As expected, it was incredibly busy and very very large (the picture just doesn't do it justice) but the first thing surprised us was the amount of funfair rides that there were. These took up a large proportion of the area, and whilst they certainly provided plently of entertainment, it seemed wrong to us that the main focus of the event seemed to be around these and not the beer.
This abundance of spinning, twirling, and flashing attractions seemed at first to be a pleasant surprise. Afterall, they're always good for a laugh. However, we very quickly realised that perhaps they weren't such a great idea for 2 good reasons.
Firstly, far too many people seemed incapable of making this simple calculation:
Add into this equasion the fact that 6.5 million people visited Oktoberfest this year, and that the facilities consisted of scarsely scattered chemical toilets and the answer is not pretty. Needless to say, the capacities of these toilets were not nearly enough to meet the reqirements and I'll leave the rest up to your imagination...
The second (and much more serious) problem was the fact that with all these rides, there was not enough drinking space left! The beer tents were all crammed into the back corner of the festival, and by the time we arrived they were already at capacity. Hense the title of this blog. We waited an hour at the doors of one of these tents and only 3 people were let in. So no beer for us and we left feeling cheated. And thristy. (To be fair though, we were there on it's final Saturday at about 3pm so couldn't have really picked a worse time).
However, it wasn't all bad. Oktoberfest did certainly have one redeeming feature. With the amount of people and alcohol, this was definately a recipe for a mass brawl. However, I can honesly say that we never saw any sign of trouble. I don't know why but it's certainly worth pointing out.
Miss you all. Ross x
More photos of Oktoberfest will soon be added to http://community.webshots.com/user/joanna2079 so keep checking!
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