Munich has banned Oktoberfest’s longtime party trick of champagne showers in every major tent, calling it a “waste of food” that clashes with the festival's character.
A spokeswoman for the city's Department of Labor and Economy confirmed the prohibition will be written directly into the operating contracts that govern the festival's largest venues, outlawing the spraying of any beverage for show purposes once the 191st Wiesn opens September 19.
The ritual was built almost entirely around Kufflers Weinzelt, where a 15-liter Nebuchadnezzar bottle of champagne sold for roughly 5,500 euros in 2025. Waiters would knock the bottle against the floor again and again until the trapped pressure forced the cork loose, sending champagne arcing across the tent and over whichever guests happened to be standing closest, a spectacle that resurfaced in dozens of social media clips every festival season.
City hall officials, cited by the Süddeutsche Zeitung according to the Abendzeitung, said they did not want the Wiesn to turn into Ballermann, and called the practice food waste that clashed with the festival's character. The vote landed the same week Wiesn director Christian Scharpf acknowledged the festival had work to do on its public image, though officials kept that conversation separate from the champagne rule itself.
Large format bottles will still be sold and poured normally at Kufflers Weinzelt and the festival's other wine tents. What disappears at the 2026 Oktoberfest is the choreographed spray, a ritual that tents had quietly tolerated, and at times encouraged, until the city hall decided it had gone on long enough.