There are very few situations in Germany where you can walk into a gigantic beer tent at four in the afternoon, drink a litre of beer, sing a song you have never heard before next to two Australians dressed like Bavarians, and end up dancing on a bench as if this were completely normal behaviour.
Oktoberfest is one of them.
In 2026, it will take place from Saturday, September 19 to Sunday, October 4 at Munich’s Theresienwiese.
And if you have never been before, there are a few things worth knowing.
Oktoberfest is fun, enormous and genuinely impressive. It is also expensive, chaotic and perfectly capable of turning a respectable adult into someone hugging strangers while singing Ein Prosit with a pronunciation that could offend an entire Bavarian village.
I have been several times and learned a few things along the way.
Some through experience.
Others through mistakes.
First, let’s talk about money
Munich has never exactly been a cheap city, and during Oktoberfest it makes a special effort to remind you.
Entry to the main festival grounds is free. You can also enter the large beer tents for free, as long as they have not been closed because they are full. The Oide Wiesn, the historical section of Oktoberfest, costs 4 euros.
The real problem starts afterwards.
Finding somewhere to sleep in Munich during those weeks can easily become the biggest headache of the whole trip and the reason many people eventually give up on going.
Hotels near the festival fill up months in advance, and finding a reasonably central room at the last minute is not impossible, but it is not a strategy I would recommend to anyone who would also like to pay their bills the following month.
If you have a friend in Munich who lets you sleep on their sofa, appreciate them.
They are a good person.
You might even want to buy them a beer and consider naming your future child after them.
Although, considering the price of beer, let’s not get carried away with the friendship.
In 2026, one Maß, meaning one litre of beer, costs between 14.80 and 15.90 euros, depending on the tent.
Then there is the tip.
So you can safely assume that each beer will end up costing you around 16 or 17 euros.
I discovered a long time ago that I do not need five litres of beer to realise that I am at a party.
After two, I can already start conversations with strangers.
After three, I probably begin believing that my German is much better than it actually is.
That is why I usually alternate beer with Radler, water or something non-alcoholic.
I also eat.
A Maß is not some little beer from the corner bar. It is a full litre of fairly strong beer. A chicken, a Brezn or basically anything solid can be an excellent investment in your immediate future.
My dignity and my liver deserve some attention too.
Bring cash
For years, people used to say that everything at Oktoberfest had to be paid for in cash.
That is no longer completely true.
More and more stalls and beer tents accept cards or mobile payments, but there are still places where cash is king. You will also find ATMs inside and around the festival grounds.
My recommendation remains fairly primitive.
Bring both.
Card and cash.
You do not want to spend twenty minutes looking for a table only to discover that the place where you finally found one does not accept the payment method you were counting on.
German technology has its limits.
And a Maß does not wait.
The first rookie mistake
One of the first times I went, I brought a backpack.
Bad idea.
Large backpacks are not allowed.
In 2026, bags may have a maximum capacity of 3 litres and dimensions of no more than 20 × 15 × 10 centimetres.
In other words, bring the minimum.
Phone.
Wallet.
Keys.
Maybe a power bank.
That is enough.
The fewer things you bring, the fewer things you can lose.
I say this from experience.
Once I found my jacket lying several metres behind our table.
The pockets were empty.
Luckily my wallet was with me, but a pair of headphones disappeared forever.
I cannot prove that someone stole them.
Maybe they simply decided to start a new life in Bavaria.
We will never know.
Since then, my phone and wallet stay with me.
My jacket is free to make its own decisions.
Beer also flies
Another thing I discovered is that Oktoberfest has a peculiar relationship with liquids.
The beer stays inside the glass.
Until it does not.
I once saw a tourist spill beer on a woman, the woman react, another beer land on a completely innocent third person and, within seconds, a small international conflict had broken out because of the poor motor skills of an Englishman.
So I would not wear the white shirt you bought for your sister’s wedding.
There is a reasonable chance you will return home smelling of beer, roast chicken and humanity.
Some people will find that hilarious.
Others will find it exhausting.
Either way, it is part of the experience.
Do I have to dress like a Bavarian?
No.
Nobody forces you.
Plenty of women wear a Dirndl and plenty of men wear Lederhosen, but you can enter perfectly well wearing ordinary clothes.
For years I simply wore shorts and a checked shirt.
A sort of Bavarian ordered from AliExpress.
It worked.
The Dirndl also has its famous bow code.
Traditionally, a bow tied on the left means the woman is single, while one tied on the right means she is in a relationship.
I would not use this as an official Tinder replacement, though.
Some people tie it wherever they feel like it, others do not know the tradition, and some tourists probably have three Maß inside them.
Ask before activating Romeo mode.
There is also that strange category of tourist who confuses Oktoberfest with Halloween.
I have seen some very creative costumes.
