They’re one of tailgaters’ most coveted spots, peeking out from the oaks in unassuming manners. They’re just as necessary as the tailgating tents, the stadium and the tables brimming with food and alcohol. The demand for them is great, and just like any semblance of a true party, some of them lurk long after the guests have left.
It’s the gameday restroom.
Between 200 and 300 bathrooms are available on campus for LSU football game days, materializing as portable toilets throughout the grounds. Around 30 to 50 of those are placed in time for games and removed after, leaving about 200 to 250 portable toilets on campus during the week.
Facility Services manages the placement of bathrooms on campus on game days, while the University’s Athletic Department funds them. Ronnie Haliburton, the senior associate athletic director for facilities and grounds, said Athletics spends between $100,000 and $120,000 on bathrooms for each home game.
“We try to do it in ways that are visually non-intrusive, to meet the need and conceal them as best as we can,” said Paul Favaloro, Facility Services director of services and resources. “We tried to have them all removed, but by the time the last one is removed, it’s time to start putting them out again.”
This year, the University has expanded its gameday bathroom offerings by placing five “portable buildings” on campus. One sits by the Human Ecology Building, while two are near the Visitor Information Center and two more are near the University’s cooling towers on South Stadium Drive.
Haliburton called these buildings a “trial-and-error process,” and said he is collecting feedback from fans about restrooms and demand.
“We took what’s available in the market, and we tried to superimpose that on campus,” he said.
The contractor is responsible for bringing in, removing and servicing portable toilets, Favaloro said. Facility Services has received few complaints about the placement of portable toilets, he said, but there have been incidents where faculty members will find a portable toilet’s location problematic, in which case Facility Services will move it.
“We try not to have Porta-Potty numbers continually accelerate,” Favaloro said. “They’ve increased over the past year, but we’re at a sustainable place.”
Several University buildings are open on game days where people can use the bathrooms, though Favaloro said the goal is to keep as many buildings closed as possible.
The buildings are chosen because of their accessibility, limited access to non-bathroom areas within the buildings and security. Open buildings include the Design Building, Parker Coliseum, the School of Music and Patrick F. Taylor, Tureaud, Coates and Williams halls.
Many University buildings, however, are not built to accommodate large crowds.
“The pressure to open buildings has been great, and we have tried hard to stop that,” Favaloro said.
Andrew Mclaren, biological engineering freshman, said he uses Student Union bathrooms on game days because he thinks portable toilets are inconvenient.
Favaloro said there have been past incidents where people have ventured into parts of buildings that they should not have access to and where people have defecated outside of toilets. Thus, Facility Services mandates that there are guards at each bathroom site to prevent crowds from wandering.
Along with guards, each building with bathrooms open on game days averages about two custodians for that day who are responsible for maintaining the bathrooms’ upkeep.
Despite the increase in available bathrooms, Favaloro said there are still occurrences of people urinating in public on buildings during game days, in which case the LSU Police Department intervenes. Haliburton said this is one of the University’s main concerns.
“We want to protect the integrity of our grounds and buildings at all times,” Haliburton said.
Favaloro said the University created three or four permanent “just restroom” buildings on campus in the 1980s, and those are also open on game days. One is in the Patrick F. Taylor Hall parking lot, one is near the Energy, Coast and Environment Building and one is near the old Alex Box Stadium parking lot.
As new buildings continue to be designed on campus, Favaloro said he hopes conversations will take place about ways to incorporate bathrooms to make buildings more friendly to being open on game days.
“The whole tailgating experience is a great thing, and we’re trying our best to facilitate the needs of the crowd,” Favaloro said.
Haliburton said the University is concerned with everyone having an enjoyable gameday experience, which includes ample access to bathrooms.
 
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Contact Andrea Gallo at [email protected]