Oktoberfest 2022 : all to know to participate in the beer festival in Munich

Go to Oktoberfest 2022, the biggest beer festival in the world: dates, prices, how to go, what to do? Find all the useful info!

beer festival in Munich , in Bavaria (Germany), is a popular and traditional world-renowned holiday, a whistle paradise where beer flows to sea and consumes without moderation. The Oktoberfest at Munich traditionally starts from Saturday following September 15 to the first Sunday of October. If the 1st or 2nd of October is a Sunday, the Oktoberfest is extended until the 3rd of October that is a holiday in Germany. The festival gathers 6 to 7 million visitors each year, and about 7.5 million litres of beer are consumed.

Our team looked at this celebration to bring you everything you need to know before leaving for the Oktoberfest 2022 in Munich. We tell you everything about this event: what to do on site, where to go, prices, dates...

The Oktoberfest in Munich, what is it? Where does the beer party come from?

Created on October 17, 1810 on the occasion of the festivities that followed the marriage of King Louis 1er of Bavaria with Princess Thérèse of Saxony-Hildburghausen, the beer festival was cancelled only 24 times in 207 years of existence.

On October 17, 1810, King Louis 1er organized a horse race on the Theresienwiese – the name of the princess, giving her name to the public square where the party is organized – to celebrate her marriage. The success was such – 50,000 visitors to a 40,000-soul Munich population – that the royal family decided to make an annual appointment extending over several days to enjoy the last beautiful days that autumn still has to offer.

Little by little, Oktoberfest becomes a national holiday and a way to exacerbate the national feeling and identity of Bavaria. For successive Bavarian sovereigns, Oktoberfest is an opportunity to bring power closer to the civilian population.

It is also a traditional German holiday – the beer festivals already in Germany – because it is an opportunity to destock the brewed beer in March before entering a new season of brewing.

Today, the Oktoberfest in Munich is similar to a gigantic open-air drink, a debauchery of alcohol where the faces are becoming more and more hilarious and the mouths grivoises as the clutches of a litre of beer are intoxicated: a festival where the excess of alcohol is a tradition, that time stops to live for a time.

Beer Day Program in Munich

Oktoberfest Program: On Saturday’s first, a parade takes place Sonnenstrasse towards Theresienwiese (from Munich), led by a young girl dressed in a monk and in the presence of the mayor of Munich: the Festzug, the Oktoberfest begins. The street is decorated in the colours of the breweries and features the barrels and trolleys in which servers and waitresses will be on the war foot for two weeks. Orchestras embellish the parade under the sound of traditional fanfares. From then on, the mayor in office opens the first barrel of beer in the mallet – in the beer tent Schottenhamel - according to tradition, at noon pile before proclaiming " O zapft is! » ("she is shot!" in Bavaria).

The Oktoberfest programme In Munich, there is no more dense and varied: costumed parades, orchestras and street fanfares, performances and above all, the hectilization of beer hectolitres brewed by the taverniers of Munich, the only brewers allowed to sell on the site the six beer brands “ Hofbräu-München”, “Paulaner”, “Löwenbräu”, “Auguster”

Which beer tent to choose?

In total, there are no less than fourteen beer tents that can accommodate up to 10,000 people each who enjoy the amateurs of this hopsed drink.

Each tent is different from others and has a particular atmosphere. We choose his tent according to the beer we love, his age or his culinary tastes.

Some tents are family, some more crowded, others much more soft. The smallest tent – the Weinzelt – makes 2500 seats, while the Winzerer Fähndl accommodates up to 11,000 people.

Oktoberfest plan

Among the many tents of Oktoberfest, here are the ones to visit:

• 1. Hippodrom
• 2. Armbrustschützenzelt
• 3. Hofbräu-Festzelt
• 4. Hacker Festzelt
• 5. Schottenhamel Festzelt
• 6. Winzerer Fähndl
• 7. Schützen Festzelt

21 small tents, for the drinkers "to-seat-clos", accommodate 60 to 900 people, quieter and more conducive places for discussion among friends.

Where is the Oktoberfest in Munich?

The Oktoberfest takes place on the Theresienwiese a large concrete square of 42 hectares located in the Ludwigsvorstadt-Isarvorstadt district of Munich. Theresienwiese is also the name of the metro stop to go to Oktoberfest.

What to do during the beer festival in Munich?

If we come to the Oktoberfest in Munich mainly to swallow “ Mass » – the famous cup of a litre of beer – at €9.50, you also have to hang out on the site.

Tens of thousands of clutched chickens in their roasts are waiting for the most hungry for about 8 €. Food, in Bavaria, is in the same way as beer raised as an institution, marking its cultural identity with red iron.

However, it is not at the beer festival in Munich that you can expect mincir: the dishes are rich, fat, caloric and alternate between the frying, bacon, vegetable and animal fats, like weisswurst, knodel, matoschen, spatzle, wurstel, pretzel, schweinshaxe, etc.

But the feast of beer in Munich does not delight that the stomach: a giant fairy also stands on the margins of the beer tents, with magic shows, great wheel, force games – including the famous iron arm -, rides to put themselves – before the beer! – the head upside down and dozens of shops to acquire a thousand and a souvenirs.

The Oktoberfest in Munich is also characterized by its costumed parades. In fact, more and more visitors come to the traditional costumes – the “the” trachten » – from Bavaria: "Dirndl" the corselet laced under the chest for the ladies, the "Lederhose" (scratch leather pouch) and felt hat for men.

Who has not already had the cliché image of a German well in the flesh and dressed in his peasant dress – a dress with corsage, lace neckline and adjusted corselet – holding a huge cup of beer?

What are the opening hours of the Oktoberfest?

The tents are open from 9am to 11pm, and the last beer is served at 10:30pm. For the most thirsty, it will take noon (at the end of the O’Zapft is ceremony) to drink your first beer on the day of the festival’s opening.

The days with the greatest affluence are weekends and Friday night.

Where to stay in Munich during the Oktoberfest?

Munich is Germany’s most expensive city to stay. Youth hostels are available for 25-30€, but it is necessary to add up to 300% increase during Oktoberfest! In addition to the apartment rental, sleeping at home in Munich is an economic and practical solution to be taken into account, even though the premises have understood the power that the platforms offer them as well. Airbnb especially during the beer party...

To stay in Munich during the festival, the best solution is to stay in the neighbourhoods Zentrum and Altstadt (in the historic centre) that condense many sites of interest, shops, restaurants and cafes. Of course, during the Oktoberfest, any accommodation you will find cheaper in Munich will be welcome. You can book your hotel in Munich on this comparison .

It should be noted that the Oktoberfest organisation offers a room in a tent for Oktoberfest in Munich. In parallel, it allows you to book your meals and some activities.