Oktoberfest Traditions: What Gemütlichkeit Knows About Gathering

Sep 14

3 min read

Inside an Oktoberfest tent, privacy is in short supply. Thousands of people sit shoulder to shoulder at long wooden tables, beer arrives by the liter, brass bands compete with conversations, and somewhere between the first Maß and the next round of Ein Prosit, the people beside you stop feeling quite so much like strangers.

Girl with braided hair raises a beer mug in a lively Oktoberfest crowd, with blue-and-white Bavarian flags overhead.

The Oktoberfest Traditions That Turn Strangers Into a Gathering

Then the music changes. Glasses go up. The room joins in. Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit—a toast to Gemütlichkeit—has been doing this particular job at Oktoberfest for more than a century. In the big tents, it can be played two or three times an hour, repeatedly turning thousands of separate conversations into one very large toast.

For a festival known around the world for beer, Oktoberfest has quietly perfected something much more interesting: getting people who didn't arrive together to do things together.

And that is where Gemütlichkeit enters the story.

Man in vest carries three frothy beer mugs at a lively Oktoberfest outdoor party with string lights and a crowd in warm sunlight

More Than Cozy

The German word is often translated as “coziness,” which makes it sound like something involving blankets and a very good candle. It's bigger than that.

Gemütlichkeit can describe comfort and ease, but also informal sociability—the pleasure of feeling comfortably at home among other people.

In Munich, you can see the idea long before Oktoberfest opens its gates.

Traditional beer gardens are built for company. Their long communal tables aren't necessarily reserved for the people you came with; an open place is an open place. Munich Tourism still describes sharing tables with strangers as part of beer-garden culture.

The story begins underground.

Before the Beer Tents, There Were Beer Cellars

Before refrigeration, Munich's brewers dug cellars along the Isar to keep beer cool through the warmer months. Shallow-rooted chestnut trees were planted above them for shade. Eventually, beer began being served on top of the cellars too.

There was one catch.

An 1812 regulation allowed brewers to sell their beer there, but not food. So people brought their own.

More than two centuries later, that tradition survives in many of Munich's classic beer gardens: bring your own picnic to designated areas, buy your beer from the garden and find a place at the table.

A practical solution became a way of gathering.

Oktoberfest took a different route to the same crowded table.

A Royal Wedding, a Horse Race and a Very Different Oktoberfest

Some of the most recognizable Oktoberfest traditions weren't there at the beginning. The first celebration in 1810 had no giant beer tents, no Ein Prosit and none of the communal rituals visitors associate with the Wiesn today.

It began in 1810 with the marriage of Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. Munich celebrated for days, ending with a horse race on October 17 on a meadow outside the city gates. The meadow became Theresienwiese—still shortened by locals to die Wiesn.

There were no giant beer tents. No liters of Oktoberfest beer lined up ten deep. No Ein Prosit every twenty minutes.

Those came later.

The horse race returned the following year. An agricultural show joined the celebration. Beer stands appeared and grew. By the end of the 19th century, enormous festival halls were changing the scale of the Wiesn—and one enterprising innkeeper was about to change its soundtrack.

The Song That Gets Everyone Involved

In 1898, Nuremberg innkeeper Georg Lang opened a huge Oktoberfest beer hall with room for thousands and a 30-piece band. He also distributed songbooks, encouraging the crowd to sing along.

Among the songs was Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit, written not by a Bavarian but by Bernhard Dietrich of Chemnitz in Saxony.

It worked.

Two older men in black hats and vests play saxophones onstage at an Oktoberfest band performance.

More than a century later, the song still interrupts Oktoberfest several times an hour. Conversations stop. Glasses rise. Thousands join the same toast.

The beer may get them into the tent. Participation turns the tent into a gathering. And Oktoberfest is surprisingly good at engineering it.

Tables in the festival tents typically seat eight to ten. Reservations are generally made for the entire table, while large tents are required to leave substantial seating available without reservations. Outside in the beer gardens, tables aren't reserved at all. Which means at some point, somebody has to move over.

Hand holding a glass beer stein with amber beer, beside men in brown lederhosen at a lively outdoor festival.

What’s Worth Bringing Home

That tiny act may be the most interesting thing to bring home from Munich.

Not the pretzels. Not the blue-and-white decorations. Not an Amazon cart full of Oktoberfest props.

The long table. The shared food. The song everyone knows. The toast everyone makes together.

The decision to seat people beside someone they didn't arrive with instead of arranging the room into little islands of people who already know one another.

Oktoberfest has spent more than two centuries changing—from royal wedding celebration to horse race, agricultural fair, beer halls and one of the world's largest folk festivals. Yet some of its most enduring pleasures are remarkably simple.

Sit close. Join in. Make room for one more.

Lederhosen optional.