An evening is only ever as good as the way it ends. Here is how to plan for 30 and 31 October at SKW, in seven easy steps.
Almost everything about an Oktoberfest weekend has already been arranged for you. The Kirchdorfer are on their way from Bavaria, the Festbier is brewed and the tent goes up whatever the weather decides to do. What is left is a single decision - how you are getting home and it is one of those questions that only gets harder the longer you leave it. Give it ten minutes early in the week and the rest of the weekend is yours.
Do it while it is still early in the week and the answer is obvious. The rule at a beer festival has never been complicated: whoever drives is the one who has not had a beer. So, decide who that is or decide you are calling someone. Then tell the people you are coming with, because a plan living in one person's head is not really a plan. Get that done and there is nothing left to work out at eleven at night, which is precisely when nobody wants to be working anything out.
The official parking areas at SKW fill on both nights and the later you arrive the further you end up walking in. So the ride quietly wins on convenience too. You get dropped close to the entrance, you are not hunting for a bay at seven o'clock and there is nothing waiting for you at the end of the night except the lift home. Sorting the transport early takes the whole question off the table.
They are doing you a favour and the night should feel like one. Their Halbes Hendl is on the group, their Rock Shandy is on the group and they call the time everyone leaves. If you are coming both nights, swap the job on Saturday so it does not land on the same person again. And nobody is missing anything either. The brass, the Schuhplattler, the Bierkönigin, the log-sawing and a whole tent singing badly in a language most of them do not speak, all land exactly the same – with or without a beer in your hand.
LEFA and Yango both run in the city, both book from your phone and both show you the driver and the car before it pulls up. Dial a Cab takes a booking over the phone, so you can fix the pick-up time before you even leave the house. A lift from someone at home counts just as much, so ask on the Monday rather than at closing time. Whichever way you go, do the small stuff this week: install the apps, save the number and agree one pick-up point with your group. A driver having to circle a full street in Olympia is a driver you are going to lose.
A Maß is a full litre and a Festbier brewed to the 1516 purity law is not the lager your evening is calibrated for, so bring the water in early rather than late. Eat while you are at it. The Brezel, the Schweinshaxe and the Weisswurst with sweet mustard all do more for you at seven than they will at eleven. Pacing yourself is not a smaller night out. The people still on their feet for the last song are the ones who did it.
Know who you came with, know who you are going home with and let one other person know as well. Keep the group together and keep your phone charged. If someone has had a heavy one, take them home yourself rather than putting them in a car on their own and if an inebriated friend (even if slightly only) reaches for their keys, take the keys. Two awkward minutes and everybody is fine in the morning. Keep half an eye on the table next to you too. That is what Gemütlichkeit turns out to mean once you are actually inside the tent.
Sometimes it does. The lift falls through, the band plays one more and midnight arrives earlier than anyone agreed to. The answer is always the same and it is always the easy one: leave the car, call a ride and fetch it in the morning. The official parking areas are guarded, so as long as the car is in one of them it can happily stay where it is. Collecting it the next day is a mild nuisance, nothing more and it is the one decision at this festival that nobody has ever woken up regretting.
That is the whole plan and it takes ten minutes. Book the ride, brief the driver, eat the Hendl, leave together.
Friday 30 and Saturday 31 October at Sport Klub Windhoek and all of us back here again next year.
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