Tailgating at LSU is organized chaos. It's also a fairly personal experience. Many tailgaters have the same spot, with the same people, and their own unique traditions for years on end. It's a communal experience that is also oddly personal.
What I'm saying is, it's hard to name my favorite tailgating tradition because every tailgate is different. I believe the absolute best thing about tailgating is the food, as LSU fans take extreme pride in their cooking ability. While I'm a pretty lousy cook, I also live above I-10. Pod is right, if you live above I-10, you cant cook for shit.
Walk around campus on gameday and you'll be surrounded by the most delicious smells in the world. Jambalaya, gumbo, sausage, hell, the whole damn pig. If you can eat it and it tastes good, it's probably being prepared somewhere on campus. But I'd hate to call awesome food a tradition, it is simply a way of life in Louisiana. People in south Louisiana want you to know they are the best chefs in the world and you are free to walk up to their tailgate and demand that they prove it. Just ask for a free sample. We'll Tiger Bait ya, and then give you a bowl of food and a beer.
So it's almost impossible to narrow down one tailgating tradition. However, to expand the question to include the entire game day experience, then the question becomes a little bit easier to answer. In the past two seasons, we may have had a bit of a problem with fans leaving early, but we don't have a problem with fans arriving late.
That's because of those four notes that makes the hair on any Tiger fan's neck stand up on end. BAAAAAH BA BA BA.
There's nothing like Saturday Night in Tiger Stadium, but Saturday Night doesn't begin until the band plays Pregame and salutes the Four Corners. Even if you don't have the slightest interest in football, it would be impossible not to get caught up in the band's Pregame. The whole stadium is on edge, waiting for that moment to explode. The band slowly marches on to the field, raises their instruments, and then... well, then it really is Saturday Night in Tiger Stadium. The crowd goes wild, and the game hasn't even started yet.