Oktoberfest Austin 2009

Lousy. Even for a good cause, lousy. First time doing a fund raiser guys?
We took some family to enjoy some Oktoberfest beer and food at Waterloo park and were sorely disappointed. We made our donation and walked in to the standard Waterloo festival sellers of pot pipes and bong and more pot pipes and Bob Marley T-shirts…seriously at a food bank fundraiser? Pot pipes? Really?
Whatever we go to the beer tent to enjoy some good German beer or a biergarten or some German food or German music… wait Bud? Firemans 4? No bier garten? No German food (we walked the whole thing and never saw the brat wurst the other guy mentioned). The music, ok but no polka or anything resembling German music.
In fact as we left after our 1 beer we didn’t even notice a single mention of Oktoberfest Austin. All signs were for the food bank.
This is called false advertising. You can’t call something Oktoberfest then do nothing Oktoberfest-​y. Seriously we felt ripped off and we only donated $ 20.
Look, my wife ran a non-​profit before and I have volunteered at several hundred events — this may take the cake for lack of effort.
We left and went to the Gingerman’s initial Oktoberfest effort and enjoyed good beer, brats and even heard the polka band play Roll Out the Barrels! There was even a guy in lederhosen! Get with it CAFB, I’ll be sure to skip your next event.

Great idea! Poor execution…
Oktoberfest is one of the more fun reasons to drink beer and listen to music. It’s a celebration of the season too. Unfortunately the people that put this even together in Austin didn’t have that all figured out yet.
It was just like another day in the park with a few bands, a couple of food vendors and a place to get Budweiser or a few local brews. Nothing special about the event at all! Best Wurst saved the day for me with some really good bratwurst and curry ketchup — mmmm! I had flashbacks of my life in Germany when I bit into it.
I was expecting a beer tent where people could sit down at long rows of benches and drink beer from huge mugs and sing along with a oompa band. At least the tent with benches would have been a good addition. It’s not fun to sit in the grass, try to eat a currywurst and drink beer. I have experienced the real Oktoberfest in Germany, there is nothing like a tent full of thousands of drunk people singing along with a oompa band.
It’s a great cause to benefit the Food Bank of Austin, but if you don’t promote it better and make it more of a real fest with a beer tent and fun music, don’t expect anyone to show up next year!