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Published: October 24th 2010
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Inside Löwenbräu Tent Before Kick Off.Hello, or as they say here in München...Gruß Gott, which directly translates to "Greeting God".
And so to Oktoberfest, the biggest Volksfest (folks festival) in the world. And yes, with it now done and dusted, I can confirm it is...or should I say that I would find it hard to believe there is something bigger out there! It is held on a 100 acre park land only a 10 minute bicycle ride from my apartment. This is an important fact as my apartment happens to be in the centre of Munich.
Oktoberfest is simply mind-blowing. It was reported on the last Saturday of the 16 day festival that over 600,000 people were in attendance. Yep....all just in one day (and I wasn't even there...or maybe I was...I can't remember, actually yes I was definitely there......I think).
Constructed annually on the grounds are 14 tents, 13 for beer and 1 for wine. In total the tents hold around 100,000 people or revellers if you will. The "tents" are really just buildings with a tent like material roof. Other than the roof, nothing at all resembles a tent. The structures have amenities, kitchens, scullery areas, gift shops and even a
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Official Oktoberfest Entrance. mezzanine level. They take months to assemble and then again to disassemble. The decorations inside and out are fabulous and well worth a look before the festival actually begins (as I did).
To further try to prove the serious size of this event, I put forward the following statistics your Honour:
• Over 7 million litres of beer were served (new record!)(I assume a fair percentage of that was spilt too!). For the mathematicians, that's around 60,000,000€ in beer sales alone! Beers can only be purchased in 1L glasses...nasty hey. Over 240,000L of tea and coffee were also recklessly guzzled - assumedly by people who took a wrong turn on their way to their local cafe. Some boring sods also drank or should I say wasted, 500,000L of water and lemonade.
• Oktoberfest beer is "March Bier" a unique recipe brewed especially for the event and it has an alcohol percentage of around 7%, OUCH! 759 people are officially reported to have drunk themselves into a coma. Noice. I foolishly tried one night...my 8th maß was purchased but I can't recall if I finished it. It was stupid really.......for not remembering that is.
• Over 600,000
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Me and The Biggest Tent - Hofbräu - 10,500 Capacity! half "handln" (fried chickens) were sold. (5.4 million € in sales!).
• This year the lost and found department were reported to have searched for a set of dentures and a live rabbit. Weird things found included a hearing aid, a leather whip, a tuba and a ship in a bottle....these are in addition to the really unusual things found such as 1,450 items of clothing, 770 ID cards, 420 wallets, 366 keys, 320 pairs of glasses, 330 bags, 90 cameras and 90 pieces of jewellery. From this I can only assume that there were several drunk, naked, blind and deaf people wandering around Munich locked out of their houses without money or identification. If only they had a camera to film it! A total of 37 children were also lost.....the official stats report doesn't state of they were ever actually found. There were stories of drunk parents taking the wrong kids home...could be a myth though.
• Around 6.4 million attended in total. FYI the population of Munich is around 1.3 million. Now that means that either everyone (toddlers included) went 5 times each or there were a sh*tload of visitors. Official stats show that 19% of
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Paulaner Brewery Horses in the Opening Parade. people were foreigners (mostly Italians from my observations).
• Only 130,000 bier Maß Krug (1L beer glasses) were stolen..only 130,000! Amazingly this too is a new (low) record!
• You can buy a pretzel with a diameter of 15 inches (ca. 38cm for the youngsters playing at home). Basically about the size of your car steering wheel. Very yummy but it will set you back a massive rip off of 6.40€.
• Around 12,000 people worked during the festival. Poor souls. But thank you.
The annual commercial value of the whole thing is estimated at around 700,000,000€ (0.7 billion Euro) - about USD$1,000 on current exchange rates. Beat that! Probably greater numbers than the Indians did in their little event in Delhi. No doubt more profitable too.
Whilst many might say that statistics are like a short mini skirt i.e. they reveal a lot of good stuff but hide the serious and important bits, I beg to differ. The above tells the real story. My 2 videos attached also speak volumes.
I must add a few little stories. I can actually remember a few.
