Mt. Angel Oktoberfest

Mount Angel's Oktoberfest takes over the whole downtown of this small Willamette Valley town for four days each September and bills itself as the largest folk festival in the Northwest. Most of it is free and open to everyone - bandstand and church concerts, the glockenspiel and Maibaum, a car show, arts and crafts, street dances, wiener dog races and Oktoberfest Olympics - with food sold from more than forty nonprofit booths. Only three premium venues, the Biergarten, Weingarten and Alpinegarten, require a wristband, and nobody under 21 is ever charged. A separate Kindergarten area gives families their own free rides and activities, and leashed dogs are welcome everywhere except inside the ticketed venues.