Munich Oktoberfest: The Oktoberfest from the point of view of a waiter – Dachau

Christian Glas still remembers his first time very clearly, it was in 2006. He had expressed his interest in becoming a waitress in one of the big tents to a friend who had been working at the Wiesn for a long time. But then he had told him that this year it wouldn’t be any more. So Glas – better known as “Präse”, as a gob on his vest reveals – drove as usual to the “Tea Dance on Lake Ammer” organized by Radio Gong on the Friday before the Oktoberfest began and didn’t come home until around 2 a.m., no more very sober of course. When he woke up around 9 a.m. on Saturday morning with a slight headache, his display showed a dozen missed calls from his friend. Four waiters had failed, could Glas still step in? And because Glas can hardly say no, the 55-year-old was given a headache pill and then two hours later in the Schottenhamel tent. He still had 45 minutes until the tapping. “It was chaos to the power of three.”

It’s been 16 years since Glas premiered at the Oktoberfest. And although the Hebertshausen native is actually an old hand, he gets a little nervous every year. And this year in particular, after all, the folk festival was canceled for a whole two years due to the corona, and so Glas and the around 2000 other Oktoberfest waitresses also had a break. After all, you don’t get any younger: the passionate soccer player Glas has recently had a problem with his left knee. The diagnosis is osteoarthritis, and he is limping a little because of the pain. Actually, a new knee is needed, but because Glas is still comparatively young, the doctors want to delay the operation a little longer. Not the very best conditions for 17 days on your feet. “Hopefully I’ll get through it,” says Glas. In any case, it shouldn’t fail due to a lack of preparation: the medicine chest has long since been filled up, the new shoes have been broken in, 17 white shirts are lined up on hangers waiting to be used, yes, even this year’s menu has brought glass with it on vacation to Lake Garda to present the current ones to learn prices.

Glas has been working in the tap box since 2012

If you meet the Hebertshausener in his garden a few days before the Oktoberfest, it quickly becomes clear that the anticipation clearly outweighs the beer table at which he is sitting, a blue and white checkered tablecloth has been laid, and there is a large wooden barrel in the corner Decorated with pretzels, steins and gingerbread hearts, one of which says “Wiesn-Gaudi”. However, Glas has to admit, he didn’t just decorate all of this. The self-declared “folk festival fan” has already emptied one or two “barrels” in his garden with friends in the almost three years of the pandemic, so of course the right decoration was never missing.

From this Saturday, however, he will hardly have any time left for a leisurely beer drink: Glas has been working in the Schottenhamel tent in the tap box for ten of 16 years. This is the box in which the mayor of Munich – Dieter Reiter (SPD) since 2014 – usually taps the first barrel and thus traditionally opens the Wiesn. On the first Saturday of the Wiesn, prominent politicians and the press romp about at Glas’ place of work. For the 55-year-old, this means a somewhat late start to work, at least on the first day: While all his colleagues are already queuing at the bar for their first beer at around 12 p.m., Glas has to wait until around 2 p.m. for the two deer – as they call them you tap the wooden 200-litre kegs that Reiter taps – the free beer is empty. Only then does Glas’ business begin.

You experience a lot as a Oktoberfest attendant

Until then, there’s enough time to sneak in front of the cameras: The Schottenhamel family didn’t like it that much, says the Hebertshausener with a mischievous grin on his face, but if he and his four colleagues stayed in the background, they would they are not usually scared away. And because friends and family are watching TV every year just waiting to see him, he keeps trying – until his cell phone starts beeping. “Now just laugh” or “Why are you looking so stupid?” those who stayed at home then write to him.

Over the years, Glas, who, as befits a Schottenhamel waitress, has thrown himself into black trousers, a black velvet vest and a white shirt for the interview, has not only laughed at the cameras many times, he has also laughed witnessed some more or less funny stories: he remembers well, for example, the man who once cut a heart out of a tablecloth in order, as Glas later found out, to propose to his beloved with it. What sounds like a sweet gesture was quite annoying for Glas, as the tablecloth cost him a lot of money to buy. Because the guest initially did not want to pay for the damage caused and behaved, the marriage proposal for the Wiesn visitor even ended up in a cell at the Wiesn guard for a short time – and Glas was first featured in the newspaper as a waitress. Incidentally, he gave the man the cut tablecloth afterwards.

He also likes to tell the story of the one time his sister-in-law had to run to the town hall to have the steins signed by the mayor afterwards. Usually that happens at the tapping, but they missed the right moment that one year and Dieter Reiter was already gone. But because his brother’s wife works across from the town hall on Marienplatz, she was quickly commissioned to get autographs afterwards. Reiter, with whom Glas has of course been on first terms for a long time, was happy to do it, says Glas and proudly holds up one of the signed mugs – as if to prove it.

In normal life, Glas has a desk job

For Glas, who has a desk job in normal life and is a quality inspector at engine manufacturer MTU, working at folk festivals has become a beloved hobby over the years, but also a welcome sideline. And so for the past nine years he has been working not only at the Oktoberfest but also at the Dachau folk festival and, when he is not on vacation at the time, also every now and then the first weekend at the Rosenheim Autumn Festival. According to Glas, he prefers to work through a few weeks at a time than to have a part-time job all year round. Like most of his waitress colleagues, Glas doesn’t want to reveal how much he earns at the Wiesn, but he does say this much: “A few months later it’s easier.”

Open detailed view

But even if glass can use “the powder”, as he calls his earnings, especially in times of rising food and petrol prices, he is not someone who does it just for the money. Unlike his brother, who now works at the Oidn Wiesn in the traditional marquee, he is not a “thousand percent”, says Glas. What the bon vivant, who easily lifts 14 liters, thinks: The fun must not be neglected because of all the work.

The “dead silence” after the Wiesn is the worst for Glas

But fun or not: The corona virus and how it could negatively affect the Wiesn is of course also a concern for glass shortly before the Wiesn. After all, he had to move to the Dachau Hotel Fischer just one day before the start of the Dachau folk festival when his wife suddenly had a positive test in her hand. But because in 16 years he hasn’t missed a single Oktoberfest due to illness, he just hopes for the best. After all, he had already had himself vaccinated three times and walking around with a mask, that’s no use in a full tent.

This Saturday the Oktoberfest fun starts again. But what if you fast forward 17 days? Then Glas will probably be a few kilos lighter because he has barely had time to eat because of all the chopping and he will be happy when he can finally exchange his waitress uniform for comfortable jogging pants again. But there will also be this “deep hole” into which he falls when, after all those days in the noisy tent, there is suddenly this “dead silence”. That’s why Glas will then turn on “TV Munich” and review the Wiesn on the couch – and secretly look forward to the Oktoberfest 2023 again. Because the Präse knows: After the Oktoberfest is before the Oktoberfest.