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For
ticket Orders go to the ticket order page....
Thank you for your patronage at last years Oktoberfest....
October 10th - 18th, 2008
The first Oktoberfest was a combination royal wedding feast and state agricultural fair held over 180 years ago in the Bavarian region of Germany. Oktoberfest is still celebrated yearly in Munich, Germany with two weeks full of eating, drinking, music and a midway.
When so many Germans immigrated to the Kitchener-Waterloo area, it was natural they would want to continue this festive tradition. While many clubs had their own private Oktoberfests (the Schwaben Club laying claim to the first of these!), the first public festivities took place in 1969 at the Concordia Club.
KW Oktoberfest today is the second largest Bavarian festival in the world, second only to Munich's itself. For 10 days in October, thousands of visitors and residents take part in family and cultural events and visit the 21 Festhallen set up throughout the twin cities. One of the highlights of the week is certainly the televised Thanksgiving Day parade, the largest in Canada.
O' Zapft
Is
Tapping the Keg
Oktoberfest at the Schwaben Club is a great time for all. We offer three separate dance halls and feature two different bands playing a variety of traditional and contemporary music. Our kitchens are open nightly serving schnitzel, cabbage rolls, strudel, and other traditional foods. The Schwaben and Donau Dancers perform nightly and dance groups from other clubs or from Germany are often featured as well.
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| 'Festers dance to the music of the Golden Keys at Oktoberfest |
Tickets to Oktoberfest can be purchased from the Club (Monday to Friday, 9-5pm).
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Oktoberfest traditionally starts in the third weekend in September and ends the first sunday of October. What is Oktoberfest? It began with the Royal Wedding on 12 October 1810. Crown Prince Ludwig, later to become King Ludwig I, was married to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen on 12 October 1810. The citizens of Munich were invited to attend the festivities held on the fields in front of the city gates to celebrate the happy royal event. The fields were renamed Theresienwiese ("Theres'a Fields") to honor the Crown Princess, although the locals have since abbreviated the name simply to "Wiesn". Horse races in the presence of the royal family marked the close of the event that was celebrated as a festival for the whole of Bavaria. The decision to repeat the horse races in subsequest years gave rise to the tradition of Oktoberfest. The Oktoberfest continues in 1811 In 1811, an added feature to the horse races was the first Agricultural Show, designed to boost Bavarian agriculture. The horse races, which were the oldest - and at one time - the most popular event of the festival are no longer held today. But the Agricultural Show is still held every three years during the Oktoberfest on the southern part of the festival grounds. More and more things to see and do In the first few decades, the choices of amusements were sparse. In 1818, the first carousel and two swings were set up. Vistitors were able to quench their thirst at small beer stands, which grew rapidly in number. In 1896 the beer stands were replaced by the first beer tents and halls set up by the enterprising landlords with the backing of the breweries. The remainder of the festival site was taken up by a fun-fair. The range of carousels offered was already increasing rapidly in the 1870's as the fairground trade continued to grow and develope in Germany. |
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