Anyone else think Oktoberfest is rubbish?

OK so I think most people know I enjoy a beer or 8 but I just don’t get all the people excited over the fest. I have visited a couple of times and every time I go near the place it never fails to disappoint me on how crap it is so now I avoid like the plague.

Is it just me that thinks the fest is like Blackpool on steroids but without the Scousers? Are there other haters out there? Any interest in an anti-fest meet up?

Problem with the fest (as I see it) is that it has turned into a tourist circus a la fasching. When I first moved here you could walk into the tents any night or weekend at any time, and get a seat. Ok, a group of people might have a problem on a weekend, but two girls usually could find a place. No one wore 50 euro dirndls or C&A lederhosen, and there were certainly no idiots in superhero costumes. It started changing when they built the "pig pen" for the aussies and kiwis in the hofbräu tent, bus loads of Italians with a bribed waitress in the schützenzelt don't help matters much either. Raising the prices only increases the tourist appeal, alienating "normal" people, but lowering them again would only result in bigger crush of tourists. So what do you do?

I live near the wiesen it is 100% hyped shit

Reservations and closed doors only. And a single 'tourist' tent to cater for the outsiders.

err - so who's an outsider then?!? All *them* furriners?
It's the massive reservation system that makes it more of a problem, imho.

I can sort of enjoy it once. What's not to like about women in Dirndls? I don't see the hype though. There are plenty of other better fests.

Even while reaping the fruits of the massive reservation system I agree that it just plain shouldn't be necessary. I am offering a service to foreign tourists who wouldn't stand the chance of a snowball in hell of getting into a tent after traveling halfway across the world. The Oktoberfest used to be, as DDBug describes it, a downhome festival for the locals and a festive end to the summer's work for the farmers. Gabi Weißhäupl, head of the Munich tourism office, has hyped it up so much with worldwide publicity that it has lost its local flair and appeal and has turned into a madhouse carnival with Status Quo, John Denver and a Prosit every seven minutes to increase beer consumption.

If you go early enough in the day on a weekday you can still experience the relaxed atmosphere, the unhassled waitresses, the traditional brass band music and the familiarity and friendliness of strangers at your table or the one next door. And you don't need a reservation.

P.S. I just saw what another company charges for a table at the Augustiner in the evening: €1,195 for a table of 10 including a €25 voucher per person. I gotta recalculate my fees for sure ... I mean seriously, that is obscene.

Except you have to leave your seat for when the reservations start.

Dunno the thing with me is that it reminds me of everything I hate about being back home. Just walking around outside the tents I’m on pins and ready to smack some cnut in the face.

Weather permitting you can sit in the beergarden outside the tent. Or, inside the tent, you choose a table that is not reserved from 11/12pm on. If the waitress still tries to shoo you off get her badge number and complain to the office.

yeah except when the Stadt over-reacts to the "Party atmosphere" by banning the tents from playing any music at all before 5pm, which was the case two years ago. I remember an extremely boring saturday in one tent with absolutely no atmosphere. By the time the music did start, we were so bored and fed up that we couldn't enjoy it.

That sounds, on the surface, more like your problem than that of the Oktoberfest, oder?

Possibly but if it weren’t for all the arseholes walking around outside who cant handle a few beers and acting like dicks I wouldn’t feel that way. Tho to be fair apart from the under 18 brigade most of them aren’t German.

@ OG - Why moan now about something that happened two years ago? Nowadays the bands play traditional music without amplifiers during the Mittagswiesn.

@ TBFB - Your aversion to the Wiesn resembles mine to Kung Fu movies. Others enjoy them, I loathe them. Solution: I avoid them where I can, but I also don't go out of my way to call them absolute shit.

I agree that it is hideously overhyped. I like to pop along these days, but the whole drama with reservations is a major turnoff. So yeah, I voted shit on balance. Also it goes on too long.