First-Timer's Guide to Coors Field

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Coors Field is a mile above sea level, so plan your day around the sun: wear sunscreen at every day game and keep water in your hand. The park is almost entirely cashless, so bring a card or a phone wallet, and leave the backpack at home, because only small single-pocket bags get through the gates.

Sun and altitude

Visitors from sea level routinely underestimate Denver. The most common day-game mistakes look the same every time:

• Underestimate the sun. Get burned before you think to reapply.
• Underestimate dehydration. Get a headache in the 5th.
• Drink a few beers too fast. Spend the last three innings heckling the umpire.

Thin mile-high air lets more UV through than sea-level air does, so day games at Coors will burn unprepared visitors. SPF 30+ is the floor, SPF 50 is better, and reapply every two hours, the same schedule as at sea level. Skipping a reapplication costs you more up here.

The other UV trap is a cloudy day. UV cuts through cloud cover at altitude more than people expect, so a “cloudy” Denver day will still burn you if you skipped sunscreen. Use sunscreen at every day game.

Hydration is the partner rule. Visit Denver’s altitude tips say you need about twice as much water as you would drink at home, and to go easy on alcohol until you’ve acclimatized. If you’ve been in Denver less than a day, mix in a water between beers.

For spring and fall night games, bring a layer. You can find more about day and night temperatures by month in our When to Visit section.

What to bring

• Sunscreen. SPF 30+ minimum. Aerosol cans (including aerosol sunscreen) are prohibited at Coors Field. Bring a non-aerosol pump or spray bottle, a stick, or lotion.
• A reusable water bottle. Coors Field allows empty water bottles through the gates. Fill at the water stations inside.
• A card or a phone wallet. Almost every stand in the park is cashless.
• A layer for April, May, and September night games.
• A hat. The wide-brim version if you have one. The standard ball cap helps but the brim is short.
• Sunglasses. Polarized if you have them.
• A bag (if you bring one). Coors Field allows soft-sided, single-pocket bags up to 16”x16”x8”. Backpacks and multi-pocket purses are not permitted. All bags get searched at the gate.
• A phone-charger battery. You’ll use the MLB Ballpark App for the digital ticket, the RTD NextRide app for transit, your maps app for navigation, and your camera for Mile High Row photos. Battery dies fast.

You can bring outside food into Coors Field in individual portions. Hard-sided coolers and containers are not allowed, pizza boxes have to be personal size or smaller, fruit bigger than a grapefruit has to be sliced, and glass bottles and metal cans are not allowed.

Don’t bring: aerosol cans (not allowed), backpacks or multi-pocket purses (not allowed), large bags (won’t make it through security), anything you’d be sad to lose.

Kids, strollers, and accessible seating

Kids 2 and under don’t need a ticket if they sit on an adult’s lap, and from their third birthday on they need their own. Strollers have to fold or collapse to fit under a seat, and a bigger one can be claim checked at the gates. Strollers and wheelchairs can’t be left unattended, even at the top of a section, so a stroller you aren’t using at your seat has to be claim checked too.

Coors Field has about 1,000 accessible and companion seats. Ask for them when you buy by phone or in person, or pick them on the Rockies’ seat map online. The accessible drop-off is across from Gate B, on Blake Street just before 22nd Street.

If a game is rained out or rescheduled, your ticket is good for the makeup game. If you bought straight from the Rockies, they’ll email you the details, and if you can’t make the makeup game, your options depend on how you bought, and you have to pick one online before first pitch of the makeup game.

Once you are through the gates, take the kids to the Interactive Area, on the main concourse behind the bullpens near Gate A. It has Speed Pitch and Bat Around, a baseball video game, and kids 6 and under can hit in the Tee Ball cage for free. Tickets for the rest cost $5, it takes cards only, and it closes in the middle of the 7th. The sign at the window says ages 7 and up.

For a stop before the game, the National Ballpark Museum is half a block from the gates, open Monday through Saturday until 5 p.m., and kids 16 and under get in free. You can find more family-friendly stops in our Around the Park section.

Which side to sit on

Sit on the third base side at a night game, and sit high on the first base side for the mountains. You can find more about every seating level, the sun, and the shade in our Where to Sit section.

Getting there

If you can stay within walking distance, you won’t need transit at all. You can find more about light rail, parking, rideshare, and the gates in our Getting There section.

Flying in with a suitcase? The A Line runs from the airport to Union Station, and the Rockies’ claim check at the gates takes bags too big to bring inside.

Beer and shorter lines

The $3 domestic draft on the Rooftop runs from when the Rooftop opens, about two hours before first pitch, until the scheduled first pitch, two per person 21 or older per purchase. You can find more about the timing and the lines in our Where to Sit section.

Beer sales stop at the concession stands at the end of the 8th inning, and vendors in the seats stop in the middle of the 7th, and the Rockies can stop either one earlier.

During the game, skip the regular concession lines on the main concourse in the busiest innings. They are long and slow, and you will probably miss half an inning or so. Go straight to the beer-only stands, or order from one of the vendors walking the seats. There are also several full-service bars at Coors, including the Clocktower bar behind home plate on the 300 level.

Souvenirs and tracking your first game

There are three separate ways to mark the visit. None of them rules out the others, and none of them requires a purchase at the stadium itself.

The free Rockies First Game Certificate

The official souvenir is a free certificate you can get at the Guest Experience Center on the main concourse, behind Section 127. If you forget, the Rockies website has a downloadable PDF certificate at rockies.com/ballpark/first-game-certificate. You just enter the name and date in fillable fields, then print. It’s the simplest free souvenir for a family with kids.

The Bleacher Bound game log (free, digital)

To keep a record of every game you go to, log it in your Bleacher Bound game log. Sign in with your email, pick Coors Field and the date, and the final score and box score for that game fill in on their own. If you log a game from the stands, its score fills in after the season ends.

You can log past games too, at any current or former MLB ballpark, so you can backfill every game you have been to. If you don’t remember the date, log the ballpark anyway and it still counts toward your list of ballparks. Start your game log.

The MLB Ballpark Passport (paid, physical book)

For ballpark chasers serious about hitting all 30 stadiums, the MLB Ballpark Passport is a paid physical book sold at mlbballparkpassport.com with a page for every MLB park. At each park you find the official validation station and get a dated rubber-stamp validation in the book. The validation itself is free once you own the book.

The book itself tells you where the validation station is at Coors, since the location isn’t advertised online.

What to eat, and what to skip

Order the pizza donuts. Skip the Helton Burger as a meal, treat the Rocky Mountain Oysters as a photo op more than food, and skip the 9-9-9 Challenge. You can find more about all of them in our What to Eat section.

A first visit, start to finish

Arrive at Gate A or Gate E 30 to 45 minutes before first pitch, or earlier on a hot day, when the Rooftop beer line alone can run about thirty minutes. Walk straight up to the Rooftop, get in line, and grab two $3 beers per person 21 or older before first pitch flips the price. Get to your seat for first pitch. Eat pizza donuts. Skip the Helton Burger. Hit the Sandlot Brewery somewhere in the middle innings. Take the Mile High Row photo from the upper deck on the first base side, with the mountains in the frame. After the final out, walk to a LoDo bar and wait out the rush before you call a ride.

Buy your tickets

On game day the Rockies sell a limited number of $4 Rockpile tickets ($1 for kids 12 and under and fans 55 and over), but not for every game, so don’t build a trip around one. You can find more about getting a Rockpile ticket in our Where to Sit section.

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Know Coors Field better than we do? Tell us what we got wrong, or where we should be sending people instead.

Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you book through them we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It never changes what we recommend.