Munich opens 191st Oktoberfest as crowds sprint to beer tents after gate delay
Thousands of festivalgoers gathered on the Theresienwiese on Saturday morning, sprinting to secure seats inside beer halls following a brief security delay at access gates.
Morning gates open at the Theresienwiese
The 191st Munich Oktoberfest began on Saturday morning, launching a 16-day run on the Theresienwiese grounds that extends through Sunday, 4 October 2026. Thousands of attendees gathered early along the perimeter to secure unreserved seats inside the beer halls for opening day. Access gates did not unlock at the scheduled 09:00 mark, as event security held crowds back for several minutes to manage the influx. Guards at the Bavaria statue entrance released the first wave of visitors at 09:07, while the main entrance opened at 09:11. Once past the turnstiles, attendees broke into full sprints across the fairgrounds in traditional outfits, holding up dirndl skirts and wearing traditional trachten jackets as they rushed toward tent entrances. Several visitors tumbled over each other in the opening sprint before standing back up and continuing toward their destinations.
Crowd control and safety adjustments
Festival organizers altered morning entry procedures to prevent the disorderly scenes that occurred at previous openings. During the 2025 opening, waiting crowds shouted an unauthorized countdown and overran security staff precisely at 09:00. Prior years also saw recurrent injuries during the initial rush to reach tent doors. Security personnel addressed the front rows of the queues on Saturday morning, leading attendees toward the entrances in larger, organized groups rather than allowing an unconstrained surge. Holding back the crowds intermittently broke up the flow of people entering the grounds from various directions. These adjustments delayed the opening sprint by roughly ten minutes but maintained order along the primary access routes.
- First attendees arrive to queue outside the festival grounds
- Queue reaches hundreds of metres to Alter Messeplatz
- Security opens the Bavaria statue entrance
- Main entrance opens as visitors sprint toward tents
- Scheduled official keg tapping permits beer service to begin
Overnight vigil along the perimeter
Crowds began assembling outside the festival fences on Friday evening, fourteen hours before the grounds opened to the public. The earliest group in line arrived at 19:00 on Friday with the specific goal of securing seats inside the Schottenhamel tent to witness the opening keg tapping. Behind them, mostly young visitors from Munich and surrounding regions spent the night camping on pavements with sleeping bags, folding chairs, and reflective emergency blankets. Waiting attendees passed the hours playing card games, making new acquaintances, adjusting hairstyles, and eating pretzels to prepare for the festivities. By 07:00 on Saturday, the queue extended hundreds of metres from the main entrance back to the Alter Messeplatz intersection, accompanied by popping sparkling wine corks, cheering, and applause among attendees wearing colorful dirndls and plastic lederhosen.
The wait for the official tapping
Nineteen-year-old Munich resident Miguel Nodjoumi arrived outside the gates around 07:00, planning a direct sprint to the Hacker tent, known as Heaven of the Bavarians.
People always say waiting is boring, but I say waiting is fun and then you also look forward to the litre of beer first. That will be great.
Festival regulations prevent beer service before midday, meaning seated visitors must wait inside the tents for nearly three hours following entry. The festival officially opens its taps at 12:00, after which servers are permitted to fill litre steins with specially brewed festival beer. Clear skies and sunshine provided warm late-summer conditions across Munich as tent benches filled to capacity ahead of the noon tapping ceremony.
