Beer festivals range from enormous international gatherings to compact neighborhood events, and their statistics show how different those formats can be. Recent Oktoberfest reports measure millions of visitors and millions of liters of beer, while Great American Beer Festival figures emphasize judged entries, medals, producers, and economic impact. Smaller U.S. festivals publish a more practical mix of brewery counts, beer selections, ticket prices, and session length.
Contents
- The biggest attendance figures
- Beer volume and festival operations
- Who travels to major festivals
- Great American Beer Festival competition statistics
- How the GABF festival has changed
- Local festival size and ticket prices
The biggest attendance figures
Oktoberfest is an outlier in beer festival attendance. The Oktoberfest.de 2025 preliminary summary reports 6.5 million visitors. The same report says the Oide Wiesn, the historical section of the event, attracted 360,000 visitors. On a normal weekday, the grounds received between 200,000 and 250,000 guests. Those weekday figures help explain why a festival with a multi-week schedule can reach millions of visits without every day resembling its peak days.
The 2024 Oktoberfest preliminary final report recorded 6.7 million guests, while the 2023 report recorded 7.2 million. These are event totals for their respective years, not a single standardized attendance series with identical measurement conditions. The 2024 report identified the three Saturdays and the middle Sunday, 29 September, as the busiest days. The 2025 summary separately measured the Oide Wiesn at 360,000 visitors, compared with 430,000 in the 2024 report.
| Event and period | Reported attendance | Other scale indicator |
|---|---|---|
| Oktoberfest, 2025 | 6.5 million visitors | 360,000 at Oide Wiesn |
| Oktoberfest, 2024 | 6.7 million guests | 430,000 at Oide Wiesn |
| Oktoberfest, 2023 | 7.2 million guests | 115,600 Maßkrüge collected |
| Great American Beer Festival, 2010 | 49,000 attendees | 455 festival breweries |
The 2010 Great American Beer Festival Facts & Figures report gives a much smaller attendance figure of 49,000 attendees. That figure belongs to the 2010 festival and should not be treated as a current attendance estimate. It does, however, provide a useful historical reference point for a large American beer festival.
Beer volume and festival operations
The Oktoberfest reports put beer consumption on a different scale from most local festivals. Oktoberfest.de’s 2025 preliminary summary says 6.5 million liters of beer were used, based on landlord estimates. The wording matters: this is an estimate, and it is not presented as a directly measured pour count. In 2024, the preliminary final report recorded 7 million liters of beer sold. The 2023 report recorded 6.5 million measures of beer, using a different unit from the 2025 liters figure.
The 2024 report also says the share of non-alcoholic beer remained between 4% and 5% of served beer. That is a share of served beer, not a count of servings. The report recorded 9% more food sold than in 2023, showing that festival scale extends beyond beer volume.
Electricity use was reported at 2.8 million kWh in both 2024 and 2025. The 2023 report also recorded 2.8 million kWh and stated that this was 12% less than in 2022. The repeated figure is useful as a reported annual operating measure, but the supplied reports do not provide enough detail to explain whether the same boundary or accounting method was used each year.
Waste and public-service figures add operational context. Oktoberfest generated 802 tonnes of waste in 2024. The 2024 ambulance station reported 29% fewer patients, and police reported a 25.8% decrease in criminal offences. These percentages describe changes reported for that event year; they do not identify the underlying patient or offence totals.
Lost property is another visible measure of crowd scale. The 2025 summary recorded 4,500 lost-property items and said the lost-and-found office collected 116,000 beer mugs. The 2024 report recorded 3,500 lost-property items and 98,000 beer steins. The 2023 report recorded 3,250 lost-property items and 115,600 Maßkrüge. The terms beer mugs, beer steins, and Maßkrüge are preserved here as used in the respective reports, rather than being treated as one perfectly standardized series.
Who travels to major festivals
Oktoberfest’s 2025 preliminary summary gives two measures of international attendance. On the middle Saturday, around 30% of visitors came from abroad. Across the festival’s reported average, the foreign-visitor share was around 21%. The Saturday figure is a specific peak-day measure, while the 21% figure is an average for the event. They should not be combined or averaged together.
The contrast illustrates why festival averages need a clear time frame. A large event can have a different visitor mix on a particular Saturday than across all days. The 2025 report also gives normal-weekday attendance of 200,000 to 250,000 guests, so day type is relevant both to crowd size and to the likely geographic mix.
The GABF figures describe geographic reach differently. The Brewers Association 2025 Annual Report says the competition included 1,555 breweries and cideries from all 50 states plus Washington, D.C. The festival featured more than 450 producers from 47 states. These are producer counts, not visitor-origin percentages, and the competition and festival counts cover different participant groups.
