Admission is free.
The area's Swabians, as distinctive a Germanic group as Bavarians and Rhinelanders, are known for being as industrious at work as they are at partying. The festival, which always starts the last Saturday of September, has wide-ranging appeal. Stuttgart is close to Germany's Black Forest, so one of the beer tents features woodsy Schwarzwald atmospherics and rustic hoe-down music. The mammoth keg party takes place on a sprawling riverside meadow in Bad Cannstatt, a mineral-spa suburb of Stuttgart. It's also a handy orientation point in case you lose your way amid the crowds.