I took two Germans to KW Oktoberfest…

FIRST OF ALL, those dirndls are not it.

While on exchange here in Guelph, I’ve (funnily enough) made friends with a large number of Europeans. So many that we joke I’m on Eurotrip. Two of these friends happen to be German, so when we heard that the Oktoberfest in Kitchener-Waterloo was the largest Oktoberfest outside of Germany, we knew we had to go.

We purchased our tickets online and didn’t select the “print it yourself” option because it was three dollars more. This was a mistake. If you order your tickets online, you have to pick them up at the office, which is in Kitchener. The office closes at 5 p.m., but the festivities don’t start until around 6 p.m., so if you’re going next year, please just pay the three dollars.

The first difference I learned between KW Oktoberfest and German Oktoberfest was that KW’s has a few tents spread out across the city, and your ticket only gets you access to one. Going between them isn’t really realistic anyway, because of the distance between them. Research is key for figuring out the best one to buy tickets to.

German Oktoberfest, on the other hand, is in one place, and you don’t have to pay for individual tents. It’s in a field in the city of Munich, and locals actually refer to the event as “Wiesn” after the place it’s held. One of my friends, Sabrina, is from Munich, and she filled me in on all the details, so thanks to her, I’m going to give you a bit of history on Oktoberfest.

First of all, Oktoberfest only happens in Munich, the capital of the Bavarian state. It’s part of a larger festival called Volksfest, which means “People’s Festival,” which happens across Germany. Oktoberfest also occurs in the sixteen days before the first Sunday in October… unless this is before German Unity Day (3 Oct.), in which case it continues until then. The event has its roots as the wedding festivities of a royal couple in 1810, meaning it’s been around over 200 years. A whopping 6 million people visit Munich every year to attend Oktoberfest and it’s the kind of thing locals go to every year.

At KW Oktoberfest, you get bracelets with chips you have to load money onto in order to purchase anything. According to my Germans, German Oktoberfest deals only in cold, hard cash. This bracelet set up honestly felt a little bit like a cash grab because if you didn’t use up everything on your bracelet you’d have to pay another three dollars to get it returned to cash — and if you left drunk with a decent amount of money still on your bracelet, I’m not sure how you’d ever get it back. Beer was also expensive, with half a litre costing seven dollars. My German friend, Arjan, wasn’t terribly impressed that the beer came from a can instead of a tap.

One of the things I was most interested to have my German friends compare was the traditional aspect of Oktoberfest. While Sabrina is from Munich, Arjan is from up north, where traditions are very different. The two main traditional features of KW Oktoberfest were the band and the dance performance shown at one point in the night.

The band was given the tick of approval for being accurate, and my German friends were pleasantly surprised by how well they sang the Oktoberfest song. The accordion is apparently very important, and KW has this down pat. Sabrina, did mention, however, that dancing on tables is an integral part of Oktoberfest back home. KW Oktoberfest, unfortunately, did not have any of this. In fact, I get the feeling you might get kicked out for table dancing.

The dance group that performed was from the Transylvania Club in Kitchener. I hope they know Transylvania is not in Germany. Apparently, they were fairly accurate to the German tradition though, so much, that as we were watching them, Sabrina turned to me and said, “this is everything I’ve worked so hard to escape.” The dance they performed, Schuhplattlern, is the traditional dance that involves a lot of slapping your shoes. However, despite it being traditionally German, there were definitely some Austrian aspects to their performance. They danced in partners and there was also some yodelling involved — which the Germans were very quick to tell me was Austrian. At German Oktoberfest, no one really does traditional dance. There is one tent at the festival where you can see it performed, but it’s not terribly popular amongst locals.

The most interesting thing about the dancers were their outfits, (and guessing which partners were in relationships, but that may have been purely a me and my friends thing; Miss Transylvania was clearly dating one of the guys). The dancers had accurate outfits according to my Germans, but they weren’t super high quality. Real dirndls are generally quite expensive and worn at important events. The stereotypical dirndl costume you’re probably imagining — the classic “sexy” one that has a very short skirt, white blouse with a corset over the top, and very weirdly, stockings — is also far too short to be traditional. According to Sabrina, people from Munich can tell when someone isn’t from Munich if their dirndl is above the knee.

As for the rest of the festivities, it was a mixed bag. The pretzels were pretty accurate, though you don’t traditionally eat them with mustard. Oktoberfest in Munich has rides, such as a Ferris Wheel, which KW Oktoberfest did not have. Instead, they had axe throwing, which I’ve been told Oktoberfest would never have because why would you give a drunk person an axe?

For an estimated attendance of 700,000 people overall at the festival, the tent we were in was a little empty. I put this down to the day we went, Thursday, because I’m sure more people go on the weekends. It was a bit odd that the event started at night. Oktoberfest in Munich is an all-day event. But I was also told that there was “significantly less puking” at KW Oktoberfest than in Germany, so maybe that was a good thing.

At the end of the day, KW Oktoberfest was more traditional than we expected, and we definitely enjoyed it. Even the things that weren’t traditional weren’t horrible affronts. As my roommate said: “Whatever works for Canadians, as long as they’re having fun. But they should definitely go to the real one.” I for one, would definitely recommend adding a ride or two.