The 2024 GABF competition included 1,869 breweries and cideries from all 50 states plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Its report also identified more than 1,200 cider producers in the United States. That statement concerns the U.S. cider-producer landscape described in the report, not the number of producers physically present at the festival.
Great American Beer Festival competition statistics
The Brewers Association 2025 Annual Report describes the 2025 Great American Beer Festival competition as the 39th edition. It judged 8,315 beers, used 250 judges, and relied on more than 300 volunteers. The average number of beers entered in each category was 71, while category #107, Juicy/Hazy India Pale Ale, had 301 entries.
The competition awarded 347 total medals and produced 273 medal-winning breweries and cideries. It included 180 first-time entrants and 12 first-time winners. Six cider categories were included, and three new categories were added: Vera Hop, Mexican-Style Pale Lager, and International Amber Lager.
The 2024 Brewers Association report recorded 8,836 judged entries, 285 judges, and more than 250 volunteers. The average number of beers per category was 85, and category 102, Juicy/Hazy IPA, had 349 entries. The competition awarded 326 total medals and produced 273 medal-winning breweries and cideries. It recorded 280 first-time entrants and 25 first-time winners.
The category structure also changed between the two reports. In 2024, the competition judged 102 beer categories and 170 subcategories, added five new cider categories, and included 233 commercial cider entries, 95 Collaboration entries, and 52 Pro-Am entries. The 2025 report identifies six cider categories, but the supplied figures do not state the full 2025 category and subcategory count.
| GABF competition measure | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Judged entries or beers | 8,836 entries | 8,315 beers |
| Judges | 285 | 250 |
| Average beers per category | 85 | 71 |
| Total medals | 326 | 347 |
| First-time entrants | 280 | 180 |
| First-time winners | 25 | 12 |
The 2010 Great American Beer Festival Facts & Figures report recorded 3,523 beers in competition, 82 categories plus Pro-Am, 151 judges, and an average of 42 beers per category. American Style India Pale Ale was the highest-entry style with 150 entries. The festival awarded 236 medals plus three Pro-Am medals. These figures are historical and use the event’s 2010 category structure.
How the GABF festival has changed
The 2010 festival report recorded 455 breweries, 2,248 beers poured, 3,400 volunteers, and 54,000 volunteer hours worked. By 2025, the festival was reported to feature more than 2,000 beverages and over 450 producers from 47 states. The producer count is similar in the two reports, while the published beverage figure is much larger in 2025; the reports use different years and terminology, so the figures should be read as period-specific descriptions rather than a controlled growth calculation.
The 2025 festival included 80 first-time participants and generated $16 million in economic impact for Denver, according to the Brewers Association 2025 Annual Report. Economic impact is a reported dollar estimate for Denver, not ticket revenue or a measure of the festival’s total sales. The 2010 report’s 49,000 attendees and 455 breweries provide historical context, but the supplied facts do not include a 2025 attendance total for a direct attendance comparison.
Local festival size and ticket prices
Smaller beer festivals make their scale easier to understand through published package details. The DC Beer Festival includes unlimited samples from more than 80 breweries. General admission is $55 and VIP admission is $90. The supplied figures do not specify the event date or session duration, so those prices should be treated as the listed admission amounts without adding a date.
St. Louis Beer Fest features more than 40 breweries and 120 beers. General admission is $50 and VIP admission is $65. Big Texas Beer Fest features 65 or more breweries and more than 300 beers and other beverages. Its general admission is listed as $45 or more, and VIP access adds 90 minutes. The festival’s 2025 event was its 13th annual event, and the supplied facts say it started in 2011.
Dauphin Street Beer Fest offers 48 beers across 12 venues. Tickets cost $35, and the event lasts three hours, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Unlike a single-site festival, its venue count describes a distributed format. That makes the 48-beer figure a selection count across participating locations rather than a claim about one central pouring hall.
| Festival | Published beverage or brewery scale | Admission information |
|---|---|---|
| DC Beer Festival | More than 80 breweries; unlimited samples | $55 general; $90 VIP |
| St. Louis Beer Fest | More than 40 breweries; 120 beers | $50 general; $65 VIP |
| Big Texas Beer Fest | 65+ breweries; 300+ beverages | $45+ general; VIP adds 90 minutes |
| Dauphin Street Beer Fest | 48 beers; 12 venues | $35; three hours |
These local figures show why “beer festival size” can mean several different things. A festival may publish breweries, beers, beverages, venues, or unlimited sampling as its headline measure. Ticket prices also are not directly comparable without matching the included samples, access periods, venue arrangement, and VIP benefits. The reported numbers are still useful for setting expectations: the events range from 48 beers across 12 venues to more than 300 beverages with 65 or more breweries.