Oktoberfest 2011: night views and energy costs

 

Only during Oktoberfest-time the second biggest Munich church St-Pauli offers interested visitors  (against a fee of 3 EUR) to climb up one of its towers. The view from there at the "Theresienwiese" and the huge beer tents is simply breathtaking...Yesterday I was pretty lucky and climb the almost 300 steps up and enjoyed a very colourful and magic view...

 

However once I was up there and saw all those attractions and lights I start wondering about the energy consumption. so today I checked somestatistics and found out that the famous Oktoberfest uses within 17 days as musch electricity as 1200 households for one  year. The 750 customers get the final product via 3 underground and 16 above the ground transformer stations, 43km of cables and 160 feeder stations, Very often the energy usage of the festival is compared to a town with 20.000 inhabitants!

 

Another curiosity is the fact that for some years, asthe festival was first held (1810) everything was working without current. Only in 1866 did Werner von Siemens find "das dynamoelektrische Prinzip" and developped afterwards the first electricity generator...

O'zapft is! Oktoberfest...in September:)

There is something that always makes me laugh when I hear "Oktoberfest"- it starts mid September and only the few last days of the 16-day-beerfestival are indeed in October! But I have to say it is amazing to see the enormous number of beer fans and party-addicts and of course the tons of Dirndl (typical Bavarian dress, consisting of a bodice, blouse, full skirt and apro) and Lederhosen(leather pants).

What took place in October 1810 as a wedding party of King Ludwig I and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen, its now a huge money-making and beer-selling machine...Löwenbräu, Augustiner, Pschorr-Hacker: the most famous beer producer have their own party tents where beer and music are flowing sometimes in the same tempo. The price of one liter beer increases every year-from 2005 till 2009 the price increase was 1,50EUR. The 2009 price was 8.60EUR (to compare in 1949 it was 1,70 EUR)!

The Munich Oktoberfest is known as the Largest Volksfest (People's Fair) in the World. In 1999 there were six and a half million visitors to the 42 hectare Theresienwiese. 72% of the people are from Bavaria.15% of visitors come from foreign countries like the surrounding EU-countries and other non-European countries including the United States, Canada, India, Japan, Brazil and Australia.

And last but not least-make sure you leave before the tables start get wet of all the beer on them:) And dont forget dancing is allowed only on the benches, but not on the table-the only place where just the Mass Bier is safe!