Last weekend the Guildhall Square was transformed into a huge Oktoberfest celebration. Strong Island were fortunate enough to bag ourselves one of the VIP tables for the Saturday afternoon session. When my taxi first turned into Guildhall Walk I was surprised to see the queue of waiting to enter stretched from the Guildhall Square all the way down to Alec Rose Lane. Full credit to the organisers as the queue moved quickly and everyone got into the arena in good time.

The diverse crowd included plenty of guys and girls who’d turned up traditional lederhosens and bundhosens. It didn’t take long for the steins to be filled by the attentive servers who were also dressed in the traditional gear. You were even able to take your steins home with you afterwards, or at least I hope you were because I ended up with two back home at mine!

To entertain the crowds the organisers enlisted the awesome Oompah Brass who performed Oktoberfest classics such as Ein Prosit and their very own blend of ‘oompop’ which included renditions of tracks by Adele, Taylor Swift, Queen and The Village People’s classic YMCA.

Situated outside of the main tent was a selection of great Bavarian grub which included sausages, pretzels and other traditional delights.

I had a lot of fun, and from what I have heard from other friends who also attended one of the three sessions over the weekend so did they. I can certainly see this being an annual event in the Guildhall Square and to the organisers Prost ihr Säcke!

📷 Matt Mateusz Migas and Robert Nikolchev