They do not always survive the security check.
Once inside, however, you can buy ridiculous hats, stuffed chickens and a surprising number of objects you would probably never purchase while sober.
The real problem is finding a table
You can enter Oktoberfest without a reservation and you can enter the beer tents for free.
That does not mean you will find somewhere to sit.
Especially at night, on weekends and on October 3, some tents may temporarily close because they are full.
The good news is that part of the seating must remain available without reservations. On weekends and public holidays, as much as half of the seats remain unreserved until three in the afternoon. After that, at least a quarter remain available.
My best advice is therefore very simple.
Go early.
Arriving at two in the afternoon is an experience.
Arriving at seven on a Saturday evening expecting to find a table for eight is an act of faith.
If you are going alone or with one other person, I would simply arrive early and try my luck. Walk around, look for space and politely ask whether you can join a table.
Speaking some German and being friendly helps a lot more than behaving as if you own shares in the brewery.
But if the tent is officially closed because it is full, do not expect to charm security with your B2 German and a delightful smile.
If there are eight or ten of you and you want to go on a Friday or Saturday evening, booking a table makes much more sense.
A reservation does not technically have a fixed price, although you normally have to buy food and drink vouchers in advance. In many tents, the usual minimum works out at roughly two Maß and half a chicken per person.
There is also an official platform where reservations can be resold at their original price.
I would avoid mysterious reservation offers on the internet.
There are far more entertaining ways to lose money.
Once you are inside, a different game begins.
You wait.
You look around.
You ask.
You share tables.
You make friends.
On one of my visits, we had a reserved table thanks to a friend, and throughout the evening strangers kept appearing who were looking for somewhere to sit.
By the end, nobody was quite sure who had arrived with whom.
But we were all singing together.
That sums up Oktoberfest rather well.
Watch out for the clever ones
I do not know whether this is a common strategy or whether I simply had the privilege of meeting some unusually creative Wiesn tacticians.
Once I saw a German guy and his friends arrive late at a packed tent. They could not find anywhere to sit, so they started pointing at groups of tourists and telling security that they were far too drunk.
The strategy was simple.
If someone got thrown out, a table became available.
Logistically impressive.
Morally rather less so.
Since then, I do not think it hurts to have a bottle of water and a few Brezn sitting on the table.
Not because that will magically convince security of anything, but because it does not hurt to look as though you have spent the afternoon doing something other than trying to personally empty Bavaria of beer.
There is always someone who thinks they grew up on the streets.
Then you discover they actually grew up next to a roundabout.
What time does it finish?
The large beer tents normally stay open until 11.30 pm, although the final beer service and the music end at 10.30 pm.
Käfer Wiesn-Schänke and Kufflers Weinzelt can continue until one in the morning.
At around eleven, that wonderful human migration towards the underground begins.
Thousands of people leave the tents.
Some are walking perfectly well.
Others are convinced they are walking perfectly well.
Those are not the same thing.
Then the second part of the night begins.
Munich has bars, clubs, techno, electronic music and Latin parties.
You can continue.
Naturally.
The more important question is whether you should.
And one more thing.
If you have been drinking, do not ride an E-Scooter home.
In Germany, the same alcohol limits that apply to cars also apply to electric scooters. Between 0.5 and 1.09‰, you can normally face a 500 euro fine, two points in Flensburg and a one-month driving ban. Even from 0.3‰, there can be consequences if your driving shows signs of impairment.
One Maß is a litre of beer.
Do the maths.
Take the U-Bahn, S-Bahn, a taxi or simply walk.
It will be considerably cheaper than explaining to the police that you only wanted to travel three kilometres.
So, is it worth it?
For me, yes.
Oktoberfest remains one of my favourite events in Germany.
It is also probably one of my most expensive days of the year.
But there is something about it that is difficult to reproduce anywhere else.
Thousands of people inside an enormous beer tent.
A live band.
Shared tables.
Germans, Italians, Americans, Australians, Latinos and tourists from countries you probably could not correctly point to on a map.
Then a familiar song starts playing.
Everyone stands up.
Someone climbs onto a bench.
Then someone else.
Then you.
You raise a Maß that cost almost sixteen euros and is probably already getting warm.
You look around.
And for a few minutes, that absurd combination of beer, music, strangers and leather trousers makes perfect sense.
The next morning, perhaps not so much.
But we can talk about that in another post.
Until then, I will keep hoping that one day I run into a celebrity wandering around Oktoberfest.
Preferably Terminator.
Or, as some people affectionately call him, Mister Governator.
I would like to shake Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hand and say, with that flawless German that only appears after a couple of Maß
Schön, Sie kennenzulernen, Herr Schwarzenegger.
And then leave immediately.
Before ruining the moment by trying to say anything else.
Nice!
so Jugendherberge Tipp was useful 🙂
for sure =)