[Addick]

Originally Posted by 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.

I have yet to attend Oktoberfest so thanks for the interesting insight. What I can take from your post is that the organisers of Oktoberfest could benefit from asking the same questions that the board of the Calgary Stampede should ask. Primarily, where can we take things from here?