So I found myself in Berlin, as the Oktoberfest in Münich took off. This is obviously a mistake,…read morebut I will not dwell at the details. As it turned out, my friend and I found out, that there is in fact a huge beer tent in Berlin, where a similar experience is announced.
We took a cab to the venue - it's close to Tegel Airport, hence it is quite far from the City of Berlin and most of the interesting places.
The whole place is the kind of rural amusement park that is awesome, if there is people. Unfortunately half the place was closed, and there was not a single guest. Literally.
We got ourselves a Bratwurst at the only open food place and ventured towards the main tent, in the vague hope that it would be full of people. As we approached the entrance 4 (four!) security guys ran towards my friend and his unfinished sausage - they screamed in German that food is not allowed in the beer tent.
In this context it did not help that he is an American, and they shouted in German - he had no idea what was going on. One of the guards grabbed my friend, and I am pretty sure he was about to deck him. I stepped in and commanded them in German to stay back and leave my friend alone. I have never seen anything like it - guards were belligerent and stupid, and it took some pursuation for them to leave us alone. Mind you, we were not drunk and the only apparent offence was carrying a sausage.
We peeked briefly into the tent and realized it housed 10 people in total, so we abandoned the place and went back to the cool offerings of Berlin. I love Berlin and everything about it - but I must admit I hate this place.
Apart from being boring and ridiculous, Zentraler Festplatz offers a good chance of being beaten up for no particular reason. By the guards. One star is way too kind.
(This was our experience on Thursday, Sep 25, 2014 around 10pm. Perhaps it not like this all the time. I will never know).