Munich · Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest Tent Reservations: How They Work, and How to Get In Without One

By Ramya ChinnaduraiPublished 9 October 2026Checked 9 October 2026

Oktoberfest tent reservations are made per table (8 to 10 people), directly with each tent, and the booking itself is free: you prepay food and drink vouchers, usually two litres of beer and half a roast chicken per person, which came to about €350 to €400 a table in 2026. You do not need a reservation to get in, because by city rule at least a quarter of the seats in the large tents can never be reserved, and 40% on weekend and holiday mornings until 3pm. Couples and small groups usually do better walking in on a weekday before mid afternoon than chasing a table.

The short version

• Oktoberfest 2027 is scheduled for Saturday 18 September to Sunday 3 October 2027, according to muenchen.de. 3 October (German Unity Day) falls on the final Sunday.
• Reservations are per table, not per person. Tables seat 8 to 10. There are no tables for two.
• Booking is free. You pay in advance for vouchers. Tents may only add real postage and a flat €1.50 per reserved seat for things like entry wristbands. No other fees are allowed.
• Most tents open bookings by spring, at the latest April or May. Löwenbräu has already said its 2027 bookings start in March 2027.
• The beer gardens outside each tent cannot be reserved at all. On a sunny day they are your best walk-in option.

For dates, budget and the wider trip, start with our Oktoberfest planning guide.

How a tent reservation actually works

There is no central booking office. Each tent (the hosts are called Festwirte) runs its own system, mostly an online request form, sometimes email or phone. The official oktoberfest.de reservation page links to the booking pages of all 17 large and 21 small tents, so start there rather than from a search result.

The process:

1. Wait until the tent opens its reservation portal. Hosts announce this on their own websites.
2. Send a request for a date, a slot (midday or evening) and an area of the tent.
3. Wait a few days or weeks for a confirmation by email. It is a request, not a booking, until confirmed.
4. Pay the invoice for the vouchers. At Schützen-Festzelt, for example, the confirmation is only valid once the invoice amount has been transferred.
5. Collect your vouchers and wristbands from the host's regular restaurant in Munich, or have them posted. Schottenhamel, for instance, ships vouchers by insured courier from about early July through August.

What the money buys

The reservation is free. What you prepay is a minimum consumption in the form of vouchers (Wertmarken). In the main hall of most large tents that means two Maß (litres) of beer and half a roast chicken per person. Tables in the boxes and galleries usually add an extra €18 voucher per person. The Käfer Wiesn-Schänke, Kufflers Weinzelt and the small tents set their own rules.

For a sense of scale, a Maß cost €14.80 to €15.90 at Oktoberfest 2026, so two of them alone are around €30 a head before the chicken. oktoberfest.de puts the average voucher bill at about €350 per table, and its German page says €350 to €400, with some tents charging more. 2027 prices are not yet published.

You can order more than your vouchers cover and pay cash. Unused vouchers stay valid through the festival and, according to oktoberfest.de, can be redeemed with Wiesn caterers until at least 31 October or refunded; the exact terms are set by each host.

Your reservation is a time slot, not a day

This catches out first-timers. A table is yours for a fixed window, and the next group takes it after you. Schottenhamel's 2026 schedule shows how it works. In the main hall, a Monday to Thursday midday slot ran 12:00 to 15:30 and the evening slot 16:00 to 22:30. In the boxes and on the balcony it was split into three: roughly late morning, afternoon (around 15:00 to 18:15) and evening (from about 18:45 to 22:30). Every tent sets its own times and tells you yours after confirmation.

The bar in the large tents closes at 22:30 and the tents shut at 23:30, so an "evening" slot means about six hours of festival, not a late night.

The wristband is your way in

When a tent is full, its doors close with a sign saying Wegen Überfüllung vorübergehend geschlossen (temporarily closed due to overcrowding). With a reservation wristband you can always get in, through dedicated entrances at the sides or back of the tent. If you step out for a cigarette (smoking is banned inside) or a ride without one, you may not get back in.

When tents open bookings

No tent has published a firm 2027 opening date for general bookings as of 9 October 2026, except Löwenbräu (March 2027). What the official sources and tent pages show for the 2026 cycle:

• General rule: oktoberfest.de says most tents open bookings by spring, at the latest in April or May, and asks people not to call or email after the festival ends.
• Löwenbräu-Festzelt: 2027 reservations begin in March 2027. In 2026 its page said no evening seats were left, and weekday lunch tables (Monday to Thursday, 12:00 to 16:30) were booked through a separate portal.
• Hofbräu-Festzelt: existing customers with a customer number could send their usual requests first. The portal for new enquiries was expected to open at the beginning of March.
• Schützen-Festzelt: weekend and evening dates were unavailable because of bookings carried over from the previous year, and it keeps no waiting list. Weekday lunch (Mittagswiesn) slots sometimes reopen.
• Augustiner-Festhalle: its quotas were fully allocated. Lunch requests for Tuesdays or Wednesdays (11:30 to 16:00) could still be emailed, subject to availability.

