Blog
Day 5: How Big is Oktoberfest?
9/25/2019
Numbers like 6 million visitors and 7.7 million liters of Bier, don't quite portray the enormity of the world's largest annual festival that is Munich's Oktoberfest. So let's put those numbers into perspective.
Munich's 6 million Oktoberfest visitors crowding the Theresienwiese every year is the equivalent of nearly the entire state of Tennessee going to a space the size of Opry Mills plus the adjacent Grand Ole Opry and the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center over the span of just 16 days.
Here's another way to think about that many people: Bonnaroo might seem like a crowded and crazy place. Oktoberfest has the same attendance as 80 Bonnaroos going on all at once. Oh, and Bonnarroo's 700 acre site, is nearly three times the size of Munich's Wiesn where the Oktoberfest is held.
But what about all that Bier consumed at Oktoberfest? A liter stein is about 4 inches in diameter. So those 7.7 million liters of Bier placed side by side would stretch 486 miles, enough to reach from Nashville to Panama City Beach, Florida, and still leaving 24 miles, or another 95,000 Steins of Bier to drink once you got to the beach. If all those Biers were in standard 50-liter kegs and loaded on beer trucks parked nose to tail, they would stretch the 8.9 miles between Bridgestone Arena where the Predators play and the Bavarian Bierhaus.
It's not just Bier. Oktoberfest visitors go through 94,795 liters of wine, or two-and-a-half years worth of wines grown and produced at nearby Arrington Vineyards. And the 1.6 million liters of water, lemonade, coffee, tea, and other non-alcoholic drinks served there every year are enough to fill 36 fuel tankers.
No matter how you measure it, Oktoberfest is big. So if that's too big for you, come out to the Bavarian Bierhaus for a slightly smaller version of Oktoberfest Every Day.
Prost!
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