Munich Oktoberfest 2011

The official Oktoberfest in Munich has (sadly) ended earlier this week after 17 days of the usual beer, food, and entertainment. I was there for the duration, as usual, meeting up with Phoronix readers, business sources, and other contacts while enjoying this wonderful Bavarian festival. For those that missed out on the event but are curious what the event is really like, here's some Oktoberfest photos for your enjoyment, since beer is commonly quite popular among developers and computer enthusiasts.

Oktoberfest is an annual journey for me and is really a wonderful event -- it is much more than just being about beer. The beer though is wonderful (Augustiner!) and does help to get sources to talk for news stories now and more items to break in the future, but the food, women, music, etc are all wonderful. It's a utopia.

For those that missed it back in July, be sure to see my guide to Oktoberfest that provides much more commentary and information about Munich's Oktoberfest. The photos above are from before millions of people heading to the wiesn and then photos looking towards the wiesn (the location of Oktoberfest, southwest of the Munich Hauptbahnhof) from day and night. (Sadly, I decided to try shooting the photos this year with an iPhone 4 rather than using a DSLR.)

Approximately 6.9 million people attended Oktoberfest 2011. All of the tourists that have been coming to Oktoberfest can be discouraging, but there is still many Bavarians (from Munich and elsewhere) trekking to the wiesn for several days per year. Fortunately, if being an annual (and daily) patron of Oktoberfest that befriends the waiters/waitresses and security personnel, the mass number of people is not a problem. Even on weekend afternoons when the tents are "closed" due to reaching maximum capacity, the longest I had to wait to enter the Augustiner tent was about two minutes. Other benefits include prompt service, easy seating, beer service if standing, free Jägermeister, and more.

The weather for Oktoberfest this year was particularly pleasant aside from the opening weekend. The only downside of nice weather at Oktoberfest is that the tents can become rather warm.

Plenty of dirndls, lederhosens, and traditional Bavarian tracht at Oktoberfest.