The pattern matters more than any one date: in the most popular tents, evenings and weekends go to returning regulars and companies before the public portal even opens. A first-time foreign visitor realistically competes for weekday midday slots. oktoberfest.de says weekday lunchtimes and the Oide Wiesn are the easiest to book, and that a table at Schottenhamel on the opening Saturday is unlikely.

The large tents at a glance

Seat counts are from each tent's official oktoberfest.de page for 2026 and change slightly year to year. "Outside" is the beer garden or terrace, which cannot be reserved.

oktoberfest.de's official list of 17 large tents also includes the three Oide Wiesn festival tents (Festzelt Tradition, Schützenlisl and Boandlkramerei), covered below.

The unreserved seats rule

This is the one rule that makes walk-ins possible, and it is set by the city, not by the goodwill of the hosts. According to oktoberfest.de (2026):

• Monday to Friday: 25% of seats in the large tents may not be reserved.
• Saturdays, Sundays and the public holiday: 40% stay unreserved until 3pm, then 25%.
• Oide Wiesn: one third of seats are always unreserved.
• Exempt: Käfer Wiesn-Schänke, Kufflers Weinzelt and all small tents. These can be fully booked, so do not count on walking in.
• Munich residents' quota: since 2015, hosts may hand an extra 10% of the otherwise unreservable large-tent seats to people with a main residence in Munich, on weekends and 3 October. You apply in person with ID, usually from June. There is no minimum spend and single seats are allowed. Each tent sets its own date: Hacker gave its quota out on 19 May 2026, Paulaner on 16 August 2026.

Löwenbräu explains how this looks on the ground: in 2026, rows 7 to 18 in its central nave could not be reserved on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, and were free to whoever arrived in time. Older press reports quoted different weekend percentages, so trust the current oktoberfest.de figures.

How to get in without a reservation

Pick the right day and hour

The city's Wiesn barometer, built on past years, rates each day in three windows: 10am to 3pm, 3pm to 6pm, and from 6pm. In 2026 it showed:

• Easiest: Monday mornings and afternoons, and weekday mornings generally, rated quiet.
• Hardest: the middle Saturday and the 3 October Saturday from 3pm on, and the Sunday afternoons after them, rated very busy. The middle weekend is known locally as the Italian weekend and is the most crowded of all.

For 2027 the calendar shifts: 3 October is the last Sunday, so expect that final day to be very busy.

Practical timings:

• Weekdays: tents open at 10am. SAT.1 Bayern's 2026 guide says most tents still have free seats until about 3pm, after which it fills.
• Weekends and 3 October: tents open at 9am, and unreserved tables can be taken early in the morning. Some tents close for overcrowding by lunchtime. If you want a Saturday seat, be at the door before opening, not after.
• Bad weather fills tents faster. When it is warm and sunny, the beer gardens absorb the crowd; when it rains, everyone heads inside.

Use the beer gardens

Every large tent has a beer garden or terrace, and none of it can be reserved. Hofbräu (3,022 outside), Löwenbräu (2,800) and Schottenhamel (2,742) have the largest. oktoberfest.de notes the Hacker beer garden often still has space when the hall is full. You are served the same beer, and you can try the tent doors again later.

Understand the afternoon changeover

Between roughly 4pm and 6pm on weekends, midday reservations leave and evening groups arrive. The barometer warns that main entrances are usually closed during this changeover and that queuing then without a reservation is "not worth" it. Wirtsbudenstraße, the main tent street, jams at that time; the city suggests using Schaustellerstraße, Matthias-Pschorr-Straße and the side entrances instead.

Abendzeitung (2019) noted that companies sometimes leave booked tables, especially in the boxes, unused after the changeover. Worth a look if a door is open, but treat it as luck, not a plan.

Work the room

• Go small. Groups of two or three get seated far more easily than six. Split up and try different entrances.
• Read the table signs. Reserved tables are marked with a Reserviert or Reservierung sign. Tables without one are fair game.
• Ask to squeeze in. Sharing tables with strangers is normal. Ask, and you will often be waved onto the end of a bench.
• You need a seat to be served. Waitstaff serve at the tables. Outside Hofbräu's standing area, no seat usually means no beer.
• Saving seats for friends does not work. Staff stop it quickly.

Which tents are easier

• Oide Wiesn tents, with a third of seats always free and fewer visitors.
• Beer gardens of any large tent in good weather.
• Hacker-Festzelt is beautiful but tends to fill earliest. Schottenhamel on the opening Saturday is close to impossible.

