Oktoberfest – Downtown Campbell

I’d like to give them a Zero. The vendors were great as was the music. However, no tables or chairs to sit at? I call bullshit. Not to mention the fucked up way of having to buy a beer by standing in two lines and then they won’t pour the beer you bought for 7 bucks into the glass festival mug. Once again, I call bullshit. on this crap street party and won’t be back next year. The Campbell chamber of commerce who runs this event does not give a shit.

Soooo crowded, everybody seemed really young & drunk & lots of douches trying to hit on my friend & I is what I experienced at Campbell’s Oktoberfest. Maybe I’m getting old, but I think I’ll stick to art & wine festivals instead LOL.
This was my first year going to this particular Oktoberfest & since I was visiting my child hood best friend, we thought it be fun to go grab a couple beers & sausages. It was nice except for the fact that we were elbow to elbow with sloppy drunks. To escape we ate lunch at one of the restaurants downtown & were able to talk & drink w/​out people spilling their drinks on us!
I understand that it was Oktoberfest (so of course people will be drinking), but the other Oktoberfests I’ve been to were larger & had a more German-​like feel to them with maybe an older crowd. The little setup shops were nice & there were lots of food/​beer stalls set up (too many lines though, so we didn’t get to try any of them).
All in all it was fun to see everybody having a fun drunken time & of course to hang out with my bestie! Maybe next time I’ll have to spend the night out there so I can drink more & get on everybody else’s level! LOL

Crowded, hectic, food, and drunkies! This year was my first year going to Oktoberfest. Started around 10am but decided to go later around 4pm to ditch craziness if I were to go at noon.
It was still super crazy around, took 5 – 8 minutes to find parking. Had to circle around the parking garage for a while. It was dead in the middle of a bunch of restaurants and stores like aquis, opa, el guapos etc…
I have to admit though, it was pretty cool! Seeing everyone drunk off their butts having a good time.
The beer line is really really really ridiculous! One whole street long! That’s like that for every single beer stand too! I feel like they didn’t expect it to be that many people there because getting beer and food was shoulder to shoulder.
$ 20 would get you a glass and two beers

I’m not an Oktoberfest guru but this year it was so poorly planned/​managed. You’re better off going to a restaurant or a brewery and you would get a much better selection of beer. Obviously, whoever organized this– chamber of commerce, old people or whoever does not have any clue about organizing or they don’t know or have time to search what Oktoberfest is about. People we talked to said about the same thing and tries to sell their tickets they mistakenly bought. This year it was monopolized by Gordon Biersch with only about 3 selection of beers. There was no music no happenings and it was just all about going back to the line every 5 mins. Waste of time you’re better off buying a beer in the liquor store.

Cute strip of eateries and shops Located in CampbeLL. DTC offers you eats ranging from upscaLe/​pricey to very affordabLe. This apparentLy is the pLace to catch up and mingLe so if you’re anti crowds, this may not be right for you.
For the Lovebirds out there: the trees are Lit up at night with buLbs that make your stroLL aLong the strip that much more romanticaL ;D
Minus one star for the terribLe parking during peak hours and over the weekend but it’s kind of expected.

Great time good food fun well planned event.

You know, I have been hearing about this for years, and I mean years! So when I was finally in town in San Jose on the weekend this was happening I was pretty darn excited.
And then I arrived, and I was pretty darn disappointed. The street fair and vendors were definitely lacking in quality and were incredibly overpriced. The entertainment was wait… there was entertainment?
My take… overall pretty chintzy.
To make the most of it we ended up hanging out inside of Opa & Aqui’s which both offered a better vibe than the actual festival but by late afternoon were also both a total shit show with fights and people getting kicked out mixed with families and children meandering around. All bad.
Maybe it was just an off year, but I was not impressed and will most certainly not be coming back.

My 10 year old kicked ass flying through the running field for an 11^th place finnish overall.
A 40 year old guy intimadated by my 4’4, 53 pound son pushed him back twice or he would have probably placed 9^th. Next year he will be looking for a top 10 finnish!

Octoberfest was definitely fun and definitely packed for this small downtown. If you love German food, music, and dance then this is the place you ought to be at.
There are plenty of food stands along with mini stores where you can buy things, just like an old art and wine festival. Walking through intoxicated people can be a challenge but who cares! The happy and drunk faces I see around make this event even more fun.
My bf even got to do the mug holding thing. Lol. He didn’t win but we brought home a beautiful glass mug and the beer in it! Learning how to dance and sing German is another thing, but again, fun.
This is my first Octoberfest and I sure had a blast. I’ll definitely be back next year for more excitement!

