Leavenworth Oktoberfest
Leavenworth, Washington
Oktoberfest in Leavenworth fills Washington's Bavarian-themed mountain village across the first three weekends of October, and regional beer press bills it as the Pacific Northwest's largest Oktoberfest. Produced by the Leavenworth Chamber of Commerce, the 2026 edition runs October 2-3, 9-10, and 16-17 - Fridays from 6 p.m. to midnight and Saturdays from noon to midnight, with no Sunday sessions. Three stages carry the music: the main stage in the Leavenworth Festhalle, a 10,000-square-foot hall for up to 1,400 guests at 1001 Front Street, the Bierzelt tent stage, and the Gazebo Stage in Front Street Park, with a street fair of vendors in between. Each Saturday the Festzug parade of alphorn players and costumed locals steps off at 11:45 a.m. and arrives at the Festhalle for the noon opening, and the ceremonial keg is tapped at 2 p.m. in Front Street Park.
Tickets for 2026 are $20 for a Friday, $40 for a Saturday, and $50 for a weekend pass, plus Eventim/See Tickets fees - up from $15, $30, and $40 in 2024 and 2025 and $12, $25, and $35 in 2023. The ticket is the cover charge for the entertainment venues: beer, food, merchandise, and the Ferris wheel cost extra, and downtown itself stays open and free. Children 12 and under are free, anyone under 21 is welcome in the Festhalle beer garden and the Kinderplatz until 9 p.m., the Front Street Park beer garden is 21 and over, and there is no re-entry or entry into any venue after 10 p.m. Online tickets are non-refundable but can be exchanged between weekends, a clear-bag policy is in effect, and there are no pets beyond ADA service dogs. A free festival shuttle loops the hotels and the village roughly every 30 minutes from an hour before opening until 12:15 a.m., Link Transit's Route 22 from Wenatchee and Cashmere and the in-town Route 32 are free during the festival, and Amtrak's Empire Builder stops at Icicle Station a mile northeast of downtown.
The taps mix German imports with Washington craft. Paulaner Oktoberfest, Ayinger Oktoberfest, Hofbrau Oktoberfestbier, Spaten Oktoberfest, and Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier pour next to the Leavenworth Festbier, brewed collaboratively by the village's own Icicle, Blewett, and Doghaus breweries, plus Icicle's AlpenHaze hazy IPA and Premium Pilsner, Doghaus's Doberman Schwarzbier, and Evasion's gluten-free fest lager, with Clausthaler and Athletic covering the non-alcoholic option. A 16-ounce pour of beer or cider is $10, paid with a reusable tap-to-pay festival wristband, and the food runs to brats, pretzels, kraut, and German sandwiches. The 10,000-square-foot Kinderplatz, free with a festival ticket and open until 9 p.m., adds a 62-foot Ferris wheel, carnival games, face painting, and a root beer garden. Contests run all day - stein-holding brackets for men, women, and over-55s with finals on Saturday evening in the Festhalle, a Mustache Showdown, a costume contest, and a pretzel toss. The 2026 lineup brings the Swiss family yodeling band Oesch's die Dritten from the Bernese Oberland for the first weekend, European Take-Out for the second, and Austria's Freddy Pfister Band from the Zillertal for the third, with S-Bahn, West Coast Prost, yodeler Michael Stoessl, AlpenFolk, the Smilin' Scandinavians, the Ted Lunka Polka Band, Manuela Horn, Max Kyllonen, the Leavenworth Alphorns, the Enzian Schuhplattler dancers, Edelweiss Dance Academie, and the Tirolean Dancers of Portland across all three weekends.
Leavenworth remade itself as a Bavarian village in the 1960s, when the town was close to becoming another Pacific Northwest ghost town - the Project LIFE committee formed in 1962 with the University of Washington, and the first Bavarian-styled building, the Edelweiss Hotel, reopened on July 1, 1965. Oktoberfest came in 1998, organized by the nonprofit Projekt Bayern: about 400 people attended the first one, a second weekend was added by 2003, attendance passed 10,000 by 2005, and the three-weekend festival eventually drew more than 50,000 by the organizer's count. The 2020 and 2021 festivals were cancelled in the pandemic, the city ended its contract with Projekt Bayern in 2021, and in 2022 two rival Oktoberfests ran on the same three weekends - Projekt Bayern's at the Town Toyota Center in Wenatchee and the city's own in Leavenworth, where Mayor Carl Florea and Chamber president Jesse Boyd tapped the keg at the Front Street Park gazebo. A federal trademark suit filed by the city in July 2022 was settled in May 2023: Projekt Bayern abandoned its Leavenworth Oktoberfest trademark and renamed its Wenatchee event Projekt Bayern Oktoberfest, which was last held in 2023 and has been postponed since, leaving the name to the city and the Chamber within the village. Outside Magazine has named the Leavenworth festival one of the country's top 13 outdoor festivals.
This page is the permanent home of the Leavenworth Oktoberfest on Beer.Social. When the next edition is announced we link the current dates and details here, and past editions are archived below.
Next edition
Oktoberfest Leavenworth 2026 (First Weekend) — October 2, 2026 – October 3, 2026 hosted by Icicle Brewing Co. Event details and RSVP