Rosa Wiesn is the queer side of the Munich Oktoberfest, and in 2026 the festival runs from 19 September to 4 October on the Theresienwiese. Rosa Wiesn, literally the pink Wiesn, is not a separate ticketed event but a cluster of gay gatherings inside the world’s biggest beer festival, and its centrepiece is the legendary Gay Sunday in the Braurosl tent on the opening weekend. Expect lederhosen, dirndls, brass bands and one of the most good-natured crowds in Munich.
The Gay Sunday takes place on Sunday 20 September 2026 in the Pschorr-Braurosl tent and starts early, from around 9am, running into the evening. It draws more than eight thousand visitors and is the largest and most traditional queer gathering of the whole Oktoberfest. The tradition was launched more than forty years ago, back in the 1970s and 80s, by the Munchner Lowen Club, the city’s gay leather club, which still coordinates it today.
The general areas of the tent are free and open to everyone; the balcony section is reserved and sold as paid seating through the MLC. Like every major tent, the Braurosl fills fast, so arriving early on the Sunday morning is the only reliable way in without a reservation. Tables are booked through the tent’s own website, usually from early in the year, and a reservation covers a table of ten for one session with beer and food vouchers included.
The party does not stop with the Sunday. Two Gay Mondays extend the celebration through the fortnight, with their own crowds and their own tents.
The first Gay Monday, RoslMontag, falls on 21 September 2026, a more informal and free continuation in the Braurosl beer garden and the back of the tent from around 3pm. The second, the Prosecco-Wiesn, is on 28 September in the Fischer-Vroni tent from about 1pm, a glamorous mix of prosecco and beer with more than thirty years of history behind it. Other queer-friendly dates dot the calendar, from a Subavaria evening to a Gay Finale in the Schottenhamel on the closing day, 4 October. A ProudWiesn afternoon in the Armbrustschutzen tent and a queer bowling session at the Oide Wiesn round out the fortnight, so the celebration is spread across both weekends rather than packed into a single day.
The Oktoberfest runs 19 September to 4 October 2026 on the Theresienwiese, reached by the U4 and U5 to Theresienwiese station. Entry to the grounds and the tents is free; you pay for what you drink and eat, with a litre of beer, a Mass, costing somewhere around 15 euros in 2026. There is no central booking: each tent takes table reservations through its own website, usually opening early in the year, and a reservation covers a table of ten for a session with beer and food vouchers included.
There is no dress code, but traditional Bavarian dress is warmly encouraged, lederhosen and dirndl included, and most of the crowd makes the effort. If you are lining the trip up with other autumn parties, it fits neatly into a wider tour of gay nightlife across Europe, with Munich as the folk-costume highlight of the season.
Eight thousand people in a beer tent, decades of tradition, and a welcome that has made the Braurosl a byword for the gay Oktoberfest: Rosa Wiesn is unlike any other date in the calendar. It costs nothing to walk in, the beer does the rest, and the Gay Sunday is one of those experiences that has to be done at least once. The Braurosl seats more than eight thousand people under one roof, pours Hacker-Pschorr, and on that one Sunday it becomes the most welcoming beer tent in Bavaria.
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