Grand Entry of the Wiesn Landlords and Breweries

Each year on Oktoberfest's opening Saturday, roughly 1,000 tent landlords, their families and staff, and the city's six licensed breweries parade decorated carriages and horse-drawn beer wagons roughly 2.5km from central Munich to the Theresienwiese, arriving just before the noon tapping ceremony that officially starts the festival. The 2026 edition ran as scheduled on September 19, opening the 191st Oktoberfest. It was the first Wiesn for new Lord Mayor Dominik Krause, who needed two strikes to tap the ceremonial keg at Schottenhamel at noon. Police estimated roughly 55,000 spectators lined the route, up from about 40,000 in 2025. Krause also introduced a new element to the procession: partway along the route, it stopped for a minute of silence at the Wiesn's main entrance, the site of the 1980 Oktoberfest bombing that killed 13 people, where Krause and two deputy mayors laid flowers before the parade continued.

The parade's history is often mis-told as beginning in 1887 to mark an Oktoberfest centennial — it wasn't. Oktoberfest was founded in 1810, making its true centennial 1910, not 1887. What actually happened in 1887 was a one-off stunt: innkeeper Johann Baptist "Steyrer Hans" Steyrer loaded his own beer barrels, family, and staff onto decorated carriages and paraded them toward the grounds on his own initiative; police stopped him partway and fined him for public nuisance. Other landlords began imitating him, but a genuine joint procession combining multiple landlords with the city's breweries wasn't documented until 1925, and all six breweries didn't march together in the now-familiar unified format until 1935 — the two milestones that actually define today's tradition.

Watching from the roadside is free; only grandstand seating along Sonnenstraße, priced at €30 in 2026, requires a reservation through München Ticket. The procession runs from Josephspitalstraße behind Sendlinger Tor via Sonnenstraße and Schwanthalerstraße to the Theresienwiese, arriving shortly before the Lord Mayor's noon "O'zapft is!" at Schottenhamel — the moment beer service actually begins across the grounds. Arrive well before the roughly 10:35 a.m. start for a curbside spot, expect rerouted trams, and skip the car entirely, since no parking is designated anywhere near the route. See Oktoberfest's costume parade the next day, the noon tapping ceremony that follows, or browse all Upper Bavaria.