Go early before the crowds get to intoxicated. This is a widely popular festival and I believe they expect over 40,000 people over the two day event. With than many people in such a small downtown, parking can be challenging by noon, all the structures were full and side street parking close by was non existent. No problem, we parked a few blocks away and walked in. The walk did us couch potatoes good.
The event spans from Stacks all the up to the railroad tracks just after Blue Line Pizza. Several stages with music and an eclectic amount of vendors selling everything you’d see at your typical Art & Wine Festival.
I miss the crazy over the top Witch Hat lady that would come years ago. Her hats where AMAZING! I bought one maybe 6 years ago that I love but would like to add to to the collection. Wish I knew where to find her.
I suggest going early unless you enjoys long food lines, patrons who’ve been there to long and consumed too many beers long bathroom lines. This event gets crowded!
We didn’t buy anything but always enjoy the great weather, music and people watching!
Oh! Our favorite booth this year was the «Free refills all day» lemonade/​Ice-​Tea stand. $ 7 for unlimited refills and the cups were huge! Best deal all day.

My favorite local festival! The highlight of Oktoberfest is, of course, the music and dancing. The USA Alpiners in German costume are very engaging and you have a great time dancing to the music, with a convenient dance floor. A special beer is introdcuced on tap and you can get in line and have a sample – great deal! There are a lot of quality craft booths, and a bonus is they’re right next to the stores so you can go in there too. There is a variety of German dishes available, so there is bound to be at least one you like! The Silicon Valley Accordian Club plays here, too. Fun for the whole family!

This last year we went to this festival and found ourselves very underwhelmed, especially when you compare it to other local festivals.
We are some sausage and it was fine. Mine was made of veal but had not particularly special flavor. The fair food in general was bleh, then we saw Teske’s and knew we blew it. We should have waited for the good stuff! The line was long though, perhaps it would have been worth it to wait in line.
The beer was terrible, I mean terrible. They only had a few selections and they were bitter and gross. For an Oktoberfest this part was terribly disappointing. How can a festival centered around beer, have bad beer!
The vendors were just so so as well, since we had just went to the Mountain View festival this one seemed lame and there really was nothing but junk to buy.
Their was a stage at the front that had a couple singing, she even yodeled which was fun and interesting. Though later performers did not hold our interest.
Would be go again? Perhaps, but nothing would make me recommend this bleh festival.

Prices were just raised, it is now $ 7 for a beer, or 3 for $ 20.
The beer was a little better this year, with no Bud or Bud light at all, but nothing special. Downtown Campbell has some great craft beer places, so its better to stop by those to get some serious beer (Liquid Bread, Spread, etc)
I am sure German people are horrified at this attempt at a tribute to the real Oktoberfest. The booths have never been very good, and have not changed much over the years. Some cool artwork, but if you have come once, you have seen it all.

this is an annual 2-​day festival held in downtown campbell. in general, i felt that there were too many drunk kids and not enough german inspired vendors. the plethora of beer stands seemed to draw mainly young adults who started the party early in the afternoon in broad daylight. there were also some sausage stands with wursts and weiners, but rest were typical run of the mill vendors you see at all of the art and wine festivals in the south bay and peninsula during the summer and fall festival season. it was ridiculously crowded, making it hard to navigate and walk around. i did enjoy seeing people dressed up in german clothing and listening to traditional music though.
tip: for easy parking, try the pruneyard shopping center or side streets neighboring campbell park as the downtown streets fill up very quickly.

My husband and I went to the Oktoberfest for the first time today with my parents and it wasn’t as good as I thought it’d be. The food there is just OK at best. Most of what they have there is overpriced. It’s free to attend, and parking is free too. The problem is finding a parking spot if you don’t come there early. We had to park a block away from the library on the street. The first thing that I got when I was there was one of the soft pretzels. I got the «small» one which was still big. It costs $ 4.00 and it wasn’t even served warm. I shared it with everyone.
My mom made a pretzel bracelet out of hers since she didn’t want to carry it around, lol! We then got tickets for the beer. You have to buy tickets for the beer and wine at the ticket booths. Beer and wine costs $ 7.00 each. I got the Stella Oktoberfest beer which was just OK. Water and soda is expensive to at $ 3.00 a bottle, so bring your own if you decide to go there sometime. After that we got a German sausage. Well, at least I did. It wasn’t that great. It cost $ 7.00. My husband got a Philly cheese steak sandwich for the same price.
He really liked that since it didn’t have green bell peppers in it which he doesn’t like. He also said that it was almost as good as the ones that he used to eat all the time in Philadelphia. They also have gyros, chicken teriyaki, pizza from Blue Line in Campbell (Blue Line’s pizza are good btw), kettle corn, sweet potato pies, English toffee in different flavors, flavored almonds, tater tots, lemonade with free refills, fried zucchini and mushrooms, burgers, corn dogs, and more. It looked like there were more in the way of vendors than food stands. I don’t think that we’ll be going back there next year. It was way to hot and crowded.

