The Historical Aspects of the Special Festivals - Essay Example

Individual reflective report s Submitted by s: Introduction Special festivals de particular ceremonies, performances or revelries that are developed to mark extraordinary occasions or attain a social or cultural objective (Ali-Knight, 2009, p. 205). To visitors or guests, they present a chance for social, leisure and cultural experiences, which are not part of the normal variety of choices that they have on a daily basis. The Oktoberfest that is usually held in Munich is an example of a festival or event that fulfills all this aspects (Bekker, 2005, p. 406). The Oktoberfest is seen as the biggest public event in the globe and has evolved from an agricultural festival to become a large-scale activity characterized by entertainment and activities on a large scale for the last two centuries. Conversely, the historical aspects of the Bavarian culture still exist and are currently celebrated as rituals as well as traditional experiences with the expansion of cultures resulting in the introduction of inventive and challenging ideologies at the yearly trademark festival. Each year, almost six million individuals visit the Theresienwiesn to drink beer together, relish the traditional German delicacies and dance to music throughout the day (Schulte-Peevers, 2010, p. 314). Seven hundred beer tents as well as trading booths can be found in the Oktoberfest grounds, along with fourteen dedicated tents which are constructed based on particular themes such as the flirt tent that can hold up to ten thousand people. Among the exceptional characteristics of Oktoberfest is that regardless of the fact that there are no marketing or sponsorships, this huge event continues to be successful with a high degree of economic stability (Stephenson, Mintzer and Stephenson, 2008, p. 274). History Oktoberfest came into existence for the first time in 1810 as a means of honoring the marriage of Ludwig, who was a Bavarian crown prince (Yeoman, 2004, p. 34). These events occurred four years after Bavaria had become a Kingdom with the traditional festival being employed to develop a dynasty of the new Bavaria and the promotion of Munich. Traditionally, the last week of Oktoberfest was in October and this tradition is still being used in the present times (Schulenkorf, 2008, p. 3). Horse races that were incorporated into the first Oktoberfest festivals and at one time the most popular activity during the festival are not held in the present (Hall and Sharples, 2008, p. 174). However, agricultural shows, which were also an attraction in the past, are still held every three years as Oktoberfest progresses in the southern section of the grounds where the festival takes place. The grounds were Oktoberfest is held is forty-two hectares in size and was named after the former princess. The German beer market is the largest and most regionally fragmented in the globe with more the one thousand two hundred breweries that produce approximately five thousand brands of beer (OGuinn, Allen and Semenik, 2009, p. 273). The nation does not have large national brewing groups, instead, it is characterizes by numerous small businesses, many of which are family owned. Germans drink almost one hundred and twenty liters of beer annually and along with the Irish, with seven key breweries, Germany remains the leader in the consumption of beer (Preedy, 2009, p. 32). People who drink beer in Germany are very loyal to their preferred brands and in most cases, the brands are consumed in the areas where they are produced, making it quite challenging for foreign companies to penetrate the German market. Furthermore, the beer purity law outlines the ingredients that are supposed to be used when brewing beer in Germany; beer is supposed to contain only water, hops, barley and yeast. Most of the Germans, particularly the Bavarians, trust the quality of the nation’s beers and consume it compared to the level of consumption of imports making it difficult for foreign companies to sell their brands at the Oktoberfest (McFarland, 2009, p. 103). Event organizing body: Munich Tourism Office For almost two centuries, the City of Munich was responsible for organizing the Oktoberfest Festival, but from 1975, the Munich Tourist Office became responsible for the organization of the festival through its events department (Dunford, 2009, p. 265). Every year, from July onwards, a team of eight people is tasked with supporting the organizers as they prepare and implement the initial phases of the festival. They are responsible for measurement of the individual trade spaces as well as constructing the information booths and toilet facilities on behalf of the organizers. In 2004, the Service Centre Theresienwiese was created to as a replacement for more than one hundred containers, which were previously employed as the headquarters of the festival since the Tourist Office became responsible in 1975 (Schumacher, Schaeffer and Vogt, 2010, p. 208). This service center houses the event management department run by the tourist office, its PR department, security department as well as the consumer protection department among other offices including a lost property office and an emergency ward ran by the Bavarian Red Cross (Wagle, 2003, p. 516). Additionally, branches of the Youth Affairs and Health and Safety department have offices in the building with the fire brigade along with the police also setting up a security point that is used as a contact point especially for scared women. The general objective of the Oktoberfest Festival is to provide an exceptional enjoyment and leisure environment for the people who live in Munich together with the guests from all over the