Oktoberfest 2027: dates, tent reservations, beer prices, opening day and how to get a seat

💡 The Short Version: The 192nd Oktoberfest runs from Saturday 18 September to Sunday 3 October 2027 on the Theresienwiese. Entry is free. A tent books a whole table of 8 to 10 with vouchers of about €350 to €400, and the reservation costs nothing. In 2026 a Maß of beer was €14.80 to €15.90. On the first day the landlords’ procession leaves at 10:35 and the mayor taps the first keg at 12:00. The hotels near the grounds are usually booked out months ahead. Or book a tour: the Beer and Food Tour with Dinner and the Oktoberfest Museumad is from €72 for 3.5 hours and runs all year.

⚠️ A table is the unit, not a seat. The tents take bookings only for a whole table of 8 to 10, and the organiser says a reservation cannot be resold.

The reservation rules, the beer prices and the barometer of busy days below are the organiser’s 2026 versions, labelled as such. The organiser, the city’s Referat für Arbeit und Wirtschaft, publishes the 2027 versions nearer the date at oktoberfest.de.

Dates and hours

The fairground is open Monday to Thursday from 10:00 to 23:30, Friday from 10:00 to 24:00, Saturday from 9:00 to 24:00 and Sunday from 9:00 to 23:30. The tents open at 10:00 on weekdays and serve from 9:00 on Saturday and Sunday. Music and last orders in the large tents are at 22:30 and in the small tents at 23:00, and the Käfer Wiesn-Schänke and Kufflers Weinzelt stay open to 1:00, with last drinks at 0:30. The Oide Wiesn, the traditional section, is open Sunday to Thursday from 10:00 to 23:30 and Friday and Saturday from 10:00 to 24:00. It charged €4 in 2026, and its three tents stop serving at 22:30.

The Theresienwiese from the air while the tents are being built. Photo: zoesch, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

The first Saturday’s Schottenhamel seats are the hardest to get, and the tap-in is broadcast live by Bayerischer Rundfunk. The 2026 festival, from 19 September to 4 October, had 7.4 million visitors, the most in its history according to the organiser’s preliminary report, against 6.5 million in 2025, and about 6.7 million Maß were poured.

Getting a seat

Without a reservation

Booking is not required. In the large tents, which take reservations, a quarter of the seats could never be reserved in 2026: on Monday to Friday 25 per cent, and on weekends and holidays 40 per cent until 15:00 and 25 per cent after that. On the Oide Wiesn a third is always free. The Käfer Wiesn-Schänke, Kufflers Weinzelt and the small tents are exceptions, and reservations apply only inside the tents, not in the beer gardens.

The organiser’s barometer for 2026 shows the pattern. Saturdays are strong to very strong all day and Sundays strong. Monday to Thursday are quiet before 15:00 and well attended after it. Fridays are quiet by day and strong after 18:00. The two Tuesdays are the family days, with more people at the stalls and rides and fewer in the tents, and 3 October is traditionally very busy. On weekends the free seats are taken by the morning, and queueing is pointless in the changeover of reservations, from about 16:00 to 18:00, when the main entrances of the large tents are usually closed.

Reserving a table

There is no central booking office: you book with each tent, mostly online, on the landlord’s own site. In 2026 the organiser said most tents open booking by spring and at the latest in April or May, and it advises against calling just after the festival.

• Tables only. A table seats 8 to 10, and the organiser says “a table for two” does not exist.
• The cost. The reservation is free, but you buy vouchers for the table: about €350 to €400 in total, sometimes more, which is roughly €35 to €50 a head for a table of 10 or 8. A handling fee of €1.50 per place plus postage may be charged. Boxes and galleries add an €18 voucher.
• The minimum. There is no menu obligation. The usual minimum in the main hall is two Maß and half a roast chicken per person.
• Cancellations. Cancelled tables are released shortly before the festival.
• Resale. Reservations cannot be resold. The organiser’s official portal is oktoberfest-booking.com, where 21 landlords let people swap or sell unused tables at face value, and the organiser warns against buying from auctions.

