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Willkommen zum (welcome all) to Munich’s Oktoberfest!

By Kristin Emery for The Observer-Reporter newsroom@observer-Reporter.Com 7 min read
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More than 6 million people visit Munich for Oktoberfest each September.

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Photos: Kristin Emery/For the Observer-Reporter

Shelves of steins are ready to be filled with beer at one of the tents at Oktoberfest.

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Kristin Emery/For the Observer-Reporter

Kitchens in each tent cook thousands of rotisserie chickens for Oktoberfest visitors.

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Kristin Emery/For the Observer-Reporter

More than 6 million people visit Munich for Oktoberfest each September.

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Kristin Emery/For the Observer-Reporter

Crowds enjoy the music at one of the tents in the Olde Weisen area of Oktoberfest.

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Kristin Emery/For the Observer-Reporter

A huge Ferris wheel stands over the Oktoberfest grounds each fall.

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Photos: Kristin Emery/For the Observer-Reporter

The welcome sign and all of the tents and rides are torn down and reassembled each year.

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Kristin Emery/For the Observer-Reporter

The Paulaner Brewery tent alone holds thousands of Oktoberfest revelers.

At first, the sight of a 6-foot-6 German man approaching him put my husband a bit on guard. The man began speaking in German, but when my husband said he only spoke English, the lederhosen-wearing stranger asked, “Do you need help?”

Trying to navigate Munich’s subway system map can be a bit confusing at first, so the kind stranger pointed him in the right direction for the proper train and said, “Get off at the next stop and just follow everyone dressed like me!”

Indeed, the train was full of men in lederhosen and women in dirndls … all the traditional dress that Americans think of when Germans come to mind. While you’re not likely to ever see someone in Berlin or Hamburg donning lederhosen (literally “leather pants” in translation), which are traditional leather breeches, or shorts, worn by men in Bavaria in southern Germany and in Austria, they are everywhere in Munich for two weeks during Oktoberfest. Some ornate versions stretch below the knee, have fancy stitching and are worn for special occasions. Top them off with suspenders and a traditional fedora with a feather, and you’re ready to head to the festival grounds at Theresienwiese on the western side of downtown Munich just west of the Isar River.

Oktoberfest here celebrated its 188th year in 2023, running from Sept. 16 through Oct. 3r. What began as a festival on October 12, 1810, in celebration of the marriage of the crown prince of Bavaria, who later became King Louis I, to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen, eventually morphed into the world’s largest folk festival stretching for two weeks and moving from October to September for better weather.

Oktoberfest was canceled for two years due to COVID-19, but came roaring back last year with even bigger crowds and better weather this year. To say this event is important to the people, culture and economy of Bavaria is an understatement. Oktoberfest generates more than 1.23 billion euros (more than 1.3 billion U.S. dollars) in terms of economic value to Bavaria each year. Roughly 6.3 million people visit Munich for Oktoberfest, spending more than $450 million on the grounds of the festival and another nearly $300 million elsewhere in Munich. Money spent on accommodations for Oktoberfest revelers coming from outside Munich contributes more than $500 million to the region’s economy.

I asked several Germans and especially those local to Munich what they think of Oktoberfest, and they all grinned and professed their love for the event. Far from being annoyed with all of the tourists or seeing it as a hassle to deal with crowds, these Bavarians take pride in hosting visitors from around the world and celebrating the event themselves with friends and family each year.

All about the beer

Yes, beer is big here. Not only are the steins big (called a “mass” here), holding an entire liter of beer, but the quantities consumed are vast. The Paulaner tent where we got a behind the scenes tour had three giant tanks holding 7,000 liters of beer each. They’re refilled daily by tanker truck bringing the special Oktoberfest beer directly from the brewery.

Each of the big six Munich breweries host their own tents at Oktoberfest along with some smaller ones, bringing the brewery tent total to 14. Other smaller tents also dot the fairgrounds offering drinks and all sorts of delicious food. While the official amount of beer consumed at Oktoberfest is not revealed, imagine each of those tents having up to 21,000 liters of beer available for sale each day! The Paulaner brew master even showed us their patented pump technology that’s sort of a fire hydrant for beer, sending it gushing through pipes that feed taps all around the tent and able to fill a “mass” (one liter stein) in seconds with minimal foam.

Admission to the Oktoberfest grounds is free. With some tents holding up to 10,000 people, things can get pretty wild later into the evening. Tents open at 10 a.m., and the last call for beer is at 10:30 p.m. Scoring a spot to sit at a table to order food and drink is a challenge unto itself. Tents open reservation slots early in the year for three slots per day: afternoon, mid-afternoon, and evening for three to four hours each for a table of eight to 10 people.

You don’t need a reservation to enter a tent, but making a reservation online ahead of time (if available) will save you a long wait in line. Evenings and weekends are the busiest, so going early to mid-afternoon on a weekday makes it easier to find a reservation or to show up as a walk-in. One note: Bring plenty of cash, as few tents accept credit cards and most won’t let you run a tab.

Chicken is on the menu, with the chef at the Paulaner tent showing us the massive rotisserie spits spinning up to 3,000 roast chickens per day. Of course, pork roast, knuckles of pork (pork shank), all sorts of scrumptious sausages and Wiener schnitzel (breaded filet of pork) abound accompanied by fresh dark bread, potato salad, sauerkraut and crisp apple strudel. Each tent has a daylong lineup of live bands playing polkas and crowd favorites that gradually morph into pop music favorites as the hours grow later. Just don’t expect to do the chicken dance here, as that American wedding and party favorite is not on the playlist.

Plan ahead

As far as logistics, we had the upper hand on this trip, as I traveled with a group of fellow journalists and were hosted at Oktoberfest for the day by Paulaner Brewery in their tent. I didn’t have to make a table reservation this time, but I would recommend jumping online early in the year to try for direct reservations with each tent. Tour packages may also be a good option, as some companies offer hotel and table reservations for tents as part of Oktoberfest packages.

Hotels are not hard to find, but book early and be ready to pay a pretty penny. Our hotel was around $300 per night, and we were a good 10-minute train ride from the festival grounds. Some better budget options are available, and you can even book a tent to stay in or near the grounds. Airfare in and out of Munich is expensive during Oktoberfest, but you can find cheaper flights flying from nearby Frankfurt and other cities if you’re spending a few days on either end of your Munich stay. Just know you’ll have to factor in the train fare between cities (our fare between Frankfurt and Munich was around $90 per person).

I’ve always dreamed of attending Oktoberfest, and this adventure did not disappoint. Oktoberfest conjures up images of massive tents filled with hordes of revelers singing and hoisting massive steins of frothy beer … and that’s exactly what we experienced.

The Theresienweisse festival grounds themselves remind me of a huge state fairground complete with a roller-coaster, rides and even a Ferris wheel. What is astounding is that all of it – tents, rides, everything – is torn down at the end of Oktoberfest and rebuilt the next year. What starts as an empty field becomes Bavaria’s biggest construction project each July with several thousand workers spending more than 70 days to create the festival site that lasts only two weeks. But what a two weeks it is!

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