Sactoberfest

The music was amazing and the games were fun. I enjoyed the people working at the beer garden. Very nice and kind in helping me get what I needed.

I really hope this isn’t the end for this event. Last year 2013 was a blast. They ran out of local brew and food in the later hours but that is exactly the reason I was there when they opened at 12. I was correct in guessing they would fix that this second year with more beer and food. I was incorrect in guessing that Sacramento could support a three-​day event. The organizers went wrong in forecasting on a budget of 8500 people, after 3500 had a mediocre experience in 2013. The carnival area was a huge miss-​step in planning and over budgeting. I only want the tent with Bavarian Band, great German Oktoberfest beer (local Oktoberfest beer) and great food. It is simple. Beer pong and corn-​hole games off to the side… I guess?, but not interested. I did enjoy the VIP pass and benefits but not the area. The area was so disconnected from the event, i seriously question the people hanging around in there. Why even come? The bathrooms were alright, the food was okay, if you could find any, the water was a lifesaver. Parking was beneficial and the glass stein will always be in the cupboard. No one is going to go on a Sunday and Oktoberfest is not a kid event. This is for adults to get away from kids and get hammered with friends. Maybe bring the kids if they are 21… then it is a kid event. The organizers tried to expand too much too fast. This is an awesome one day event on a Saturday for Sacramento, maybe an expansion pack for a Friday night keg tapping, but no three-​day event with carnivals. I loved this event when it was simple in 2013. All you had to do was make the food and local beer vendors better prepared to serve for a 12 hour function. Too bad the planners had too big of expectations. Second year should have only corrected problems from first year. THEN, you can expand days and activities. I did have a good time in the big tent with many friends, beer and Tosa (our beer maiden). I hope she got paid… Sactoberfest, scale back in 2015 — fix the food and beer, drop the carnival, drop Sunday.

This year was the first time I attended this event. The day I went was super windy. Due to the weather, most vendors left the event; there were only 3 food vendors there. Those who got general admission only got one ticket to try the beer and had to buy if they wanted more. Also, this year there were carnival rides, but you have to pay extra to ride them. It cost around $ 50 for 9 people to go on ONE ride. There were no other activities and booths. We were just sitting the entire time and it was hard to have a conversation with someone because of the very loud music. I definitely won’t be going back next year; it was a waste of money.

Oooh, wow…
ABSOLUTELY THE WORST EVENT.
The only reason we went is for someone’s birthday. This was a Sunday. To keep this review short and useful, I’ll just get to the point.
Beer ran out. Really?!
Family friendly? No. Unless you allow your little kids to listen to sexually charged songs. If so, you’re a winner…
Food vendors. Where? There was ONE vendor serving pretzels.
As we looked around, it appeared things were in disarray and not set up. We were told by one of the carnies that the other vendors left already, which is why we see open spaces between things. Awesome! Half-​ass event should be half price, then.
Ice cold soda? Good luck. They ran out of ice. Ice!
Let’s recap. Out of beer. Out of ice. No food. Half an event. Out of those, what justifies the ticket price?
This event should really be called Suck-​toberfest. Just grab some friends and head to a bar. You’ll have a better time.

I am giving these 4 stars for the potential I think this event has and for the amount of fun I had (the actual experience I had probably was 3 stars). It was only the second year of this event, and there were many kinks that needed to be worked out. These problems came in the form of communication amongst those in charge, with the vendors, and with patrons.
I want to emphasize that I had a great time, as did the other 9 in my party, we will consider attending again. There was an excellent selection of beer, fun games, good food, good music. All of the staff was very enthusiastic and good at promoting the party. For all of the problems that we complained to management about they immediatly made it right. I respect that immensely.
For example: we were very excited to play the XOXO games offered. We arrived on time for our event, and waited thirty minutes. Examples of problems: Upon asking when the event was happen we were told, oh, well we called your names and you didn’t answer. We were standing right where we we’re supposed to be. It seems like this could have been remedied with a simple microphone. Additionally, we some in our party of nine received no drink tickets, some received one, some received two with the same entry ticket into the event. I will stop here…
We complained about the above and other things. Management made it right with us and I respect that immensely. And we’re very nice and understanding about it. I am sure that Sactoberfest can be a success, given the extent to which its organizers clearly want it to be something that is a yearly Sacramento event.

