Germans Lower Volume on Munich Oktoberfest

[PhishyBrewer]

Germans lower volume on Munich Oktoberfest

By David Crossland Special for, USA TODAY

BERLIN — The German city of Munich has ordered the world's biggest party, the Oktoberfest, to turn the volume down before it even starts Saturday.

This year, it has decreed that oompah bands in 14 giant beer tents play more sedate, folksy music and stick to a maximum volume of 85 decibels — anything louder is considered harmful — before 6 p.m., according to a ruling in July by the Munich City Council. Some say people have been getting too fired up by the thumping rhythms and singalong refrains of Hey Baby and Mambo No. 5.

 

"The tents shouldn't be discos, they should remain Bavarian beer tents," says Gabriele Weisshaeupl, manager of the Oktoberfest. Festival spokeswoman Gabriele Papke says the move should help improve security: "You can influence the general mood with music. We've been getting increasing drunkenness and aggression."

 

Arrests at the festival rose 15% last year to 695 as brawls increased, says Dieter Groebner, Munich police spokesman. Some local folk groups welcome the restrictions. They say the festival was losing its Bavarian feel and older people were staying away. "It had become a lot louder in recent years," says Sieglinde Kaminsky, a member of the Munich musical group D'Kranzlberger.

 

Tradition beat out concerns over brawling in one area, though. The council rejected brewers' suggestion that plastic beer jugs be used instead of glass.

 

The Oktoberfest dates to the wedding in October 1810 of Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. The public festivities went on for five days and were so popular they've been repeated annually, except during wars and two cholera epidemics.

 

First-time visitors may be taken aback by the sight of a steaming Oktoberfest tent packed with 10,000 people, the women in low-cut dirndl dresses and the men in lederhosen — leather shorts — stamping their feet to the trumpet sounds of a folk band as they hold up brimming glasses of beer in never-ending toasts.

 

It's easy to get into the party spirit, says Clark Snyder, an American tour guide and songwriter who lives in Munich. "There's something about the tradition of it all and the locals in their costumes, you follow their lead," he says. "It envelops you. ... You morph into that culture."

 

Last year, 5.9 million people guzzled 1.6 million gallons of the Bavarian beer served in 1-quart glasses and brewed by Munich's six breweries. About 900,000 were foreigners. Among them: Americans, who flocked back after a post-Sept. 11 absence.

 

In fact, Americans are such a common sight that a new Oktoberfest guide by the Naumann publishing company has a definition: "A species mostly spotted moving around in packs and wearing shorts, baseball caps and Hawaiian shirts." Snyder says he can't tell Americans apart from other tourists. "Just when you think you've got it tabbed, the guy ends up being from Rome."

 

Jill Henne, a Briton who lives in Munich, says the music ruling is a bad idea. "You need to have new classics that the younger generation is more at home with to keep the Oktoberfest alive," she says.

[disneygurlz2s]

^^ Definitely a notch above Cincinnati, but we come in a respectable second.

 

Thanks for the post!

 

Shari