Oktoberfest

How the tents work

Every seat in a beer tent is either reserved or free. Reservations are handled by each tent: there is no central booking office, and they are made by the table, with eight to ten people at each one. The reservation itself costs nothing. What you pay for in advance are vouchers, usually two liters of beer and half a roast chicken per person in the main aisles, and the city puts the average at around 350 euros a table.

The city also sets how many seats each big tent must keep free. From Monday to Friday a quarter of them cannot be reserved. On Saturdays, Sundays and the public holiday the share is 40 percent until 3pm and a quarter after that. Two of the big tents, Käfer Wiesn-Schänke and the wine tent, are exempt, and so are the small tents. The free seats are first come, first served, which makes a weekday lunchtime the easiest time to sit down without a booking and a weekend evening the hardest.

Most tents open their booking in spring, by April or May at the latest, and announce it on their own websites. Weekend evenings and the nights before the holiday go first. Reservations may not be resold, and hosts cancel the ones they find at online auctions. Book with the tent, through the official resale portal, or through the package Munich Tourism sells to individual visitors.

Schottenhamel is where the mayor taps the first keg at noon on the opening Saturday, a ritual that dates from 1950. The tents open at 9am that day, but none of them serves beer until the keg is tapped and twelve gunshots pass the news to the rest of the grounds. The tent traces its history to 1867, the longest on the Theresienwiese, and its crowd today is mostly young Munich residents and students.

A table beside the tapping on the first Saturday is close to impossible to reserve. On other days a brass band plays at lunchtime, and from 9pm a party band takes over.

Augustiner pours from 200-liter wooden barrels, which the festival's guide says gives a milder beer with less carbonation than a steel tank. The crowd is regulars and Munich locals. During the week it is a quiet tent at lunch, with families and a children's menu, and brass music into the afternoon. In the evening the band switches to rock, pop and the festival hits.

Hofbräu is the second-largest tent and the only one with a standing area: room for about 1,000 people right in front of the band. You can drink there without a seat, so this is the big tent where a missing reservation matters least. It is also the loudest. The festival's own guide calls it the party tent, with English-language pop sung at full volume every night. If you want to sit and talk, choose another tent for the evening.

The big tents are not the only option. The small tents serve drinks and play music until 11pm, half an hour later than the big ones, and most of them take reservations too. The Oide Wiesn, the historic section at the south end, keeps a third of its seats free of reservations at all times. If the big tents on the main street are full, try those two before you give up.

Getting there

The U4 and U5 stop at Theresienwiese, right at the grounds, and it is the most crowded station of the festival. Three other U-Bahn stops are about 10 minutes away on foot: Schwanthalerhöhe on the same two lines, and Goetheplatz and Poccistraße on the U3 and U6. Hackerbrücke, on the S-Bahn, is also about 10 minutes from the grounds, and the signed walking route from the Hauptbahnhof takes just under 15.

At closing time, walking to Hackerbrücke or the Hauptbahnhof spares you the crush at Theresienwiese, though the city warns that Hackerbrücke itself can be closed or filtered on busy evenings and weekends. There is no visitor parking at the grounds. If you come by car, the city asks you to leave it at a park-and-ride on the edge of town and finish the trip by U-Bahn or S-Bahn.

On the opening weekend two parades close streets in the center and disrupt buses and trams. The landlords and breweries set off at 10:35am on Saturday 18 September from Josephspitalstraße, behind Sendlinger Tor, and reach the tents before the noon tapping. The costume and riflemen's parade leaves the Max II monument on Maximilianstraße at 10am on Sunday 19 September. Both have stands with reservable seats on Sonnenstraße. Anywhere else, you watch from the curb.

Where to sleep by neighborhood

Book your room before you think about a table. A reservation is optional and a bed is not, and the tents do not take bookings until spring. You do not need to sleep next to the grounds either: four U-Bahn lines and the S-Bahn stop within about 10 minutes' walk of them.

Ludwigsvorstadt, between the Hauptbahnhof and the grounds, lets you walk: just under 15 minutes from the station to the main gate. The signed walking route runs through it, so its streets stay busy until after the tents close at 11:30pm. Westend, on the west side of the grounds, has its own U-Bahn stop at Schwanthalerhöhe. Maxvorstadt, the museum quarter, is north of the Hauptbahnhof. Haidhausen, east of the river, is the base to choose if you want distance from the festival and no change of train: the U4 and U5 run from Max-Weber-Platz to Theresienwiese. Schwabing is on the U3 and U6, which stop at Goetheplatz.

Skip if you want distance from the festival at night. The walking route from the Hauptbahnhof runs through Ludwigsvorstadt, and the tents close at 11:30pm.

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What it costs

Entry to the grounds and the tents is free. Each tent sets its own prices. The city checks that they are reasonable and publishes the beer prices before the festival opens. The figures below are from 2026, the last ones published.

• Entry: free. The Oide Wiesn charged 4 euros per person, with free entry after 9pm and for children up to 14.

• A Maß, the one-liter glass: 14.80 to 15.90 euros depending on the tent, up from 14.50 to 15.80 in 2025.

• A liter of bottled water: 11.13 euros on average.

• A table: vouchers, usually two liters of beer and half a roast chicken per person, around 350 euros a table on average. In the boxes and galleries an 18-euro voucher is added.

• Rides in the Oide Wiesn: €1.50. Tuesday is family day, with lower prices for children on many rides and stalls until 7pm.

Vouchers you do not use stay valid for the whole festival. After it ends, the hosts must redeem them in their restaurants or refund them in full until at least 31 October.

Etiquette

Know the closing routine. In the big tents the last beer is served at 10:30pm, when the music stops, and the tents close at 11:30pm. The small tents serve until 11pm. Two places run later: Käfer Wiesn-Schänke and Kuffler's Weinzelt pour until 12:30am and close at 1am.

Families do best in the daytime. Children under six must leave the beer tents by 8pm, even with a parent, and that includes the Oide Wiesn. After 8pm anyone under 16 needs a parent or guardian to stay on the grounds. Strollers are allowed until 6pm, and not at all on Saturdays or on 3 October. Beer is served from age 16, with proof of age.

You may bring your own drinks onto the grounds, though not into the tents or beer gardens, and never in glass bottles. Dirndl and lederhosen are optional.

Mistakes to avoid

The common mistake is to arrive on a Saturday evening with no reservation and expect to sit down. By then the unreserved share of each big tent has dropped to a quarter. Give that evening to the rides, the food stalls and the Oide Wiesn, which is free after 9pm, and go to the big tents at lunchtime on a weekday. They open at 10am.

The second is to book flights before reading the calendar. The two parades happen on the first weekend only. In 2027 the public holiday, 3 October, is also the last day, so the festival ends on holiday hours, 9am to 11:30pm. If one evening at a table matters to your trip, watch the tent websites from spring and reserve as a group of eight to ten, because tables are not sold by the seat.