Oktoberfest in August opens today in Buffalo Grove
The Chicago-area Schwaben Verein club celebrates its 134th annual summer festival beginning today with Oktoberfest in August in Buffalo Grove.
The three-day festival will feature music groups and German food under an 800-seat beer tent at Schwaben Center, 301 N. Weiland Road. The festival, free today and free Saturday and Sunday with a coupon from the Internet, runs from 6:30 p.m. to midnight today, 1 p.m. to midnight Saturday and 1 to 10 p.m. Sunday. Parking is free.
Founded in 1878 as a mutual aid society for German immigrants, Schwaben Verein of Chicago is one of the oldest German ethnic organizations in the Chicago area. The club continues to exist as a social and charitable club for people with middle European origins and connections.
Schwaben is an area in Germany’s southwest that is part of the contemporary German states of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Bavaria. The group emphasizes Swabian heritage, and this festival is in recognition of Germany’s second-largest harvest festival in the Swabian capital of Stuttgart.
Activities at the festival include raffles, arcade games and baggo. Entertainment includes musical groups, singers and dancers. Food includes leberkasse, bratwurst, thueringer, weisswurst, Bismarck herring, landjaeger, potato salad and sauerkraut, in addition to traditional festival items like hot dogs.
Tonight’s entertainment includes “Chef Dan and the Appetizers” featuring Eddie V from the Eddie and Jobo Morning Show on K104.5-FM from 7-9 p.m. and “Crisis” from 9 p.m. to midnight.
On Saturday, people from El Rey Music School will perform from 1 to 5 p.m., and Paloma will perform from 5 p.m. to midnight along with the dance groups Schuhplattler Verein Edelweiss and D’Holzhacker Buam.
Phenix will perform Sunday from to 2 to 3 p.m. and 3:30 to 9 p.m.
More information on the festival, along with the coupon for free entry, is at oktoberfestinaugust.com. Entry without the coupon is $5 Saturday and Sunday. More information about the social club is at schwabenverein.org.