This couple has no luck - the sign says that the Oktoberfest beer tent is closed due to overcrowding. With 6 million visitors every year, the largest beer festival in the world gets packed, especially on the weekends.
I am getting a lot of emails these days from Germany travelers who want to visit Munich's Oktoberfest. And the main question is always: Do we need to reserve tables in a beer tent? And how do you reserve a table?
Although you can reserve tables by email, fax, or phone, most tents will be booked out by now - guests already started reserving tables as early as November or December last year. If you don't have a reservation for this year's Oktoberfest, make sure to visit the beer tents as early as possible: On week days, try to get into the tent no later than 2:30 p.m., and on the weekend, come here in the morning. If the beer tent is full, you can also wait in line or try the tent's open-air beer garden where it is first-come, first-serve.
Oktoberfest Tips:
(Photo: Johannes Simon/Getty Images)
It’s much too late to reserve any tables in the evening or any time on weekends – those were long gone already in January. Tables can be reserved mid-week during the day, but only in sets of 10. Cost is about 25 Euros per person and includes a 1/2 chicken and 2 Mass of Beer.
Buying seats on-line via eBay or such is also not allowed by the ten hosts and can result in the cancellation of the table. And there is a lot of fraud, so watch out.
Each tent is required to have a significant number of unreserved seats. Once those are filled, the tent doors are closed and no one is allowed in. The best advice is to go Monday – Friday. The party music is played in the evening, so pick out a tent in the early afternoon and then camp out for a few hours.
Dont go to the oktoberfest and just stand there and drink beer- get our Traditional Bavarian Oktoberfest Songbook and be able to sing along and get the full experience
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Sometimes you just need a little luck at the Oktoberfest and you get in. A good trick is to never try the main entrance. If they open the dorrs there will be a health and safety risk so they often open a side or back door where the queue is much more manageable.
I was stationed in Germany and each year would take the train from Zweibrucken to Munich ,normally on a Thursday, arriving about 1000 hrs. I would go to Oktoberfest first and even if the few public seats were full Germans at the reserved tables would let me sit in the empty seats till guests/people who reserved seats showed up later and i would leave or find another tempory seating. They were very very nice about letting me sit till seats were filled. Then in late afternoon I would go to Beer Halls in Downtown munich(Stadmitte0 till my train left about 1900 hrs(7;00 PM Civilian Time) Was GREAT.