Hacker-Festzelt

Since its redesign in the 1950s, Hackerbräu's brewery tent has also been known as Bavaria's heaven. Since the Straßlach butcher and landlord Toni Roiderer took it over in 1989, the tent has become one of the few Oktoberfest tents that is filled to capacity even during the week. The fact that Toni Roiderer also held the office of innkeeper spokesman from 2002 to 2018 is not only due to his famous quick wit.

Architecture

In 2015, his son Thomas took over and announced a new building for 2016 to mark his debut. Contrary to the previous announcement that not much would change despite the new building, the paintings created by Oscar winner Rolf Zehetbauer in 2004 were replaced by views of “traditional Munich locations” by Rudi Reinstadler. The boxes have also all been redesigned.

There were also some structural changes. The tent became one and a half meters higher at 14.2 meters, and the roof was given a ventilation opening at the ridge, which, however, always causes dripping condensation. The convertible roof introduced in 2005 has been dispensed with in the new building.

However, the most striking new feature was undoubtedly the 50-metre-long covered balcony on the south side, which is part of the beer garden. Not least due to the widening of the aisles and increase in WC capacity, the capacity in the tent has been reduced by a good hundred people, but this has been compensated for outside, so that a total of two new seats have been created.

The daily changing, inexpensive lunch dishes are very popular. In general, the Hacker tent has one of the best menus at the Oktoberfest: varied, reasonable and reasonably priced.

Atmosphere and Music

Hackerzelt's fans are not only numerous, but also quite young and takes up the reservation-free area already in the morning. The audience structure can probably be explained, not least by the music in the tent. The Kirchdorfer have been the tent's band since 1994. Because the audience response in the past was a far cry from its current dimensions, Roiderer even wanted to engage the Spider Murphy Gang for the evening hours, but they turned him down. Instead, the Cagey Strings have been playing their rock-heavy program during Kirchdorf's evening break since 1996.

A large proportion of the guests come from the south of Munich, Oberland or Isarwinkel, and celebrate in high spirits. The Hackerzelt is certainly not a revelation for traditionalists, but it maintains a certain level of quality that at least keeps the ballermanesque traits in the background. There is no more brass band music in the evening, which was a Kirchdorf trademark until a few years ago. Instead, Brazilian tunes unknown in Bavaria are played more frequently.

Reservations 2025

Reservations for 2024 became available on April 30th in the new reservation form, unusually including Sunday evenings and all weekend afternoons except the first one. Generally, we're used to seeing Sunday afternoons being publicly available, despite the tent's huge popularity. To have a chance of getting one of them, don't forget to subscribe to our reservation alarm further down this page.