The 190th Oktoberfest beer festival, thought to be the world’s biggest public festival, is to close on Sunday in the southern city of Munich after two weeks of revelry.
The festival this year drew 6.5 million visitors, who also drank 6.5 million liters (1.7 million gallons) of beer, according to Munich authorities.
The number is slightly down on 2024, when some 6.7 million revelers downed about 7 million liters.
Closures and bomb scare
“For me, it was a roller-coaster Wiesn,” Munich’s economic adviser Christian Scharpf, who headed the festival organization, told the German DPA news agency, using the dialect word for the festival.
Scharpf said that while record temperatures on the first days of the festival had given the event a “dream start,” the event had seen a few hitches, with gates having to be closed temporarily on two days and almost a complete day lost while police searched the venue for a bomb.
Speaking of the reopening after the bomb scare, Scharpf said, “The most beautiful experience for me was feeling that sense of ‘we’ll enjoy ourselves all the more now.’ People returned to the Wiesn immediately after the closure was lifted and celebrated with a good feeling.”
Scharpf also gave a positive assessment.
“The super Wiesn atmosphere and the great party mood among the people characterized the festival throughout,” he said.
The first day of the festival, when Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter set a heat record for Oktoberfest, with the temperature reaching 31 degrees C (87.8 degrees F).
Other Oktoberfest facts and figures
On average, around 21% of visitors to the festival each day were from other countries, mostly the US, Italy, the UK, Austria, Poland, Spain, France, India and Sweden, the organizers said.
Around 4,500 objects were reported lost during the festival, 10% more than in 2024. They included 1,100 items of clothing, 800 wallets and purses, 600 identity cards or passports, 400 smartphones, 370 keys, 280 glasses and sunglasses, 150 bags and 40 hats and watches.
However, 900 of the items could be returned to their owners.
The amount of garbage collected was 764 metric tons (842 US tons), some 12.4% less than in 2024
Edited by: Sean Sinico
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