So, a beer costs between 8.30€ and 8.90€ it
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Löwenbräu Horses in the Opening Parade. is customary to tip the waiter and often I gave 0.50€ (not bad for an unemployed student I say!). Many people just give a tenner mainly for the convenience of it but also it is fair to say that the waiters generally deserve a tip! One night a waiter rolled his eyes when I asked for 0.50€ change from my 10€ note and then started to dig through his fancy leather wallet for the smallest denominations of change. I swiftly got one up on him when I said I wanted the full 1.20€ back. He swiftly but reluctantly returned the change and then wouldn't serve me again that night. No probs...there were plenty of other staff on duty!
Dirndls. Everyone knows what the men wear to Oktoberfest but what do you call those "milking maid dresses" that the ladies wear? They are "dirndls" - pronounced "deerndells". Gruß Gott is all I can say. Men, google the word and you'll quickly get my excited drift.
One thing I didn't know is that Oktoberfest is one big ar*e carnival in addition to the massive beer drinking notoriety thing. There are oodles of fairground attractions like roller coasters, ghost trains (or
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My Favourite - Hacker-Pschorr Himmel der Bayern Tent (Before Kick-Off). the "Geisterbahn" as the Germans call it), dodgem cars and even the cha cha! Along with the rides come the expectant bad fooderies, knick knack stalls and games (shooting ducks, cards and balloons and the oldy but a goody - soft balls thrown at heavy cans) and with all this come the characters that work in them (I am convinced that regardless of nationality "carnies" are all somehow related). Oktoberfest is a seriously huge fun fair where every kid wins a truly sh*tty prize. And now to my favourite attraction. Being an old event, Oktoberfest has some great traditional rides too. My fave was the "Teufel Rad" or in English...the Devil's Wheel. If have attached a few pics of this as it is quite difficult to explain...let me give it a whirl though (good pun hey!). Picture a 5m dia. motorised lazy susan. Now picture 20 people sitting on it. Susan then spins and naturally gravity wins (it usually does). The people that are not in the centre are thrown off quickly and those closest to the middle of the wheel are last to come off...and that's the goal - to try to be the last person left on it.
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Christina and the Hacker Brewery Horses. For the men this means all out warfare (especially after a couple of maß), the women were kinder but I must add....not so modest in their dirndls. I had many bruises and burns from the wooden wheel but it was the best 3€ I have ever spent. In Australia such a ride would require a lawyer and doctor to be present. As we quickly found out, neither were there but both were required when a girl (presumably drunk or at least overly excited at being one of the first to exit the wheel) accidently stepped back on the still turning wheel and was abruptly thrown to the floor cracking her head and winning herself a golf ball on her forehead, a good spray of claret from the golf ball and a few sheets of complimentary paper towel for her troubles! Like I said....every kid wins a prize! googling "teufel rad" is a worthwhile exercise too if you have the time.
Another attraction lies inside the beer tents. It's the sales people and their weird and wonderful offerings. Once you have secured a table in a tent you need not move until closing time is called or of course when
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First Beer, Day One, Traditional Dress! nature calls. Everything you could ever want or need is offered to you at your table. Naturally beer is high on the agenda and to that end some male waiters can carry 13 or so 1L glasses..not bad when you think that they have to push their way through hoards of drunks. A full menu of food is also available, but let's talk about the not-so-usual things. The following items can also be purchased without wandering from your table: pretzels and many varieties of pastries, salad bread rolls, T-shirts, hats, many different flashing things like badges and wrist bands etc, traditional Oktoberfest hairstyling, flowers, breathaliser testing (complete with certificate of the drunken result), photographs (usually in an commemorative Bavarian theme love heart frame) and my favourite....massive gherkins...served by an Indian guy at 10:30pm out of a pot with tongs...classic stuff!
My last story is a simple one and for those who know me well, this will not surprise you. Some unlucky soul gifted me 100€ when I found it laying homelessly on the ground on one of my drunken stumbles out of the Oktoberfest grounds one night. Thweet.
So there you have it...Oktoberfest and a big TICK has
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First Beer Going Down Well! been entered on my list of "things I must do before I die". Bring on Oktoberfest 2011...and fast, I'm getting thirsty!!!
Tschüß!
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