Oktoberfest Ideas for Pubs: How to Host Your Own

Part of the Autumn Pub Playbook — a September-to-November plan for filling your pub.

Late September is a funny old patch. The summer beer-garden crowd has gone home, Christmas is too far off to mention, and the diary's got that thin, quiet look about it. Which is exactly why Oktoberfest is one of the best ideas for pubs going. It's a ready-made theme, everyone already knows what it is, and it drops right into the deadest weekend of the autumn and gives people a reason to come out.

And here's the bit a lot of licensees miss: you don't have to do anything fancy. Oktoberfest is a German beer festival that people already understand, so you're not selling a concept from scratch. Put a decent festbier on, lay out some pretzels and bratwurst, stick an Oompah playlist on, and you've got an event. The whole thing is theatre, and you already own the stage.

The original Munich Oktoberfest runs Saturday 19 September to Sunday 4 October 2026 — but you can run yours on any weekend across late September or early October. Pick whichever suits your trade.

This guide is the practical version. No lederhosen lecture, no kit you don't already own. Just how to host an Oktoberfest that fills a quiet weekend and gives people a reason to book a table back in.

Why Oktoberfest works for a quiet UK autumn

Most autumn problems come down to the same thing: no occasion. People will absolutely come to the pub in October — they just need a peg to hang the night on. Oktoberfest is that peg, and it's a brilliant one, because it carries its own atmosphere before you've done a single thing.

A few reasons it punches above its weight:

• Everyone already gets it. You don't have to explain Oktoberfest. Beer, steins, pretzels, a bit of Oompah — people picture the whole thing the second they read the word. That's half your marketing done for you.
• It's a group occasion. Nobody does Oktoberfest alone. It pulls in stag-do energy, work nights out, friend groups and families — the kind of bookings that fill tables, not just barstools.
• It lands in a gap. There's not much competing for the diary in late September. The chain down the road probably isn't bothering. A bit of theme and effort and you'll stand out a mile.
• It's a lead-in, not a one-off. Run it well and you've got a roomful of people in a good mood, a fortnight before you start trailing your Christmas bookings. More on that at the end.

At The Anchor we've learned the same lesson again and again: the quiet weeks aren't a footfall problem, they're an occasion problem. Give people a reason and they show up. Oktoberfest is one of the easiest reasons to give.

Picking your dates

First decision, and it's an easy one. You are not bound to the Munich calendar. The festival over there is a sixteen-day epic; yours doesn't have to be. Pick the format that fits your pub.

A single weekend is where most pubs should start. A Friday-to-Sunday is plenty — enough to build a bit of momentum, easy to staff, and you can throw everything at it without it dragging. If you've never done this before, do this.

A longer run — say two weekends with the midweek in between — works if you've got the trade and the stock to sustain it. It gives you more bites at the cherry and lets people who missed the first weekend catch the second. But don't over-reach. A packed single weekend beats a thin ten days every time.

One steer on timing: late September into the first weekend of October is the sweet spot. It rides the actual Oktoberfest publicity without clashing with Halloween at the end of the month. Look at your own diary, find the quietest weekend in that window, and that's your Oktoberfest.

The beer: get a proper German one on

This is the heart of it. You can skimp on a lot, but not the beer. Oktoberfest is a beer festival — the drink is the reason people are there, so make it count.

What to put on

You want at least one genuinely German-style beer that you don't normally have. The classic choices:

• Festbier or Märzen. This is the real Oktoberfest beer — golden, malty, smooth and dangerously drinkable. If you put one thing on, put this on. It's the taste of the occasion.
• Weissbier (wheat beer). Cloudy, fruity, served in the tall glass. A lovely contrast to the festbier and a talking point in its own right.

Talk to your supplier early. Most can get you a German festbier or a recognisable wheat beer for the period, and a few weeks' notice makes all the difference. And keep a familiar lager on alongside it — not everyone wants to experiment, and you never want to send a round-buyer away empty-handed.

Steins and the Maß

Here's where the theatre comes in. Serve the festbier in steins and the whole thing levels up. A litre stein — the Maß, as they call it in Munich — is a proper event in your hand, and it's what people will photograph.

