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| Beerfestival |
| Romberg 67 |
| county Germany, Leverkusen |
| 51381, Germany |
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| Telephone: +49-2171-3801 |
| Fax: +49-2171-3803 |
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The German Münchener Oktoberfest goes back to an event in October 1810 and then developed into an annual event organised by the breweries and entertainment businesses in Munich. The German Münchener Oktoberfest very quickly acquired the reputation of being the largest public festival on Earth and, as a result of imitators all over the globe, became a festival form welcome everywhere. In 1810, nobody could have anticipated this meteoric development.
The Opladener Bierbörse goes back to 1987, i.e. 177 years later, when Herbert Sondermann, a native of Opladen, had the idea of introducing a beer event and put this into effect in the form of a small event with seven beer stands in the pedestrian precinct in Opladen. At that time as well, nobody anticipated what a wonderful event was to develop from these beginnings. Today, Herbert Sondermann wears the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Order of Merit) of the Federal Republic of Germany for his services to Opladen; because the small beer event in the pedestrian precinct in Opladen has now become the largest open-air event in the history of the city of Leverkusen and the largest event of this kind anywhere in the world.
In the meantime, four to five hundred thousand visitors from the region and from the neighbouring European countries flock to the Bierbörse Mecca on Kastanienallee and Wupperwiesen in Leverkusen-Opladen year upon year. Several hundred thousand litres of beer are consumed on the four days of the event each year without anybody even thinking of competing with the Münchener Oktoberfest. This should not be the case and will not be either since the people of Munich celebrate their beer festival as the largest funfair in the world with new and more sensational rides and shows every year. In contrast, at the Bierbörse in Opladen, you sit cosily underneath chestnut trees and enjoy the privilege of being able to sample a selection from around 1000 different national and international beer types. As a result of this Opladen beer model, Bierbörse events are, in the meantime, also being staged at other locations in Germany. Now, the same development is in the offing in the neighbouring Benelux states as well. It will certainly not be long before copycat events are also held in the USA because the North Americans are indeed well-known for their penchant for celebrating festivals in the German manner.
In more than ten years of development work, the Bierbörse has been developed, according to stringent rules and numerous selection criteria, into one of the most successful German public festivals without any blending with other types of event such as funfairs or even junk markets. This also illustrates how it differs from the Münchener Oktoberfest. Not only were seven-figure sums invested in this development but they were also put at risk until the right "blend" was found!
In 1997, Werner Nolden, who had organised the Opladener Bierbörse for many years, founded Bierbörse Werner Nolden GmbH. The company has set itself the objective of marketing the Bierbörse throughout Germany and, later on, Europe in the form of a franchise system. Corresponding to the large-scale role models (e.g. McDonalds and Goodyear), the Bierbörse should, in a few years, be staged in all the major cities in Germany in the franchise system. The first intermediate results of these efforts were already impressive in 2000 when no less than around two million visitors came to the sixteen Bierbörse events held in large German cities.
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