QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Prost!

Each year, Brisbane’s RNA Showgrounds come alive with the colours, laughter, music and fun to be found on Munich’s Theresienwiese, which takes place the week before, half a world away, although the Queensland version is yet to achieve the staggering scale of the original – as quick facts below from the 2010 Munich festival suggest: • Area: 0.42 km 2 (103.78 acres) • Seats in the halls: approx. 100,000 • Visitors: 6.4 million • Beer: approx. 7,100,000 litres (151,200 litres non-alcoholic) • Wine: 89,259 litres • Sparkling wine: 37,733 litres • Coffee and tea: 245,335 litres • Water and lemonade: 1,028,522 litres • Chicken: 505,901 birds • Pork sausages: 119,302 pairs • Fish: 40,850 kg • Pork knuckles: 69,293 units • Oxen: 119 head • Electricity used: 2.96 million kWh • Gas used: about 198,489 m 3 • Water used: about 107,489 m 3 • Waste: approx. 700–1000 tonnes • Toilets: about 980 seats, and more than 878 linear metres of urinals • Phone booths: more than 80 • Lost property: about 4000 items,

lofteis / wiki-commons

losevsky / shutterstock.com kzenon / shutterstock.com

if you can’t be in München, then you ought to be in one of the Top 10 Oktoberfests elsewhere around the world – like Brisbane! Background and below: Scenes of the 2007 Oktoberfest in München, with the daytime ‘Gemütlich’ of one of the halls contrasting with the glittering jewel that is the aerial view by night.

among them 260 pairs of glasses, 200 mobile phones, wedding rings, – and 500 crutches.

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