A word of practical advice: a Maß is a big, expensive glass, and they walk. Run a stein deposit — take a few pounds (or a card behind the bar) against each one, refunded when it comes back. It protects your glassware, it's completely normal at this kind of event, and it gives you a clean reason to chat to every table. If full litre steins are a stretch, a half-litre branded stein does the job and is easier to pour to line.

The food: keep it simple and Bavarian

You do not need a full German menu. Trying to cook authentic Bavarian food across a busy weekend is how a good night turns into a kitchen meltdown. Pick three or four crowd-pleasers, do them well, and that's your Oktoberfest food sorted.

The shortlist that does the heavy lifting:

• Soft pretzels. The single most Oktoberfest thing you can put on a table. Warm, with mustard. Easy to buy in and finish off, low effort, big signal.
• Bratwurst in a roll. A good German sausage, a soft roll, sweet or English mustard, maybe some fried onions. Simple, fast, exactly what people want.
• Currywurst. Sliced sausage, curried ketchup, a shake of curry powder, chips on the side. A cult favourite and dead cheap to put out.
• A Bavarian sharing board. Cured meats, a couple of cheeses, pickles, pretzel pieces, a pot of mustard. Made to order, ideal for the big group tables, and it makes a small spread look generous.

That's a menu a normal pub kitchen can actually deliver on a heaving Saturday. Resist the urge to gold-plate it. If you want to think more broadly about how the food and drink work together on the night, our guide to pub drinks menu design covers laying it out so it sells itself.

Music, decoration and atmosphere

This is the cheap bit, and it's where a normal pub becomes an Oktoberfest. None of it needs a budget — it needs a bit of effort the week before.

The Oompah playlist. Stick a Bavarian Oompah playlist on (the streaming services have them ready-made) and play it loud enough to be felt. It changes the whole feel of the room the moment people walk in. If you can rope in any live music for a couple of hours on the Saturday, even better, but a playlist alone does most of the work.

Blue and white, everywhere. The Bavarian colours are your whole look. Blue-and-white bunting, chequered paper tablecloths, a few flags, balloons if you're feeling it. It's bunting and tablecloths — it costs very little and reads instantly as Oktoberfest. Chalk a big "Willkommen" by the door and you're there.

A chalkboard menu. Write up your festbier, your wheat beer and your food specials on a board, German-style. It looks the part and it sells the offer to everyone who walks past.

Don't agonise over authenticity. Nobody's marking you on it. The point is that someone steps through the door, hears the Oompah, sees the blue and white, and grins. That grin is the whole job done.

Make it social: long tables and group bookings

Here's the move that turns a themed night into a properly busy one. Oktoberfest, done right, is a shared occasion — and the way you lay out the room decides whether that happens.

Long shared tables. If you can, push tables together into long benches the way they do in the beer halls. Strangers end up elbow to elbow, groups merge, and the room feels full and buzzy even before it's packed. It's a completely different energy to scattered tables for two, and it's the single biggest thing you can do to make the night feel like an event.

Chase the group bookings. This is where the real money is. Work nights out, friend groups, birthday lot, the local sports team — Oktoberfest is the perfect excuse for all of them. Make it easy: offer to reserve a long table for groups of six or more, maybe with steins ready on arrival. Put the word out a few weeks ahead so it lands while people are still planning their October.

Prost toasts. A round of "Prost!" — the German cheers — across the room every now and then is daft, free, and it bonds the place together. Get your staff to kick a couple off through the night. It's the kind of small thing people remember and talk about.

A bit of stein-themed fun goes a long way too — a friendly "best stein hold" moment, that sort of thing — but keep it good-natured and keep it sensible. This is a beer festival, so the responsible-retailing basics matter more than usual, not less: keep Challenge 25 front of mind, watch for anyone who's had enough, and never let a theme become an excuse to drop the standards. A great night and a well-run bar are the same thing.

Photos and promotion

Oktoberfest is the most photogenic night you'll run all autumn, so use it. The steins, the pretzels, the blue and white, a packed long table — it's all built to be shared, and that's free reach you'd be daft to waste.

