNN Center. It is on the Blue and Green lines. From the Red and Gold lines, which serve the airport and Midtown, change at Five Points, one stop east. A night tip-off puts you on the roads into downtown at the end of the evening commute.
The arena runs its own parking: State Farm Drive at the entrance, the Diamond Deck and the Ruby Lot a short walk away, plus the Sapphire Deck and the CTR Garage on Centennial Olympic Park Drive. All of it sells through ParkMobile, and the arena says booking ahead gets you a guaranteed spot at the lowest price. Lyft is the Hawks’ rideshare partner.
About an hour before tip-off
Doors open at State Farm Arena
That is the earliest you can get in. Check State Farm Arena policies & FAQs 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, and Hawks season ticket members get in fifteen minutes earlier. Bags can be up to 14 by 14 by 6 inches and do not have to be clear, but backpacks and hard-sided bags are turned away at any size. A paid bag valet by Gate 2 holds anything that doesn’t pass. No outside food or drink, the building is cashless, and there is no re-entry.
State Farm Arena was previously called Philips Arena, 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 5:55 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, 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. Check State Farm Arena policies & FAQs 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. 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.
Start the plan in the app, and the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island show the time left, with a bar that fills as each step passes.
Glance at it on the walk in without opening the app.
Live Activities are part of Premium, a one-time unlock.
“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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