Munich's mayor opened the 191st Oktoberfest on Saturday with two swift strokes of the mallet, but behind the beer tents and brass bands, German authorities deployed AI cameras, hundreds of police, and international task forces to keep six million expected visitors safe.
Mayor Dominik Krause drove the tap into the first keg and delivered the traditional cry, "O'zapft is," or "It's been tapped", officially launching 16 days of the world's largest folk festival at Munich's Theresienwiese fairground. Thousands of revelers had already stormed the beer tents that morning, scrambling for prime bench seats before the ceremony began. The festival runs through Oct. 4, and organizers expect roughly six million visitors, the vast majority from Munich and the surrounding region of southern Germany.
The festive mood, though, came wrapped in an unusually visible security apparatus. German authorities tightened measures after last year's edition had to be temporarily shut down because of overcrowding, a warning sign that prompted officials to rethink how they manage the massive annual gathering.
Authorities installed AI-powered cameras across the Theresienwiese grounds this year, designed to detect dangerous crowd density before it reaches a tipping point. The German news agency dpa reported the camera system alongside a broader security buildup: roughly 600 police officers are on duty, backed by Bavarian riot police, specialized pickpocket investigators, and international law-enforcement task forces drawn from eight countries.
Visitors face entry checks at the gates. Large bags are banned. So are knives, drones, and any other flying objects. And despite Germany's recent loosening of marijuana laws, smoking pot at Oktoberfest is prohibited.
The security posture reflects a pattern that has been building for years. When the 189th Oktoberfest opened in September 2024, AP News reported that metal detectors were added for the first time in the festival's history, a direct response to a deadly knife attack in Solingen that summer that killed three people and wounded eight. Fox News noted that the 2024 edition drew similar crowd expectations, roughly six million visitors over 16 days, with beer prices running between 13.60 and 15.30 euros per liter, a nearly four-percent jump from the prior year.
Each year the security net gets wider. Metal detectors two years ago. AI crowd-detection cameras now. International task forces from eight nations. For a beer festival that dates back nearly two centuries, the escalation tells its own story about the threats European public gatherings face.
None of the security measures dampened the enthusiasm of the international visitors who showed up early Saturday. Ava Laboncher, visiting from the United States, summed up the atmosphere plainly.
"I love it, I think the vibes are super high, it's amazing."
Ben Dawson, a visitor from New Zealand, promised to drink plenty of beer "and probably get hammered," adding that he planned to "do it again tomorrow." Neither seemed fazed by the entry checks or the police presence.
The festival has long drawn a global crowd, but organizers note that the majority of attendees still come from Munich itself and the broader southern German region. That local base keeps the event anchored in Bavarian tradition even as its international profile grows, and as the economics of the festival shift.
One sign of that shift: alcohol-free beer is quietly gaining ground. The New York Post reported that all but two of the 18 large Oktoberfest tents now offer non-alcoholic options, priced identically to regular beer. At Weihenstephan, the world's oldest brewery, founded in 1040, alcohol-free beer accounts for 10 percent of volume. Munich even saw its first alcohol-free beer garden, called "Die Null," open in recent years.
Oktoberfest remains one of the last great public festivals in Europe where millions of ordinary people gather in the open, drink from oversized steins, and carry on a tradition that predates most modern nations. The 191st edition proves the demand is still there.
But the security buildup tells a harder truth. When a city needs AI surveillance, international police task forces, drone bans, knife bans, and entry screening just to let people drink beer and listen to polka music, something has gone wrong well beyond the fairground gates. The festival endures. The world it operates in has changed.
