Nashville Oktoberfest

2025 did not exceed expectations. We went on Sunday. Small crowd at 1pm so no wait but $12 entrance fee, parking and overpriced beer requires a lot more umph to compensate. The best live music (German) was at the Jefferson street entrance where there was no seating and nothing shaded. We visited a Dallas fest two weeks ago and it was far better…setup and pricing. Likely will skip my hometown fest next year.

This event was free and a family community event for over 40 years, so not surprising that it's going the way of many Nashville community events: commodified to the point of running off the actual community. A state fair food booth. No more rides or actual German venders. Oh, that's right: they're not only charging the community but they've priced out the vendors, who could now make more money somewhere else. I'd gladly go back to 1996 for a simple oompah band, some crafts booths, a bratwurst vendor and tours of historic Germantown houses. Nashville didn't invent Oktoberfest, so whomever is putting on the event currently can't hold it hostage in this current state, as though it can't exist simply for the Nashville community. Germantown is ideal of course, but if it's holding Oktoberfest hostage with cost extortion, hold it somewhere else and Germantown will renegotiate. "Michael", owner of the Oktoberfest page, might be ready to say fine if displeased Nashvillians don't come. But why would he even say that? New folks are moving here hoping for and expecting Nashville to show up when they do. Reinventing Nashville for profit is not authentic Nashville. It's the biggest mistake "Nashville " keeps making.

$12 for absolutely nothing worthwhile. Walking around a soulless, fenced off Bicentennial Mall (not Germantown) to see dozens of overpriced food/beer booths and a handful of arts and crafts sellers. Ridiculous waste of time and money. We liked the original in the neighborhood streets of Germantown. This iteration is an unmitigated disaster. Never again. Save your money.

Been getting smaller ever year. And now they want to charge to enter 😂 what a joke. Sad this used to be a great event. Plenty of others that are free and much bigger. Won’t be going back after attending every year. Just not worth it

Wasnt very good, hopefully they listen to reviews for making it better next year; I wouldnt recommend going out of your way for this year at all. I was expecting more heritage, but it didnt feel very german at all. Just gimicy. Not a single polka band while we were there. The beer tents were way over priced and they got me with misleading adverising. "A stein and two beers" to me means a stein filled twice. Not a stein and two regular cups to fill the one stein, and then not offer any discount to refill the stein..... i guess if you want to watch football games on a jumbo tv in the middle of the venue drinking $14 glasses of beer and have a stein that takes two glasses to fill, go for it. But dont go if you expect a real oktoberfest.

Well organized Octoberfest in Nashville. Entry is free. Beer was $12 this year. For 2 beers and a stein, you pay $40. Many local vendor booths and food trucks were available. I wish there were more “German-themed” booths along with the clothing, jewelry etc. booths. The band performing live this year wasn’t great. The music they were playing before the band arrived was better, unfortunately. They kept the premises very clean. Many staff members were roaming around making sure everything was clean and under control. There’s a parking lot a couple of blocks away, where you can park your car. Plenty of portable restrooms were available on-site. Overall, I thought it was great, with some room for improvement next year.

It has been 4 years since we attended Nashville Oktoberfest & it was disappointing to see how small it was this year. The craft beer had almost doubled in price! And if you wanted the Erdinger German beer you had to go to a different tent. If you didn't know this ahead of time you could stand in a very long line to be disappointed. A good thing this year was they did away with the tokens & just went to cashless pay. It was still a fun time with the axe throwing, nail hammering, & vendors that were there.

Great festival, love the beer and food there, great music and entertainment, only could use more stations for tokens and beer stations, so people don't have to wait 30-45 minutes for a tokens and 30-45 minutes for a beer.