globe. It also seeks to foster the traditions and quality of the festival as the most significant image-factor for Munich in regards to tourism and promotion of the business economy of Munich (Ritchie and Crouch, 2003, p. 120). Planning of the event and resources Appreciating the event setting is important for ensuring that Oktoberfest becomes successful and key stakeholders and players need to be identified and integrated into the process of planning the event (Fernandez and Huey, 2012, p. 23). Some of the typical conflicting needs that may arise include integration and marshaling of all the parties, which is of central significance to the managers of the event. Numerous individuals, associations make their contributions to the Festival annually with the Munich Tourist Office, under the leadership of a General Manager, being in charge of the organization of the Festival (Bernstein, 2004, p. 38). The event management department is in charge for coordination, organization and implementation of the hallmark event and is backed by the marketing and PR offices. All the economic issues of the Festival are handled by the business committee of Munich’s city council which choses almost seven hundred traders out of the total of one thousand five hundred in the event every year. The city of Munich is high ranking among German cities in relation to culture, the quality of life as well as the setting (Smith, 2011, p. 17). The city is associated with globally successful image carriers like soccer and castles and is among the best tourist destination in the European continent (Porter, 2006, p. 432). It is also a leading city constituted by outstanding museums and orchestras as far as culture is concerned. Additionally, the city has numerous striking leisure prospects along with an assortment of natural assets. Open spaces and a balanced structure of settlements still exist and they all contribute to the GDP of Munich making it the highest in the nation (Cervero, 1999, p. 229). The city has the second most significant airport in Germany and is the central junction of railway systems and key interstate roads in South Germany with a very efficient transportation network (Felzenshṭain, Schamp and Shachar, 2002, p. 135). Munich can be considered as a result of its various highlights as a high profile destination that attracts numerous visitors from the entire globe particularly during the period of Oktoberfest. Thus, an integrative approach that involves the geographical community as well as the community of interest are supposed to be implemented with a good example of this form of implementation being the close collaboration with the restaurants and pubs in the area (Myers and Isralowitz, 2011, p. 177). When Oktoberfest is held, these venues are permitted to remain open up to six o’clock in the morning, and this promises additional income from the visitors after the main service center is closed at midnight. The city council together with the organizers decided on the implementation of this policy after gastronomes in Munich raised their fears of adverse economic losses during the weeks that Oktoberfest takes place. All the seven hundred traders, particularly the fourteen large brewers, with their huge beer tents are responsible for the business they conduct, implying that numerous individual events constitute the Oktoberfest Festival (Berridge, 2007, p. 211). The Department of Employment and Economics set the sanctioned operating guidelines including safety regulations and standards of service that have to be duly followed by the traders. There are also further requirements that include the specific times the businesses should open as well as human resource requirements that have to be adhered to. An adequate number of security personnel and toilet facilities are supposed to be present in all the beer tents and any type of advertisement, apart from the business name and its logo, are strongly proscribed in the Oktoberfest service center (Kelso, 2011, p. 34). The operation of Oktoberfest is independent of any form of monetary sponsorship as it is financed fully through stall money from the operators and all the financial hedging and potential settlements of any balance in payments is incorporated into the financial budget of the city (Hawthorne, 2005, p. 205). Additionally, the Festival does not have obvious financial objectives and thus sponsorship engagements are avoided on purpose with the intention of keeping the initial traditional attributes of the festival alive and avoiding too much commercialization. In regards to media, the ARD television channel carries broadcasts of several highlights including the official opening as well as the parade of costumes live. Every night during Oktoberfest, highlights are broadcasted in thirty-minute segments every four hours and this has been happening during the Oktoberfest weeks for the last decade. The Festival also has twelve official websites along with numerous connected homepages, which remain online to provide awareness to the public in terms of the latest news (Schulte-Peevers, 2007, p. 287). All forms of information, which targets the tourists such as hotel and tent bookings, conveyed through photos and videos are also available on these websites. Google shows more than half a million hits for the word Oktoberfest and this demonstrates that the internet has developed in to the most significant media and information source (Moeller, 2010, p. 254). Oktoberfest security There have been very rare occurrences of technical accidents in Oktoberfest history since the department responsible for cables and temporary structures usually comprehensively tests the rides in advance. However, in the Oktoberfest festival of 1996, a