By Michael Sabelli

Festivals are something that people all around the world enjoy. Whether it’s attending a small, artisan, grassroots festival in your hometown or travelling to a large music festival with big name acts, the general concept behind festivals is the same: it is a time to celebrate, entertain, and inspire. Festivals are part of being human.

The more successful festivals start out as parties, but are eventually attached to a cultural community and become annual events. These festivals are happily anticipated and are marked early in the calendar year.

In Munich, they have one such festival that is known throughout the world. Its success is apparent by the millions that attend to spend more than €1 billion each year. Indeed, it is the largest folk festival in the world and almost everybody everywhere knows its name: Oktoberfest.

“I try to go every year, even though it isn’t always possible,” says Kyra Stritt, a twenty-something German woman from Rhineland. “I always have fun at Oktoberfest when I go because people are all having a great time together...”

The company may be fun, but like many others Stritt does not attend just for the camaraderie: “...and of course I love beer.” In 2010, Oktoberfest sold 7.1 million litres of beer. That is enough to fill three Olympic-size swimming pools.

Oktoberfest is definitely the kind of party where the beer flows from taps uninhibited. However, there is also a possibility for this to be perceived negatively. Some residents of Munich are upset that Oktoberfest promotes alcohol consumption and turns the lovely city into a giant pub.

“I can’t possibly stay in Munich anymore when they start Oktoberfest,” shares Frau Berg, a retired woman from Munich. “The streets are disgusting, there is vomit everywhere because people don’t know their limits, and there is the smell of urine in the air.”

I spoke with Berg outside of Germany, in the Austrian Alps of Tyrol. It is an idyllic and peaceful place. “My Oktoberfest tradition is to come here [to the mountains], escape the crowds, and be at peace,” she says.

Berg’s opinion may be shared by many, but it is not in tune with the overwhelming majority of Bavarians, who flock to Oktoberfest for good beer and great fun.

With more than five million people gathering in Munich for the three week festival – it usually runs from the last two weeks of September to the first week of October – the majority of the attendees are Bavarian. Munich is the capital city in Bavaria, a state in southwestern Germany.

Isabella Schopp works for the Tourist Office in Munich’s City Hall. When I spoke to her, she explained who tends to visit Munich during Oktoberfest: “The overwhelming majority of visitors to Oktoberfest are from the state of Bavaria at 72%, with 60% [of them] from Munich itself and the surrounding areas. Only 19% are from abroad.”

Out of the foreigners, Schopp says, “The most are from Italy, then the United States, and then the United Kingdom. Because [Italy is] quite close to Germany, and the Italians like singing songs, drinking beer, and having fun.”

A widely published theorist on festivals, John MacAloon, writes in his book, Rite, Drama, Festival, Spectacle: Rehearsals Toward a Theory of Cultural Performance, that festivals are one genre of cultural performance which reveals “the story a people tell about themselves.”

With this in mind, Bavarians seem to enjoy the tradition of Oktoberfest. But there must be more to it than just beer drinking and partying. Back at the Tourist Office in Munich, Schopp gives me a bit of background.

“The history of Oktoberfest began with the marriage Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen in October 1810. It was a big festival. It was celebrated with a horse race and there were lots of people.”

“Now, it has changed a lot and grown a lot,” Schopp says. “There is no horse race now, but there are different beer tents and roller coasters. There are still some traditional parts: the entry of the festival hosts and brewers [is traditional]. Oktoberfest has become the largest folk festival in the world.”

At first, I was surprised to hear that Oktoberfest is the largest folk festival in the world. Without big name musical groups or large scale theatrical workshops, I assumed some other folk festivals would be bigger, like San Francisco’s Bluegrass Festival or something in the United Kingdom.

Beer, perhaps, is a bigger draw than music.

For three weeks a year, the city of Munich is completely transformed with tents and crowds of people from all over Bavaria and the world. They come together to drink local beer, sing traditional songs and wear cultural clothing, like Dirndl (corset-like peasant dresses) and Lederhosen (breeches made from leather).

A woman named Martina, sporting the Dirndl, took the three hour trip from Innsbruck in Austria to Munich just for the occasion. “Any occasion that means I can take out my Dirndl means a good time,” she laughs. “Even though I’m not Bavarian we have similar traditions in Austria, so I go to Oktoberfest to enjoy that.”

I ask Schopp at Munich’s Tourist Office about the negative perception of the festival as a party, and she replies, “Oktoberfest was always a traditional festival, not like a big party. [It has a] very old tradition, because it is more than 200 years old. People come and wear their own Bavarian costumes, and it has a very old beer tradition. Each year we have a special Oktoberfest beer which is a bit stronger than usual.”

If there is some confusion it is because beer is part of the culture of Bavaria. But it is also a substance that can be over-consumed by many to create that infamous party atmosphere, for better or for worse. Some people find mass public drunkenness grotesque, but others believe it brings communities together.

For Schopp, the public drinking is just part of the deal: “Yes, Oktoberfest reinforces Bavarian traditions and culture.”

Frau Berg, a Munich local attending the party, believes that Oktoberfest gets more credit than it deserves. “There are other ways we can honour our tradition and culture,” she says.

I notice she is not drinking beer, as she takes a sip of her Austrian pear schnapps. “Maybe it’s because I just don’t like beer,” she suggests when I question her further about the festival.

Berg and other non-beer drinkers are not in the majority: Germans are the third highest per capita beer consumers in the world. Schopp agrees that the locals are in favour of Oktoberfest.

“The locals like Oktoberfest very much. Some even take holidays so they can enjoy and take part in the Oktoberfest,” she says. “A negative effect could be the subways full of people; if you need to go to work as a local, sometime it’s not so pleasant.”

People vacationing in their home city – it sounds almost absurd. But when the city is transformed into a massive festival, it might feel like a real vacation. Schopp shares with me some numbers that are also staggering.

“The economic value for the Oktoberfest accounts for almost €1 billion: €319 million is spent directly at the venues, €250 million is spent in the City of Munich, and €350 million is spent on accommodation. It has a very big economic value.”

To put the numbers in context, the amount of money spent at Oktoberfest by revellers exceeds the Gross Domestic Products of Liberia, Djibouti, or Burundi. Especially impressive is that the venues bring in more than €100 million each week by selling beer and sausages and a few other local delicacies. There aren’t any tickets for admission, but the beer is somewhat expensive, at €10 per litre.

Given the popularity of this German festival, it shouldn’t be surprising that there are numerous unofficial spinoffs of Oktoberfest all over the world – not including the perennial beer-quaffing events held at virtually every college campus in North America.

“There are folk festivals all over Bavaria, but the traditional and original one is in Munich. They aren’t called Oktoberfest,” explains Schopp. “There are copies of Oktoberfest all over the world, more than 2,000!“

“Munich’s Oktoberfest doesn’t get compensated for the other festivals, only positive promotion,” she explains, as if someone might think it's part of a franchise.

Thanks to Oktoberfest, Munich seems to enjoy the many positives that festivals bring. The economic gains are impressive. It is amazing that so many people are happy to spend their disposable income on leisurely activities like drinking beer and singing songs for three weeks each year in Munich.

Less amazing, but certainly more intriguing, is the fact that the trappings of an old and refined culture in Bavaria have evolved to define not only a major regional event, but a world-class folk festival that is imitated and emulated throughout the world.