Daytime or evening?

Daytime and evening are different festivals. Brass bands play traditional music by day; most large tents switch to party bands in the evening, when people stand on the benches. A midday table is far easier to book, often in the same tents that are sold out at night.

Evening tables are the prized ones and mostly go to regulars. If your heart is set on an evening, a realistic path is a weekday midday table plus walking into a beer garden later, or watching the official resale portal for cancellations.

Groups, couples and families

Groups of 8 to 10 are what the system is built for. Book a weekday midday slot in spring, and have one person ready the day the portal opens.

Couples cannot book a table for two. Walk in on a weekday, sit in a beer garden, or ask to join a table. Munich Tourism also sells a Wiesnpaket for individuals that includes a seat at a tent table (midday or evening), food and beer vouchers, the official mug and rides; check availability early.

Families do best at midday on weekdays. Augustiner's own page describes families with children having lunch there during the week, Marstall says families get their money's worth by day, and Bräurosl lists families among its regulars. Rules to know: children under six may not stay in the tents after 8pm, even with parents; under-16s need a parent or guardian after 8pm. Prams are allowed until 6pm on weekdays and Sundays, but not at all on Saturdays or 3 October.

The Oide Wiesn tents

The Oide Wiesn is the "old Oktoberfest" on the southern end of the grounds, with its own entry fee (€4 for adults at the 2026 festival, free for under-14s, and free for everyone after 9pm). Its tents are quieter, more traditional and family friendly.

• Festzelt Tradition: 5,000 seats inside, 2,700 in the garden, 300 in a wheat-beer garden. Brass bands and costume clubs. oktoberfest.de says reservations here need no minimum consumption.
• Schützenlisl Volkssängerzelt: 1,384 seats inside and 400 outside. Bavarian folk singers.
• Boandlkramerei: the newer musicians' tent, about 1,748 seats inside and 1,096 in the garden.

A third of seats here are always unreserved, which makes the Oide Wiesn the most reliable walk-in choice on a busy evening. The cheapest Maß of 2026, €14.80, was at the Oide Wiesn's Museumszelt.

Small tents worth knowing

The small tents are exempt from the unreserved rule, so book them if you have your heart set on one. Some that stand out on the official list:

• Wirtshaus im Schichtl: known for its theatre stage.
• Münchner Knödelei: Bavarian dumplings in many varieties.
• Glöckle Wirt: a reasonably priced Weißwurst breakfast.
• Café Theres: homemade cakes in what is described as the oldest coffee tent on the Wiesn.
• Hühner- und Entenbraterei Ammer: chicken and duck, billed as the oldest chicken roastery in the world.

Why third-party resellers are a bad bet

Tables appear on resale sites every year at many times their value. Do not buy them.

• It breaks tent terms. oktoberfest.de states that reservations may not be resold and that hosts usually notice and cancel them.
• Courts back the tents. In 2021 the Munich Regional Court I barred an agency from reselling Ochsenbraterei tables, holding the tent's ban valid because reservations are personalised and marked non-transferable. In February 2026 the same court again banned overpriced resale; a test buyer had paid €1,729 for six seats at a ten-person table in 2024. Munich's Wiesn chief said the city will support hosts in taking action.
• You may not get in. The Verbraucherzentrale Bayern (Bavarian consumer advice centre) has warned that many hosts' terms only admit guests who booked directly, so a bought reservation can be worthless.

The legal alternative is oktoberfest-booking.com, the official resale portal launched in 2023, where unused reservations from 21 participating tents are swapped or sold at the original price. It is also where cancelled evening tables turn up.

Common mistakes

• Emailing tents in October. Hosts ask you not to.
• Expecting a table for two. Tables only; couples walk in.
• Assuming a reservation means all day. It is a slot, often 3 to 6 hours.
• Turning up on the middle Saturday at 4pm without a booking. That is the busiest window of the festival, with main doors often shut.
• Leaving the tent without a wristband when the door has just closed.
• Paying a reseller. Use the tent directly or the official resale portal.

Hidden insights

• Book midday, then stay outside. A 12:00 to 15:30 weekday table plus a beer garden afterwards gives you most of the evening atmosphere without fighting for an evening slot.
• Weekend mornings are the weekend walk-in window. With 40% of seats unreserved until 3pm, being at the door at 9am on a Saturday or Sunday is your best shot at a weekend seat; by mid afternoon the share drops to 25% and doors start closing.
• Watch for March. Hofbräu and Löwenbräu both pointed to March for new bookings; set reminders for early 2027 and check the oktoberfest.de reservation page weekly from January.
• Check again in late summer. oktoberfest.de says tables are often cancelled at short notice; they reappear on tent portals and the resale portal.

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