The Bavarian Funfair
Munich’s world-famous annual beer fest gives visitors the chance to indulge in drinking Mass Beer (a 1-litre jar of strong beer) and eating sauerkraut, pretzels and roast pork. Sounds like a world of fun when you can wear lederhosen and dirndls to blend in with the indigenous folks while merrily swaying in tune with Bavarian brass music and thousands of international visitors. The festival culminates in a big climax of gun-salutes on the steps of the Bavaria monument, marking an end to a marvelous time of 16 days of inebriated debauchery.
Fun fact
Some would argue that the Oktoberfest is just a big overindulgence in unhealthy food, booze and funfair amusement. In 2013, over 6 million litres of beer were enjoyed by just as many visitors – quite the lash fest!
The Origins
Bavarian’s King Ludwig I – the guy who would later built the fairytale-like Neuschwanstein Castle – kicked off the first Oktoberfest to celebrate his marriage to Princess Therese on October 12, 1810. Everyone in Munich was invited to attend the party held on the grassland right outside the city gates, which was reason enough to call it Theresienwiese (“Theresa’s meadow”) afterwards. Today, the locals just refer to it as Wiesn.
It’s easy to believe that Oktoberfest celebrations became quite a hit with the people of Munich, and since Leo’s party was obviously a whole lot of fun, they decided to start the festival in September already. Better weather conditions were cited, a perfect excuse for making the fun last. Today people don’t mind getting drunk in bad weather anymore, and the festival has not been cancelled due to reasons of cholera epidemics or war in quite a number of years.
Today’s issues
You don’t need to be a math-magician to deduce that 6 million people produce quite a lot of rubbish and other side products in the space of just over 2 weeks. In fact, over 1,000 tons of litter and squadrons of portable toilettes (that most people use) cause quite a bit of undesirable waste. ‘Quite a bit’ may sound like quite an understatement if you picture the mountain that all these tons of rubbish could potentially pile up to. Miraculously, Munich’s city cleaners make a great job of ridding the Wiesn of unwanted trash every night. Hail the bin men!
Having fun the nice way
Our message: go to Munich and have a fun time socialising with Japanese, American and Nigerian funfair participants. Bear in mind that a litre of beer is about 2 pints of normal lager, and know that those 2 pints have the alcoholic muscle of 3 pints. Use public toilettes and bins to rid yourself of what’s no longer needed, and enjoy the blast!
And if you don’t think wearing lederhosen is for you, there are fun ways of expressing allegiance to Bavarian culture and tradition. Check out our Oktoberfest designs – lederhosen also look good when printed on a T-shirt! Of course, a beer fest is always a great occasion to wear a fun tee. For shop partners this is a great occasion to adorn products with Oktoberfest designs as a lot of people are looking for fun T-shirts, hoodies & the like to wear at the
Hi Felikss,
Every beer mug is baked individually, and this is why the bulge/curvature on the upper edge is always a bit different. So we need to restrict the printable are to a smaller size to make sure that the print results come out fine.
Great post Leila, but the printable area on Beer Mug is to small (smaller than on your picture). I have few ideas for beer mug, but not realized them because of small printable area 🙁