[Zarley]

I've been to Oktoberfest and while I had fun there, I actually think the Stampede is a better festival for the following reasons:

- You can partake in Stampede events and genuinely enjoy yourself without necessarily drinking yourself into a stupor. The Oktoberfest grounds are disgusting, with garbage everywhere, thousands and thousands of obnoxious drunks milling about, and vomit littering the sidewalks. I wouldn't recommend going there without having a buzz on. While Stampede certainly involves heavy drinking, there is plenty of other entertainment available including the animal exhibitions, rodeo, chucks, and good concerts.

- Essentially what happens at Oktoberfest is you queue up at 9 AM to get into a beer hall, sit down at a table, and drink stein after stein for 12 hours straight (and eat delicious, delicious chicken). It's fun, but I prefer the setup at the Cowboys tent where you can mingle about, aren't stuck at a table all day, and don't have to start drinking first thing in the morning. Also, there aren't enough washrooms at the Oktoberfest beer tents I went to, so they were letting people out to urinate on the grass in the open.

- It's tough to evaluate this as a tourist, but there didn't seem to be many Oktoberfest events outside of the Wiesn (fairgrounds). The great thing about Stampede is the community and corporate embrace of the event.

- They have a midway with rides there as well, but it's essentially the same thing as the Stampede midway.

All in all, Oktoberfest was good but I wouldn't want to go there every year. I can partake in the Stampede and have fun year after year. If Oktoberfest is being cited as the standard of a world class festival, I'd say we are doing pretty well.