collision occurred on the Euro Star roller coaster that led to thirty people being injured when a worn safety brake was not noticed during the inspection process. Even though the prosecutor in Munich attempted to prosecute the engineer who was responsible for negligent injury, the proceedings were not conclusive. So that the number of sexual assaults, fights and thefts could be reduced during Oktoberfest, the safety measures for visitors have been enhanced in the recent years (Bekker, 2005, p. 406). A new service center was created in the authorities’ court in 2004 where the police, the Munich fore department as well as medical services and district administration have offices (Herwig, 2006, p. 73). When Oktoberfest is in progress, a police station explicitly for the festival is created and can be reached through an emergency number. As a consequence of the many Italian visitors who are attracted to the festival, there have been officers from Bolzano, Italy present during Oktoberfest from 2005. For a long time, the Bavarian Red Cross has been responsible for provision of medical services at the Festival with additional medical services being situated in the Fischer Vroni tent while the Munich U-Bahn has commissioned more assurances in its rapid transit station (Oktoberfest.de, 2015). A small hospital that has an operating theater together with an ambulance is freely available and accessible in the authorities’ court. Furthermore, more emergency vehicles are always ready at the control centers and additional staff is always on hand in the event that their services are required. 2010 saw the instigation of a measure of public safety along with a dog and animal ban while glass bottles were banned in 2012 after an escalation in the number of injuries and accidents. The safety considerations of the festival have undergone modifications and adaptations through time and after the 1980 bombing, the main entrance into Oktoberfest was restructured in 1981 (Large, 2012, p. 307). The public was prohibited from Theresienwiese in 2008 when the Octoberfest was being constructed and in 2009 there were road blocks as well as access controls as the festival progresses as a result of threats from Islamists (Gaab, 2006, p. 50). Advances to the security plan were made in 2010 to include lockdown rings surrounding the Teresienewiese, controls for access and flight bans for aircrafts flying over the grounds where the festival is held. Additionally, concrete columns that are fifty-two meters high were erected at the driveway and entrances so that if a bomb attack was planned, the attackers would not be able to drive directly into the grounds. There was another increase in security measures in 2011 through the erection of one hundred and seventy partially retractable poles, which were supposed to prevent any aggressive entry into the ground using a vehicle (Bladen, 2012, p. 260). Additionally, the Bavaria ring was sealed in order to create space in emergency cases and enable security forces space to respond. Presently, the police can divert the crowds rapidly and effectively when required through radio communication and closing down of train stations. Toilets and refuse Almost one thousand tons of refuse is generated after every annual Oktoberfest, and the mountains of refuse generated are carried away and ways are cleaned every morning (Tourismharrison.com, 2015; Thor, 2007, p. 369). The cleaning is partly paid for by the city of Munich with the rest of the expenses being catered for by the sponsor. The queues of people wishing to use the toilets grew so long on 2004 to the point that police had to be called to regulate their entrance. Therefore, to ensure that the traffic were kept moving through the toilets, the men wishing to use the toilets were redirected to the urinals if all they wanted to do was urinate. Subsequently, the number of toilets were increased by about twenty percent increasing the number to almost two thousand toilets and urinals presently. Numerous Oktoberfest guests go to the quiet stalls so that they can use their phones and as a result of this, there were intentions in 2005 to put up a Faraday cage to surround the toilets or employ mobile jammers with the aim of preventing telephoning using mobile phones. Nevertheless, jamming devices are not legal in Germany while the copper Faraday cages would have been too costly, leading to the dropping of this plan. Instead, signs were places to warn toilet users not to use their mobile phones in the toilets (Xu, 2007, p. 104). Quite recently, more amplification of the loud music to reach the toilets have made the stall become less quiet for using telephones. Conclusion There have been arguments that the largest beer festival in the globe has lost some of its initial charm and has evolved to become an enormous commercial orgy. Nonetheless, the folk root of the festival as well as the cultural German style of festivities is still evident in Munich every year with local donning Bavarian costumes and millions of visitors from various places all over the world clinking beer steins together and dancing to music throughout the day. By the sixties, the festivals had developed into an enormous and globally renowned event, and from that time, visitors have continued to invoke images of Germans donning the Sennerhut and girls wearing Dirndl. Many people who dress in traditional German attire when the festival is in progress and this appears to add some authenticity to the event. Oktoberfest is undoubtedly the biggest festival all over the world, with a limited number of festivals being larger or more renowned than this Bavarian event (McDonald and Olson, 2011, p. 10). 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