Oktoberfest, Munich

If you are going to the festival - there are a few things you need to know. If you haven't booked a tent (we hadn't) you need to get there early. We arrived at the festival at 10am after a tip from a barman the night before. We got straight into a tent - The Hofbrauhaus tent.

Once in the tent the next thing is to get served. firstly the sheer scale of these tents is breath taking. At 10am the tent was near full to capacity with people already standing on tables singing and drinking.
There are no conventional bars to go and get served at -It is all waitress service and to get served you need to be sat at a table - which will all be full! Our solution was for one of our group (of 10) to politely ask if they could squeeze on the end of a table while they ordered the drinks, and then once served get up again - there are plenty of places to stand and drink comfortably. It helps if you offer to buy a beer for the person who lets you squeeze on.
We soon found that we were chatting happily with the people who were helping us out, and through the course of the morning as they drifted off we all managed to get seats!
Remember be polite! The waitresses probably know what you are up to - and tip generously those girls work very hard.

Dress Code: Beer clothes

I have only been to the Oktoberfest once - and for me it was fun, but enough!
We enjoyed the beer (but not in one of these tents), but most of all we liked the fair and the Ferris wheel!!! During the time of the Oktoberfest Munich is going crazy - or is it rather the visitors????

Any of the beer tents at the Oktoberfest. It is full of friendship, singing, drinking, dancing and oom-pah bands playing. Look for the world famous German waitresses carrying those big steins of beer. Here is a picture of our traveling group after we had been spending days in Munich for a business trip to finalize details for importing local beer into the US.

Dress Code: Clothes are appreciated!