I know a ton of time and lots of work go into making it happen in a completely blank space. The music and the atmosphere were awesome. I liked seeing the people dressed up and enjoying themselves. As with any event there are always hiccups. This being the 2^nd year I think they did a very good job with planning and execution. It was a a busy weekend for me and getting in and getting out was pretty easy. Having a VIP tent helped with getting out of the sun and breaking away. I like Ten22, so having them cater the VIP tent was perfect. I wish I had the chance to play beer pong but I had two other events to attend on Saturday. That is the only problem with October… so many events… so little time.

We went on Sunday. $ 15 to park in this dusty lot, so figure with the car wash we needed afterwards it was the equivalent of $ 25 to park.
$ 10 for a bratwurst on a stale bun. Beers were expensive, like double what you would expect to pay.
The carnival wasn’t included in the price and each ride was $ 5. Hardly any vendors. Only one option for food. Where were all these restaurants they advertised would be there? The tents were empty.
Maybe they made all their money on Saturday, because they just called it in on Sunday.
The good: the Bavarian/​Chico band was good although they beaked after just about every song, The awesome dancers. Very good and entertaining.
Beer selection was good but they were out of quite a few selections.
I got a 2 for 1 ticket by purchasing way early, with that came two small beers.
The VIP tent was open to anyone (though I don’t see what was so good about it).
Other remarks? Don’t go in poor weather, they barely handled a little wind.
Kids got in free which is cool, but don’t talk to my kid and ask them how old they are like you don’t believe me. Really there is nothing for teens or kids to do, so what did it matter. I felt like telling my kid not to answer her. She was ten, btw.
The sac bee said the organizers read the Unilocal reviews from 2013 and they listened and were going to make things better in 2014. I can only wonder how bad last year was.
Buyer beware.

Big improvement from last year (2013) and room for growth in the future — great time nevertheless! Had a premium ticket and attended Saturday (4 to close), walked over from West Sac residence. Enjoyed the beer, the food, the music, and the eclectic group of people in attendance. The grounds and facilities (tents, tables) looked great and offered good relief from the sun and dust.
Prost and thanks to all the people involved in putting this event together for West Sacramento!

No refunds period. Won’t be attending this event again. Big waste of money. $ 15+ per person (non-​alcohol tickets) for minimal attractions. If you want alcohol, you have to pay $ 30 a ticket. An extra $ 15 for ONE BEER. Other than food and beer, there were only a few rides and games at an additional cost. We were there for an hour and left. Not to mention another $ 15 for parking. Food was good and is the only reason I am giving 2 stars. Otherwise, I would not attend this event again unless admission was free.

Visited for the first time Sunday. On the plus side, the band, folk dancers, and the beer selection were all very good. On the other hand, admission prices are high ($ 10 – 20 more than many Oktoberfests), the beer prices are even higher ($ 8 – 10 a beer compared with $ 16/​pitcher at Turnverein Oktoberfest), and the food was overpriced for the quantity served. The beer maidens were more annoying than helpful– way too many and they hovered around the tables while the announcer prompted the audience to tip them.
I was hoping this event would be a good addition to complement the excellent Oktoberfest that the Sacramento Turnverein puts on every year, but having experienced it once I don’t see myself returning.

Terrible event. Sac bee said Sunday was family friendly. Far from it. $ 15 to park. $ 30 to get in which gets you one beer (not in the fancy cup, that’s extra). $ 15 to get in if you’re not drinking. Carnival rides are $ 5 bucks a ride and if your child is not tall enough, you have to pay another $ 5 to ride with them. The river location sounded nice but in reality it could have been in any parking lot anywhere. Finally the $ 5 pretzel was cold and didn’t have salt. Total bust.

This event needs work!
Went with friends and overall decent event. Hands down… Worst VIP I’ve ever seen. I almost always do ViP for any event. Just really prefer good bathrooms and better good and drink access. I’m not a cheap skate at all but this one was terrible.
VIP review:
$ 80 a ticket
Beer selection was not as good in VIP
The food in VIP was a joke. Crappy sliders and no napkins or plates. All day. The food area was literally empty all day, see attached photo.
There were 2 porta pottys and 2 trailer stalls. One was out of order all day so that left only 3 and there was a long line.
The VIP seating was decent but not near anything so you wouldn’t want to stay in there sitting.
Overall the VIP was a joke and complete waste of money.
Event review:
The parking was $ 15 and everything was dusty and dirty. The music was good and the bier maidens serving the table seating was cool. The xoso games weren’t organized all too well. The stein contest didn’t even have a prize it anything. The food was ok and again expensive. We got 2 brats and 2 pretzels and it was almost $ 50. Seriously?!? The carnival was ordinary and very expensive. $ 6 for a 2 min ride. I’m not going again next year and I was practically beg any of you NOT to waste your money on VIP.

