September 20th till October 5th
The 175th annual Oktoberfest is COMING SOON. Starting on September 20th and going to October 5th the festival is one of the largest and most popular in the world and a must when travelling through Europe in the fall.After a traditional ceremony the ‘Wies’n’ publicans, set off at 11am on their elaborate floats pulled by horses, than make their way along Schwanthaler Strasse near the Theresienwiese. The beer drenched drink fest begins after the Lord Mayor taps the first keg at noon on Sunday.
The festival lasts 16 days and welcomes around 6 million people through the course of the binge drinking. Not many people realize that the fest originates from a wedding festival for crown prince Ludwig and his bride Therese von Sachsen Hildburghausen in 1810.
Statistics show how impressive the event has become: 14 enormous tents with a total seating capacity of 100,000 serving 5.5 million litres of 8.6% ‘March beer’, upwards of 600,000 fried chickens and 84 heads of cattle. The commercial value of the entire festival is estimated at around 0.7 billion Euro.
Plan your Oktoberfest holiday soon and remember to eat plenty of pretzels and sausages to soak up the mass quantities of beer you will find yourself consuming.
