Revisiting Oktoberfest

By Joyce Coronel

It might have been hard to do, but planners of last year’s Tempe Oktoberfest were quick to admit their miscalculation: bringing in professionals to stage the popular downtown fest was akin to New Coke’s marketing fiasco.

For decades, Tempe Sister Cities has promoted cross-cultural friendships and learning through its involvement in an internationally acclaimed student-exchange program. Teens from Tempe high schools spend five weeks in such farflung places as Timbuktu, Mali; Cuenca, Ecuador; and Regensburg, Germany, as well as others across the globe.

A big part of the funding for the world-spanning goodwill mission comes from the Oktoberfest events held the second weekend in October each year at Tempe Town Lake.

The three-day outdoor festival is a colorful affair that draws some 200,000 people from across the Valley.

Hundreds of volunteers work together to pull it off with many of them pitching in year after year.

In 2016, however, the Oktoberfest board made a tough call:

With such enormous crowds, it seemed like the right time to bring in an outside professional events company to run the show.

Along with the change came a decision to charge a $10 entrance fee, something that hadn’t been done since the first Oktoberfest was held 45 years ago.

Wil Sahane, head of the oversight committee on behalf of the Oktoberfest board, and Larry West, the longtime event chair, acknowledged that the changes were not well-received.

“You can’t go from free forever to charging $10 for an entry fee,” Sahane said.

“There were too many changes too soon.” Attendance at the 2016 Oktoberfest dropped, and rather than raising funds, the event lost money.

“Until you try, you don’t know,” Sahane said. The decision wasn’t made overnight—it was something planners thought about for years.”

“We’re going back to a free event and we’re bringing back all the volunteers,” Sahane said.

“The people who really know how to run the event are the people who have been doing it for years and years.”

Remember the New-Coke-versus-Classic-Coke flub? It was sort of like that, both West and Sahane agreed.

“We’re moving on,” Sahane said.

“We are going back to our roots. To have an event this large run by volunteers is something to be admired.”

The Tempe Sister Cities organization is stronger than ever, he said. His own son and daughter participated in the program, so he’s invested in seeing it continue to flourish.

The Oktoberfest organization is “extremely appreciative of its volunteers…and they’re coming back in droves,” Sahane said.

“The passion and commitment of the people is unbelievable. I marvel at it.”

The massive, three-day festival takes the better part of a year to plan, West said.

“A big part of our volunteers are businesses that bring in their volunteers,” West said. The all-out effort of some 600-800 volunteers who work four-hour shifts ensures that the event runs smoothly.

The goal of the festival is to raise about $150,000 to send 32-34 students overseas and also welcome foreign students to Tempe. Until last year, there was “no problem surpassing that goal,” West said.

Still, the upcoming student trips are fully funded, Sahane said. “We are going full-bore with the plans that were set a year ago.”

Sahane and West underscored that Oktoberfest 2017 will represent a return to the previous blend of local entertainment and multiple points of interest across three stages.

“It’s a great event and a great cause,” Sahane said.

“We need all of Tempe supporting this. Come over and have some fun.”