I will not be returning to this event, and don’t recommend it!
Cons: Be ready to spend a lot of money coming here. I thought this would be a good way to spend a Friday night, since my boyfriend always has to drive up to Sac from SF to visit me, and I’m constantly trying to convince him there’s awesome stuff to do up here… boy was Sactoberfest the wrong event to do that! :(Despite the bad reviews on Unilocal,I figured we’d try it out… beer, carnival rides, and food plus Octoberfest dancing and music… how could they go wrong!?! Whelp it went all wrong with the pricing. First of all, I dunno how many people they need to run that event, but all there are probably twice as many bier maidens then needed… who by the way weren’t necessarily working… initially, a lot of them were hogging the XOSO games – bean bag toss, bier pong, and large jenga. Speaking of which, the whole process of signing up for the XOSO games was completely unorganized… you can tell they just want you to sign up to receive their email spam. Anyways with general admit at $ 30/​person, $ 15 for parking, $ 8 biers, ~$ 6/​person for the ferris wheel, and overpriced carni games, it was hard to have a good time.
Pros: I must admit the dancing and music was awesome… you can tell the folks involved are really into this cultural celebration, and that got me into it too! Also $ 2 churros weren’t bad.

$ 15 for parking| no problem. Review of website about family friendly event | great. Misled that $ 15 for kids & $ 30 for adult would include the basic carnival rides | oops. Had to pay $ 15 for kids to enter and then pay for tix for carnival rides, not cool. They said it’s like state fair. Are you kidding me? It wasn’t like state fair at all. If you want to pay insane amounts of money for beer, great. But family friendly event, parents beware. This is a $ 150 event if you want to experience it all. Not very family friendly in my mind. We left early, disappointed.

This event has potential but needs new event planners /​management. Purchased a $ 100 VIP ticket and the «upgraded» bathrooms were out of service. Mini bottled «Thunder Valley» labeled water is $ 1 each. The VIP area was a joke. The only extra I got was a photo strip. Complete waste of money. The best part of the night was the German band and the carnival rides. Don’t waste your money on any type of upgraded tickets. Hopefully next year they’ll have a quality event. One star for music/​entertainment and one star for carnival.

I’ve been waiting to write this review so I could let the whole experience soak in. If I had to describe this event in one word, I would choose the word BUST! What a rip off. Poor planning on behalf of the coordinators, how can you plan an event to go from 12pm-​10pm and run out of tastings at a BEER TASTING event by mid afternoon? You can’t run out of the one item that is attracting your target audience. My friends and I showed up at around 230pm and by the time we showed up there was only two or three breweries still serving. I’m not much of a beer drinker but was convinced to go because there would be ciders and wine for purchase. Too bad there was only one winery there. And there was only one brewery with a cider left. Good thing I only paid for the general admission tasting. My friends paid for the admission that gave you six tasting and were left feeling like they paid $ 40 for a plastic stein. I’m glad we got there before LowBrau ran out of food but for as much hype as this event had they should have had more food vendors. Sorry Sactoberfest but as my friend said «This is a one and done» wont be back. Two thumbs down!

We arrived here at around 6:30, paid $ 10 for parking in a huge parking field. We paid our entrance fee of $ 35 (that’s the procrastinators price, if we bought the tix a day before, it would’ve been $ 25). Anyhoo, we walked over to get our complimentary steins, which included one free beer. Now if we arrived earlier, with the price of admission, they were also supposed to give you three tickets each for the craft brew tastings. They told us that the brewers ran out so that was a bummer!
We walked over to get our beers, they had about eight to ten different beers on tap. My favorite was the Paulaner, smooth taste with a hint of sweet. With drinks in hand, we perused the communal area for a table, most of the tables had trash strewn everywhere and drinks spilled across. We found a decent table and cleaned it ourselves.
After we were situated, I walked over to the food booth (provided by Lowbrau), to my dismay, they too had closed shop! I was really peeved at this point because this was the only food booth other than the dessert shop. I walked to that booth, which is called, «Lovin from the Oven,» I ended up walking off with bags of fresh baked apple streudel and caramel apple cake for our group, everyone loved it. The owner told me he only sells at events. He had all sorts of baked goodies, from cookies to cakes, thank god he didn’t run out of dessert.
Overall, we had a great time dancing the night away with everyone there. Everyone was super friendly, this was similar to the fun we had at Turn Verein. I would like to suggest that if they have another event next year, they should at least lower the price if they don’t have all of the things available which were advertised.