Sending a selfie from the marquee via Whatsapp, streaming a live video of the Ferris wheel ride at night on Instagram or calling the lost friend to find him again – all these are things that happen countless times during the day at the Wiesn. It takes a lot of preparation to ensure that network and data coverage is even possible with around 300,000 visitors a day.
The big mobile phone providers O2 Telefonica, Vodafone and Telekom had worked hard this year. Hundreds of temporary antennas were installed to ensure Internet coverage via the 5G network. Telekom stated that the network set up for the festival could even cover a medium-sized city like Kassel, with the largest mast alone being sufficient for around 12,000 mobile network users. In total, the company built 14 locations and mobile phone masts on the Theresienwiese, O2 Telefonica 19 and Vodafone 21.
Before this year’s Wiesn, all three companies expected an increase in the volume of data transmitted compared to 2019, mainly because of the increased use of social media channels, streaming platforms and messenger services since then. In addition, user behavior during the Oktoberfest has always been different: while people normally download more data than they upload, it’s the other way around on the festival grounds. Here twice as much data is uploaded instead of downloaded. Sure: Oktoberfest-goers send significantly more videos and photos during the beer tent party than they look at.
The flow of data at Oktoberfest 2019 was already gigantic. 87 terabytes rushed through the O2 network on the Theresienwiese during the festival, 76 at Telekom, 70 at Vodafone. For comparison: one terabyte of data is enough to completely fill 16 smartphones, each with 64 gigabytes of storage space.
Visitors from Vechta in Lower Saxony were the quickest to flee
This year, Telekom has already surpassed its record after half the time. Already on the second Oktoberfest Saturday, the company reported 88 terabytes of data transmitted via their mobile devices. At the peak, around 25,000 people were active in Telekom’s Wiesn network at the same time. In addition to internet use, this also included use of the telephone network.
However, further conclusions can be drawn from the mobile phone data, for example about the visitors to the Oktoberfest. In cooperation with the Austrian start-up Invenium Data Insights, O2 Telefonica created a user analysis of the guests who previously dialed into the network of the 19 Telefonica masts at the Oktoberfest. Anonymous data was evaluated without accessing the personal information of the Wiesn visitors. Based on the O2 user analysis, extrapolations could be used to draw conclusions about all visitor events. The data refer to the period from September 17th to 25th, i.e. from the opening Saturday to the second Sunday of the Wiesn.
The data analysis showed that around 3,285,000 people visited the Theresienwiese during this period, most (around 496,000) on the second Oktoberfest Saturday, the fewest (around 281,000) on Monday, i.e. shortly after the Oktoberfest began. While around 690,000 people flocked to the Theresienwiese on the first weekend, there were around 860,000 on the second weekend – an increase of around 25 percent. On average, around 130,000 people attended the Oktoberfest at the same time, with the number of visitors always peaking at 190,000 between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. Around 57 percent of all visitors were male and 43 percent female.
On average, between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. the most people were out and about on the Theresienwiese at the same time.
(Photo: Invenium Data Insights/ O2 Telefonica)
The Wiesn visitors celebrated an average of four hours and 35 minutes in the marquees, one minute longer than the average in 2019. The Munich residents themselves stayed four minutes below the average, but they can come back at any time and continue partying. People from the city of Worms in Rhineland-Palatinate stayed the longest at the Wiesn, namely a full six hours and 55 minutes. The residents of the city of Neumünster and the district of Segeberg in Schleswig-Holstein also stayed in the marquees for six hours and 49 minutes and six hours and 48 minutes, respectively, significantly longer than the average Oktoberfest visitor.
Another look at the statistics shows that not everyone who has traveled from far away celebrates so persistently: The residents of the Lower Saxony district of Vechta left the festival grounds after an average of just two hours and 53 minutes, followed by the residents of the district of Olpe in North Rhine-Westphalia (three hours nine minutes) and those of the city of Herne (three hours 17 minutes) in the Ruhr area. The data does not reveal why these visitors only stayed for a comparatively short time at the Wiesn.
84.2 percent of the guests came from Germany, around 70 percent of them were from Munich and the district of Munich, followed by the districts of Fürstenfeldbruck, Starnberg and Ebersberg and other districts around Munich. A total of 95 percent of all domestic German guests came from Bavaria. Most of the domestic but non-Bavarian guests came from Berlin, followed by the cities of Stuttgart, Frankfurt am Main and Hamburg. The fact that the people of Stuttgart came in such large numbers, although the Cannstatter Wasen – known to be the Baden-Württemberg counterpart to the Wiesn – started on the second weekend of the Oktoberfest, should come as a surprise – and encourage one or the other Munich resident to believe that the Oktoberfest is better after all .
Most Wiesn visitors come from Bavaria.
(Photo: Invenium Data Insights/ O2 Telefonica)
The Wiesn is also a magnet for visitors from abroad, their share has been 15.8 percent so far. Among the international guests, the British have so far taken first place with 3.1 percent and around 102,000 guests in total, followed by visitors from the USA, Austria, France and Poland. Italy comes sixth, followed by Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and India.
On the second Wiesn weekend, the so-called Italian weekend, there were actually twice as many Italians as on the opening weekend; however, the nation, which also held general elections that weekend, lagged well behind Britain, the US and Austria. Compared to the Saturday of the Italian weekend in 2019, with around 21,900 Italian guests, only around 9,400 Italians came on the second Oktoberfest Saturday in 2022.
Most of the foreign guests come from Great Britain this year.
(Photo: Invenium Data Insights/ O2 Telefonica)
No significant changes in the age structure at this year’s Oktoberfest can be determined from the data. In the case of the guests over 30, the percentages of the different age groups differed only minimally or not at all from the values for 2019. Only in the group of 18 to 29 year olds was a sharp increase from 14 to 21 percent of the guests clearly recognizable. This could also be due to the fact that this age group in particular is in the mood for fun and beer tent parties after a two-year break due to the pandemic.
Significantly more 18- to 29-year-olds came to the Wiesn this year.
(Photo: Invenium Data Insights/ O2 Telefonica)