Adventureland Oktoberfest 2017 and Gin Blossums

KCCI TV reported today that the Gin Blossums will be the headliner band at this year’s Oktoberfest. You may remember them from some hits in the early 90s:

Other tidbits in the article included pricing. This event, which started out at $10 in 2015, then went to $15 in 2016, will increase to $30 this year. Discount tickets will be $25 in advance.

Other bands that are returning include:

  • BS and the Liars
  • Decoy
  • Nadas
  • Pork Tornados
  • Party Party
  • Pianopalooza
  • Spazmatics

The wiki entry has now been started for 2017:

http://adventureland.parkhopping.com/wiki/index.php/Oktoberfest_2017

More news as we hear it…

Oktoberfest 2016 Summary

The 2016 2nd annual Adventureland Oktoberfest “Music and Food Festival” has concluded. It may take me awhile to compose my thoughts and post a proper write up about this day, but I wanted to get a quick summary out first.

The first event last year was an amazing first event. The park had nice matching banner signs on all the food booths and added a number of speciality drink tents to the park. They had done light decorations (pumpkins) around the Main Street, Bavari and Boulevard sections of the park they used for the event. There were free games to play in the lawns and lanes, and a number of speciality pay-to-play games added (keg bowling, Hamm’s speed ball toss, etc.). All the music last year was inside the Bier Garten tent. And while the day started out very sparse, by the evening it was wall-to-wall packed in that tent, and long lines at drink and food stands. I did not stay until closing, but it seemed the event had reached capacity limits for various locations that were open.

For 2016, the park took what they learned and expanded to pretty much the entire park (except Dragon Island and Outlaw Gulch). They even made use of the River Rapids “island” as a smoker’s section with it’s own beer stand (in the gift shop building). The Dragon Island bridge contained a cheap beer stand at the very end, with a $4 “whatever they had” drink and a chance to feed the fishes one last time this year.

There were tons of extra drink stands — most double sided so they could serve twice as many — and additional taps added to the Iowa Beer & Wine Shop. They turned many things in to bars — the Storm Chaser gift shop, for example. They even made Sheriff Sam’s Saloon a whiskey bar! The ICEE Mix-It-Up now sold you alcohol to spike your ICEE. The Main Street ice cream shop was doing spiked malts. Iowa Cafe’s chicken got moved to a food tend, and the two food lines in the building were turned in to a Mimosa Bar and a Bloody Mary Bar. There was free samples (a shot!) of SWELL Vodka (made in Cumming, Iowa) there too.

And the list goes on, and on, and on… Many games in County Fair were open, including “Inappropriate Age and Weight Guessing.” He guessed me at 51. Hmph.

And music… plenty of music…

There is far too much to describe in this short (already too long) summary, so check back late this week when I have time to do a full writeup with photos.

Oktoberfest 2016 Entertainment Schedule

I have taken the entertainment listing and reformatted it in to a grid. This will give you a better idea on what is going on when at a specific time (instead of having to look through five different stage listings).

Check out the 2016 entertainment schedule here:

http://adventureland.parkhopping.com/wiki/index.php/Oktoberfest_2016#Schedule

I plan to add the contest times there too, if they are announced before the event.

Please let me know if I missed anything.

TAG: Octoberfest, Oktoberfest

Iowa’s Adventureland Oktoberfest 2016

Adventureland has updated its Oktoberfest website again with more details about this year’s event. They now list more entertainment, including a Ben Ulin hypnotist show, and the names of the stage locations:

  1. Carousel – somewhere on Main Street, I assume. It looks like it will be a small stage of solo acts, similar to the one that used to be in front of Iowa Beer & Wine Shop.
  2. Main Stage – this is probably something they are setting up in front of the Giant Sky Wheel. They recently cut down a bunch of tall trees in a planter in front of it, and we found out this was so it would not block the view of a stage, so this makes sense.
  3. Rathskellar (their spelling; the real word, and the signs on the building, say -er) – this would be the Bier Garten location. Since they do not say Bier Garten, perhaps they are moving the stage to the Rathskeller side this year.
  4. Coors Light Cafe – since more of the park is open this year, I am going to guess this will be the Coca-Cola Cafe (formerly called Soda and Sounds). I am expecting to see them covering up the “Coca-Cola” branding on the building with Coors Light banners 🙂
  5. Iowa Beer & Wine – construction just began in front of this spot to turn it in to a covered seating area, similar to what they have at the Bier Garten. This location is going to be used for the piano acts.

That covers the five stages. We’ll know in a few weeks how close my guesses are.

See my summary of all known Oktoberfest 2016 facts and rumors here:

http://adventureland.parkhopping.com/wiki/index.php/Oktoberfest_2016