Will the Herzkasperl tent fly away from the Oidn Wiesn this year? At the moment it looks like it is, because in the annual evaluation based on the city’s catalog of points, Fraunhofer host Beppi Bachmaier’s cultural tent performed worse than a competitor who had actually applied for the big Oktoberfest – and, to be on the safe side, also for the Oidn Wiesn.
This competitor – according to reports it is Peter Schöniger from the Festhalle Bayernland – has more points this year than the Herzkasperl tent. He has been applying for a tent at the normal Oktoberfest for many years and has also been represented at the spring festival for a long time. Now this time he has also applied to the Oidn Wiesn. It was advertised at short notice after the Bavarian Farmers’ Association canceled the Central Agricultural Festival, which should have taken place regularly this year.
For the Herzkasperlzelt and its host Beppi Bachmaier, the loss would be bitter in several respects. Because Bachmaier can celebrate two proud anniversaries this year: the 150th anniversary of his Fraunhofer inn and his 50th anniversary as an innkeeper. In addition, his tent would almost certainly have been at the Central Agricultural Festival (ZLF). Parts of the Oidn Wiesn should also have been represented there. In addition to the Tradition festival tent in a smaller version and the Volkssänger tent, the Herzkasperl tent would also have been there. With the ZLF cancellation in mid-January, the Oide Wiesn came back into play; It was subsequently re-advertised and you had until February 29th to apply. Normally the application deadline ends at the end of the year for the following year.
Herzkasperlwirt Bachmaier fully expected that he would be represented at the Oidn Wiesn again. “We are of course totally surprised by this development,” he says, “as a cultural tent with new folk music and cabaret, we have helped to shape the Oide Wiesn over the years.” But now it almost looks as if Schöniger could now have a chance. Schöniger says on the phone that he hasn’t heard anything from the city yet. Of course he would be happy to be represented at the Oktoberfest, but until nothing has been decided, he doesn’t want to make any comment.
The city leaders also expressed similar views. Mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD) has not yet heard of the immediate rumors and therefore does not want to comment on them. Economics speaker and Oktoberfest boss Clemens Baumgärtner (CSU) wants to see the rating himself before commenting on it, “so first of all: no comment!” And Wiesn city councilor Anja Berger (Greens) is first surprised and then angry “that the public is finding out about this in front of the city council”, but would only like to comment on it once she has been able to familiarize herself with the situation.
The deciding factor could now be the cultural department, which, however, could not be reached on Good Friday. Because at the Oidn Wiesn, a technical opinion is still requested before admission. And unlike Bachmaier, who has also been running the theater at Fraunhofer for decades, Peter Schöniger has not yet appeared as a cultural organizer. The city council’s economic committee is expected to make the final decision at its meeting on May 7th.
How the tents are allocated
While most of the large festival halls at Oktoberfest are considered set because they belong to one of the six Munich breweries (Hacker-Pschorr even has two festival tents) or one of the two shooting guilds, the other tents have to reapply every year. They are then evaluated using a points catalog. This catalog includes a total of 13 different criteria, and there are a maximum of eleven points in each area. They are then all multiplied by a factor of two or a factor of four. In total, an applicant can achieve a maximum of 396 points. The eleven criteria are: contract fulfillment, folk festival experience, expertise, implementation (commitment), regular feeder, equipment, technical standard, attractiveness, tradition, space requirement, local location, property and ecology. There is no cultural program category and it doesn’t play a role at the big Oktoberfest. At the Oidn Wiesn, however, the cultural department’s assessment is still requested.