Launch Room

A Launch Room is the chamber in which the 24 tributes make their final preparations for the Games, and are launched into the arena, hence the name. Each tribute is asigned their own individual Launch Room.

The Launch Rooms are in the catacombs under the arena and are accessed by traversing many underground passages after decending a ladder from the hovercraft that takes you to the arena. These passages are presumably labarynthine in nature so to avoid tributes meeting each other under the arena.

Little is known about the contents of the Launch Rooms, only that they contain showers, sofas etc and that while there you have access to food and drink. Tributes are accompanied up to the Launch by their stylists, who prepare them in the clothes provided by the Gamemakers to suit the arena, or not to, as to make the games more interesting.

Tributes are Launched from a tribute tube, a glass cylinder that contains the Launch Plate, a metal disk the ascends from the launch room into the arena. All tributes are launched at the same time, in a circle equidistant from the Cornucopia, which lies in the centre of the circle, usually inspiring a blood bath for the items stored within.

After the launch, each tribute must remain on the Launch Plate for 60 seconds, which is surrounded by land mines, so that they can take in the arena, the other tributes, and the precious items around the Cornucopia, so that they can formulate their plans.

Acording to the video footage of the 50th Hunger Games, the Launch Rooms and tribute tubes, like the arena, both contain hidden cameras, as the arena is first shown from the perspective of one of the tributes as they launch.

As each arena is only used once, each Launch Room is only ever used by one tribute.