Oktoberfest starts this weekend. Real Beer has a page dedicated to the celebration. Link. Excerpt:
By the numbers
The official festival area covers 104 acres and has seating for 94,000 in the festival halls.
The festival grounds has about 1,440 toilets.
About 900 tons of waste will be generated during Oktoberfest.
The 2004 festival drew 6.3 million visitors. They consumed 6.3 million liters of beer and 200,000 liters of non-alcoholic beer.
Food consumption included 91 oxen, 56,036 pork knuckles, 487,487 chickens and 190,635 pairs of pork sausage.
In contrast, 1950 more than 1.5 million liters of beer was drunk and nearly 650,000 pairs of sausage eaten. 1970, the numbers had grown to nearly 4 million liters of beer and 800,000 pairs of sausage. While total (if not per capita) beer consumption has continued to rise, sausage sales have fallen dramatically.
Postcard from 1938 Oktoberfest:
