MUNICH—Drinking alone may not be good for you, but in times of corona—the virus, not the beer—drinking with thousands of revelers in a packed tent at a beer festival wouldn’t be a great idea either.
Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter would have opened the annual Oktoberfest festivities by tapping the first keg and passing the first glass of beer to Bavarian State Premier Markus Söder, as tradition dictates.
Market research in 2014 into the economic impact of the Oktoberfest revealed that visitors to Munich during the festival spent another 285 million euros, or $322.8 million, eating, shopping, and traveling around in the city, and another 505 million euros, or $571.9 million, on hotels.
This could help traditional Oktoberfest attractions, such as the Krinoline carousel from 1924, the “Münchner Vogelpfeifa,” a family act famous for birdlike whistling, and the world’s oldest flea circus, a fixture at the Theresienwiese since 1948.
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