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The German Munchener Oktoberfest goes back to an event in October 1810 and then developed into an annual event organised by the breweries and entertainment businesses in Munich. The German Munchener Oktoberfest very quickly acquired the reputation of being the largest public festival on Earth and, as a result of imitators all over the globe, became a festival form welcome everywhere. In 1810, nobody could have anticipated this meteoric development. The Opladener Bierborse goes back to 1987, i.e. 177 years later, when Herbert Sondermann, a native of Opladen, had the idea of introducing a beer event and put this into effect in the form of a small event with seven beer stands in the pedestrian precinct in Opladen. At that time as well, nobody anticipated what a wonderful event was to develop from these beginnings. Today, Herbert Sondermann wears the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Order of Merit) of the Federal Republic of Germany for his services to Opladen; because the small beer event in the pedestrian precinct in Opladen has now become the largest open-air event in the history of the city of Leverkusen and the largest event of this kind anywhere in the world. Only the large number of beer types from all over the world allow the visitors to sample even unusual varieties. In more than ten years of development work, the Bierborse has been developed, according to stringent rules and numerous selection criteria, into one of the most successful German public festivals without any blending with other types of event such as funfairs or even junk markets. This also illustrates how it differs from the Munchener Oktoberfest. | 