A simple promotion plan:

• Trail it for two or three weeks. Don't rely on one post the day before. People plan their nights out further ahead than we like to think, especially the group bookings. Put it across your social, your community groups, and a message to anyone on your list.
• Photograph the set-up, not just the night. Post the bunting going up, the first festbier poured, the food coming out. The build-up sells the night.
• Get a few good shots on the night itself. A full long table mid-toast, a stein in hand, the pretzels. Post them while it's happening and the next day — it's your advert for next year and your nudge to everyone who missed it.
• Encourage your customers to tag you. People love posting a stein photo. Make sure your handle's on the chalkboard so their reach becomes yours.

If you'd like a hand getting the build-up right and turning it into bookings, that's exactly the sort of thing we help pubs with — see how we work with pubs.

Turning the night into repeat bookings

Here's the part most pubs leave on the table. A good Oktoberfest isn't the finish line — it's a roomful of happy people, in late September or early October, right before the run-up to Christmas kicks off. That's a gift if you use it.

A few moves to make it stick:

• Capture who came. Every group booking is a contact worth keeping. The lot who booked a long table for Oktoberfest are exactly the people to tell about your Christmas dates — and they're already in a booking frame of mind.
• Plant the Christmas seed on the night. A little card on each table, a line from the staff, a mention on the chalkboard: "Loved tonight? Get your Christmas table in early." You'll never have a warmer audience for it.
• Line up the next reason. Oktoberfest doesn't stand alone — it's one thread in a busy autumn that runs through Halloween, Bonfire Night and into December. If you sort the calendar properly, each event feeds the next instead of being a fresh scramble. The full Autumn Pub Playbook pulls the whole season together.
• Make it an annual fixture. The pubs that win at this run the same event every year so it becomes a thing people wait for. Year two is always easier — you've got the photos, the suppliers and the regulars who already know to book.

Oktoberfest also sits nicely alongside the other autumn drinks occasions. If you're leaning into beer this season, our guide to Cask Ale Week shows how to make your handpulls the hero, and our national drinks days guide maps out the other dated hooks worth building a night around.

Your first move

Don't plan the whole festival. Plan the basics, and the night builds on itself.

1. Pick your weekend — the quietest Friday-to-Sunday in late September or early October.
2. Ring your supplier and get a German festbier (and a wheat beer if you can) lined up, plus steins and a deposit plan.
3. Sort three or four bits of Bavarian food your kitchen can actually deliver on a busy night.
4. Cue up an Oompah playlist, grab some blue-and-white bunting, and start trailing it — chasing those group bookings first.

Do that, and you've turned the deadest weekend of the autumn into one people look forward to. Oktoberfest is the rare event that's easy to run, cheap to dress, and lands exactly when your diary needs it most. Get it on.

FAQs

When is Oktoberfest 2026? The original Munich Oktoberfest runs Saturday 19 September to Sunday 4 October 2026. But you don't have to match those dates. A UK pub can run its own Oktoberfest on any weekend across late September or early October — pick whichever Friday-to-Sunday suits your trade and your calendar.

What beer do you serve at an Oktoberfest? Get a proper German-style beer on for the occasion. A festbier or Märzen is the traditional choice — golden, malty and very drinkable — or a cloudy wheat beer (Weissbier) for something a bit different. Serve it in steins for the theatre of it, and keep a familiar lager on too so nobody feels left out.

What food do you serve at an Oktoberfest? Keep it simple and Bavarian. Soft pretzels, bratwurst in a roll with mustard, currywurst, and a sharing board of cured meats, cheese and pickles will cover most of it. You don't need a full German menu — three or four crowd-pleasers done well beat a long list you can't execute on a busy night.

How do I host an Oktoberfest in my pub on a budget? You already own the room. Blue-and-white bunting, paper tablecloths, a free Oompah playlist and a chalkboard menu cost very little. The spend that matters is the beer and the food. Push group bookings and long shared tables so the room fills and feels like an event, and let the atmosphere do the rest.