I remember going to the conventions at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, and most years it seemed to be about 90-100 degress with no breeze in most parts of the stadium. One year a speaker even passed out on the turf. So the best seats in the stadium were those right in front of the upper level openings into the concourse because the breeze would blow through the openings. There were about 40 openings around the stadium, which we usually referred to as breezeways. Anyway, a lot of families would have tarp canopies that would cover about 20 seats, and they all wanted to set up their tarps right in front of the breezeways because then you could be in the shade and have a breeze. Now, they didn't open the doors to the stadium until 8:00 AM, and the brothers who worked inside weren't allowed to reserve seats until 8:00 AM. But without fail, they would be standing right next to the breezeways at 7:59 AM, and would reserve them before anyone else had a fair shot. Once you set up your tarp, you basically claimed all 20 seats in the shade under your tarp (even though they always said you couldn't save seats for people outside of your family.) So, usually after the insiders vultured some of the breezways, there would be about 15 left of the original 40.
Once the doors opened at 8:00 A.M., there would be about 1,000 people trying to sprint up the ramps to plant their tarp in front of a breezeway. There were about 8 steep uphill ramps you had to walk up, each about 50 yards long. So it was basically a quarter mile uphill to get to a breezeway. It was so funny seeing these fat older brothers trying to carry their tarps up the ramps, racing like it was the 100 meter Olymipic finals. Some of them would get all tired out, sweat soaking through their K-Mart short-sleeve dress shirts, and they would hand the tarp off to their preteen son, hoping he could race up the rest of the way and plant the tarp in front of a breezeway like he was Neil Armstrong planting the flag on the moon. All so they could be one of the privileged few not to sweat their asses off for the day. Of course they had to repeat every day, since you could only claim the holy grail for one day at a time.
Also, the unlucky who didn't score breezeway seats would often fade during the day and retreat into the breezway itself to suck up the sweet shade and breeze. In every breezeway, you would see people just sitting on the concrete, some with blankets to lay on. A lot of them looked like homeless people, except in cheap dress clothes instead of dirty t-shirts or sweats. They would be laying down on their blankets on the concrete floor, belongings all around, perhaps their hands clutching onto a bible and a new convention release as they fell asleep on the ground. I even heard some of them snoring at times. They always made announcements during the song break not to sit on the ground in the concourse, but people always did it anyway. The attendants couldn't stop it; it would have been like trying to send rats back onto a sinking ship trying to get all of these people back into the scorching Gehenna of the general attendance seats.