The large tents that take reservations are the Armbrustschützen, Augustiner, Boandlkramerei, Fischer-Vroni, Hacker, Hofbräu, Käfer Wiesn-Schänke, Kufflers Weinzelt, Löwenbräu, Marstall, Ochsenbraterei, Paulaner, Pschorr-Bräurosl, Schottenhamel, Schützen and Schützenlisl, with the Festzelt Tradition and the other Oide Wiesn tents in the traditional section.

The front of the Augustiner tent on the Theresienwiese. Photo: digital cat, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

München Tourismus sells a Wiesnpaket for people travelling alone: a seat at a table, food and beer vouchers, the year’s official stein, a Ferris wheel ride and a ride on the “Russnradl”, and a voucher for a city guide tour. It is booked through muenchen.travel.

GetYourGuide’s reserved tables

GetYourGuide sells tent lunches and reserved-table packages, which include a host or a tour and cost far more per head than the organiser’s vouchers. The prices are “from” prices per person.

• Oktoberfest Tour, Beer-Tent Lunch at a Shared Tablead: a lunch at a shared table, 3.5 hours, from €145.
• Oktoberfest Beer Tent Party Tour with Reserved Tablead: a tour with a reserved table, 5 to 6 hours, from €210.
• Oktoberfest Lunch or Dinner Seat Reservation in a Big Beer Tentad: a seat reservation, 5 to 7 hours, from €249.
• Reserved Oktoberfest Table with Beer, Food and Hostad: a reserved table with a host, 4 hours, from €399.

What it costs

The beer price is set by the landlords. These were the 2026 prices for a Maß, according to the organiser, and the 2027 prices follow nearer the date. A litre of still water was €11.13, of Spezi €12.84 and of lemonade €12.35.

Getting there and the rules on site

The stations at the grounds are Theresienwiese and Schwanthalerhöhe (U4, U5), Heimeranplatz (U4, U5, S7, S20), Goetheplatz and Poccistraße (U3, U6) and Hackerbrücke (S-Bahn). Theresienwiese is the fullest, and the organiser recommends Goetheplatz, Poccistraße or Schwanthalerhöhe to families. The Hackerbrücke footbridge is closed when it is crowded, mostly at weekends and in the evening. The organiser says MVG runs about 9,000 extra trips and has more than 230 extra staff each day. Fares are in Munich public transport.

There is no parking at the grounds, a wide zone round the Theresienwiese is closed to cars, e-scooters may not be ridden or parked inside the outer cordon, and everything inside the Mittlerer Ring is a low-emission zone. Bags are limited to 3 litres or 20 x 15 x 10 cm, glass bottles are banned, and drinks may be taken onto the grounds but not into the tents or beer gardens. Large luggage can be left at entrance P1, P5, P8 or P10 for €5, subject to space.

Where to stay

The organiser says hotels near the grounds are usually booked out months ahead, and that a room in the city centre is difficult but not impossible. A Munich newspaper, the tz, checked prices in September 2026 and found a basic 3-star by the main station at about €90 a night in November and €450 to €750 on festival weekends, with a weekday stay often 30 to 50 per cent cheaper. A bed in an eight-bed dormitory rose from €15 to €25 to €250 to €300, and mid-range hotels in the outer S-Bahn belt, such as Erding, Holzkirchen and Gilching, cost €60 to €160 on weekdays and €90 to €250 on a weekend night (tz). Those are 2026 figures.

The streets round the Hauptbahnhof, 660 m from the grounds, and the Westend are the areas on foot. Hotels near Munich Hauptbahnhof gives the walking times the hotels print, and where to stay in Munich compares the areas.

Beer and the other festivals

The tents’ beer and food are compared in Munich’s beer halls, and Munich’s beer gardens covers the rest of the season. The strong-beer festivals in February and March and the spring festival in late April are in the best time to visit Munich. To fit the festival into a visit, see 3 days in Munich.