Missed Oktoberfest? Bavaria’s Other Volksfeste, from Straubing to Erlangen

Munich’s Wiesn gets all the attention, but Bavaria and its Franconian neighbors run a full year of these things, and several are bigger than most visitors realize. This page rounds up the volksfeste worth knowing about if Oktoberfest is sold out, over budget, or simply not going to fit your dates, as part of my Oktoberfest guide.

I will say the thing the tourism boards will not: most of these festivals get almost no English-language coverage, which is exactly why the crowds are thinner and the seats easier to find.

Straubing's Gäubodenvolksfest: Bavaria's second-largest

The Gäubodenvolksfest, held in the town of Straubing east of Munich, calls itself Bavaria’s second-largest Volksfest, and the numbers back it up: seven festival tents holding about 27,500 seats between them, roughly 130 rides and attractions, and around 1.3 million visitors a year¹. It traces back to 1812, when King Maximilian I Joseph granted Straubing royal permission to hold an agricultural festival, and the name comes from the “Gäuboden,” the flat farmland south of the Danube that surrounds the town¹. The festival’s own site, as fetched, showed the 2027 dates, August 13 to 23, rather than a 2026 date, so treat that as the year to plan around if you are looking further ahead¹.

The Augsburger Plärrer: Schwabia's biggest, twice a year

Augsburg’s Plärrer runs twice annually and calls itself Schwabia’s largest folk festival, with roughly 85 operators and innkeepers together drawing over half a million visitors across both editions in a typical year². The 2026 Herbstplärrer, which ran August 28 to September 13, pulled in about 360,000 guests on its own². The next confirmed dates are the 2027 editions: the Frühjahrsplärrer runs March 28 to April 11, and the Herbstplärrer returns August 27 to September 12². The festival’s roots go back more than a thousand years as a market tradition, with the modern fairground format dating to 1878, when the city first separated its noisier rides from its market stalls².

The Bergkirchweih: Erlangen's cellar festival

Erlangen’s Bergkirchweih is built around the town’s historic beer cellars, not a single fairground of tents, and the 271st edition wrapped up in 2026⁴. The festival’s own site lists the next edition for May 13 to 24, 2027, under its long-running slogan “Der Berg ruft,” the mountain calls⁴. It centers on the Berg, the hillside where a cluster of beer cellars and their proprietors open for the run, a format that has more in common with a neighborhood block party stretched across a hillside than with a Wiesn-style tent city.

Rosenheim's Herbstfest

Rosenheim, southeast of Munich toward the Alps, runs its own Herbstfest as the town’s answer to the Wiesn on a smaller scale. The 2026 edition ran August 29 to September 13, and the festival’s own coverage of that run covered the usual mix: food stalls, rides including the Motodrom and a Wellenflug swing tower, and the traditional Fingerhakeln, or finger-wrestling, competitions that show up at Bavarian folk festivals more often than most visitors expect⁵. Its own site did not publish next year’s dates at the time I checked, so treat the pattern, late August into mid-September, as a guide rather than a promise for 2027.

Munich's own smaller fair: the Auer Dult

Munich runs a market-and-fair event of its own three times a year at Mariahilfplatz in the Au district, and it is not a beer-tent festival so much as a flea market with food stalls attached. The 2026 dates are the Maidult, April 25 to May 3, the Jakobidult, July 25 to August 2, and the Kirchweihdult, October 17 to 25³. That last one lands right after Oktoberfest closes, which makes it the easiest “just missed it” consolation prize on this whole list, and it is free to walk through.

Franconia's other big one: the Fürth Michaelis-Kirchweih

Just north in Franconia, Fürth calls its Michaelis-Kirchweih the largest street fair in southern Germany and “the queen of Franconian fairs,” and the 2026 run is October 3 to 14, from Fürther Freiheit to Königsplatz, daily 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.⁶. The fair traces over 900 years of tradition and was recognized as intangible cultural heritage in 2018, and the town’s own tourism site puts annual attendance at around 1.5 million⁶. Like the Auer Dult, its 2026 dates fall after Oktoberfest closes, so it works well for a trip planned for early to mid-October.

Forchheim's Annafest, for beer over rides

If cellars and beer matter more to you than rides and tents, Forchheim’s Annafest is worth knowing about even though its 2026 dates, July 25 to August 3, are well before Oktoberfest season⁷. It runs through the Forchheimer Kellerwald, the town’s historic beer-and-wine cellar forest, with many individual cellars opening for the run and a published “Kellerplan” mapping which is open when⁷. My roundup of Bavaria’s other beer festivals covers this one and a few more in more depth, including the late-winter Starkbierfest at Nockherberg.

At a glance

Source: each festival’s official site, listed above and in the Sources below.

Resi says If you want the closest thing to Oktoberfest’s scale without the airfare to match its crowds, the Gäubodenvolksfest is the one I would point you to, seven tents and 27,500 seats is not a small festival by any measure, it is just a Bavarian one nobody outside the country has heard of. If you would rather stay in Munich, the Auer Dult’s October run is free, walkable, and lands the same week most visitors are still nursing regrets about not booking a Wiesn table.

Where to stay for any of these

None of these festivals cluster hotel demand the way Oktoberfest does, so the simplest approach is to book near each town’s own train station and old town center: Straubing’s Altstadt, central Erlangen near the Berg, Rosenheim’s town center, or Augsburg’s Altstadt for the Plärrer. None of the research behind this page turned up specific hotel names or current rates for these towns, so I am not going to invent them; look at what is actually walkable to the fairground or the cellars once you have picked your dates.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the second-largest Volksfest in Bavaria?

The Gäubodenvolksfest in Straubing, with seven tents, about 27,500 seats and roughly 1.3 million visitors a year.

Is the Augsburger Plärrer bigger than Oktoberfest?

No, but it runs twice a year and still draws hundreds of thousands of guests per edition, making it one of the largest folk festivals outside Munich.

What is the Bergkirchweih?

Erlangen’s beer-cellar festival, built around a hillside of historic cellars rather than a single fairground of tents.

Is the Auer Dult a beer festival?

Not really. It is a flea market and fair held three times a year in Munich, with food stalls rather than beer tents as the centerpiece.

When is the best time to catch a Bavarian folk festival after Oktoberfest ends?

Early to mid-October, when both the Auer Dult’s Kirchweihdult and Fürth’s Michaelis-Kirchweih are running.

Do these festivals need a reservation like Oktoberfest?

No. None of the festivals on this page run anything like Munich’s tent-reservation system.

Are there other Bavarian beer festivals worth knowing about?

Yes, including the Starkbierfest at Nockherberg in late winter and Forchheim’s Annafest in midsummer; my beer festivals guide covers the rest.

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