Your preference...

[Nevadaref]

Originally Posted by Juulie Downs

I left plenty of time, knowing that Lakeridge is tricky to get to in the best of times, but didn't expect to arrive more than about 20 minutes early.

Serious question here. Is arriving at the site 20 minutes prior to tip-off acceptable/common in your area?

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by Nevadaref

Serious question here. Is arriving at the site 20 minutes prior to tip-off acceptable/common in your area?

Here it is not that uncommon for a game played in the mid-afternoon. It's usually a question of availability of officials at that time. And that varies day to day sometimes. If you're short-handed and you need to use someone coming directly from work to cover the game, the last thing that you worry about is whether they get there in time to have a thorough pre-game. You just want to cover the game; everything else is gravy.

And most assignors will also give the school AD's a heads-up that if they want to play in the mid-afternoon on a busy day, their game might be a few minutes late starting the odd time.

So imo it is acceptable under those circumstances. Not only acceptable but necessary in some cases.