Eh… For an «Oktoberfest», I would expect a lot more… As in a lot more beer. Been here twice and both times it was a let down as in selection of beer. You think of Oktoberfest, you think tons of new, different, delicious beers to try. This is, however, not the case. They only have about 5 beers everyone has already tasted (If they drink beer). Then they overcharge you for about 10oz of beer. Very disappointing and it should not be called «Oktoberfest» anymore. I think some of the restaurants, in Downtown Campbell, have a better beer selection.
The only reason I gave it 2 stars is because it is always fun in Downtown Campbell. When you have festivals, (Yes, even this one), you gets lots of people out there for a good time.
One tip, if you go to any event here, is to either get there super early, have someone drop you off, or take public transit because the parking is near impossible to find. In the end, I continue to go to the Campbell events cuz they are great social gatherings and usually people are always interested in going.

The beer selection was very mediocre. I didn’t find anything too enticing to intoxicate my body with… so I just stuck with the hard ciders, which were delicious, but not impressive.
I wished there were more authentic German food, we wandered around and found one that looked really authentic, I couldn’t understand anything on the menu until I saw the fine print, and we found another one that’s Bavarian sausages.
My friends got the sausages and they came in these huge banh mi (Vietnamese sandwich) baguette rolls. One of my friends didn’t like it because it was way too substantial for her, but her finace loved it because it soaked up the juice.
I watched them devour the sandwich… even their little 15 month old baby had some (I believe the baby had ¹⁄₃ of that gigantic sausage). I think it means they are delicious?
Overall, I wasn’t too impressed with the event, but it was a nice touch to have some local artists and vendors in addition to the food and mediocre beer.

This was more of an art /​community fair than authentic Oktoberfest. The food to art booth ratio was pathetic. I bought $ 20 worth of tickets for food/​beer only to realize the tickets were only good for beer. I didnt even bother trying to get a refund, just asked some guy in line about to buy tickets if he would buy them from me instead.
The lines for beer went fairly quickly — about a 5 – 10 min wait. I didn’t even attempt the food though. as much as I wanted a sausage, we decided to watch football, get food, and drink beers at katie blooms.
After the festival was over (and there was no more beer/​wine), we tried to get into some bars around the area, but every single establishment serving alcohol had a line at least 20 people out the door! Walking down the street to mama mia’s was the best idea ever.
Overall, it was a lovely day to be outside. I wouldn’t go back for «Oktoberfest» but I would go back to enjoy a nice day outside.

I don’t know what people are smoking that give this anything other than 1 star, but man I want some.
Branded Oktoberfest celebration, but it is far from it.
It is basically the same crappy craft vendors you see at every downtown wine festival. It is the same crappy food vendors that show up to all the other downtown events, yup the french fry man, a guy selling kettle corn, someone making chicken fingers, etc… To be 100% honost there were more sausage vendors than normal (only thing half relevant).
This is what you are in store for:
Narrow streets packed with people because Steph’s Seashells is peddling artwork that looks like something a toddler would make with an diaper accident. The walkway that isn’t taken up by old people sitting in chairs and the pointless craft vendors is occupied by families with strollers with no kids in them. Naaahh lets take a f’n stroller and just put our jackets in it, the kid can walk fine.
OK I can’t take it anymore give me a beer! Problem, you need to wait in a line to buy tickets for beers, then you need to wait in a beer line. So you wait 20 minutes so you can prepay for beer tickets and then wait in another line. Guess what, those tickets? Non-​refundable, so you either buy more than you need so you don’t have to get in the original line or you are forced to wait in two 15 minute lines for a single beer.
What beer is being served? No Hofbrau, no Augustinerbrau, no Lowenbrau, no Spatten… nope, Sam Adams… Yeah real Oktoberfesty…
Seriously I have no idea why people would attend this cluster fawk of an event.
Want to make it a good event? Many beer tents, get rid of the stupid craft vendors, we all know what Etsy is, you can go there to buy your stupid coasters; now fill the street with PEOPLE not macaroni artwork. Beer, Brauts, and People. Get some real music in the street, get rid of the bouncy castle, kids don’t belong here, that solves the stroller problem too.

It was a nice excuse to stop by my Storage Spot and take the Down Low Whip for its last ride of the year. I rolled to Campbell and was able to Park at the Shopping center, right down the street and street hiked to the Festival.
I was impressed with the Turn Out. Tons of people, Packs of Girls rolling around drinking Brew-​skis. Quite a few women wearing Oktoberfest Beer Maiden outfits .
They had a Traditional German Band Playing at one end of the Festival.
The Festival had the usual type Vendors, Food, Art, Crafts and Drink.
They need to add more Beer Pour stations, lines were huge!
They ran out of the Festival Glasses .
There was a cool Top 40s Band playing Non Stop at the Other end of the Festival.
Great place to get a Tan, Drink and People Watch.
Campbell Pd had a strong Presense at the festival.