Oktoberfest 2020 Canceled in Clayton Due To Coronavirus

CLAYTON, CA — Oktoberfest 2020 in Clayton is canceled.

While the coronavirus pandemic knocked out community events through spring and summer, organizers of some fall festivals in California are looking ahead and now canceling their extravaganzas — with Clayton's annual Oktoberfest in the East Bay being the latest to fall.

"Due to the COVID-19 circumstances, the 2020 event has been canceled," said organizers, the Clayton Business & Community Association.

The annual celebration, held since 2002 in downtown Clayton, typically ran on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday in October, with a parade, ceremonial keg tap, a Munich-style, tented biergarten, a full-size carnival with rides and games, authentic German food, beer and entertainment, along with nearly nonstop chicken-dancing, polkas, waltzes and oom-pah music.

Local organizers are not alone in deciding to nix a Bavarian festival this year as German officials cited COVID-19 in April when pulling the plug on Munich's 220-year, legendary Oktoberfest, the world's largest such event annually drawing 6 million visitors.

And the Clayton event does join a growing list of celebrations statewide — still months away — announcing cancellations of their large-scale festivals and concerts planned for fall and even winter due to the pandemic.

Among the scrapped events: Half Moon Bay's 2020 Art & Pumpkin Festival; the Rose Bowl Parade 2021 in Pasadena; the Los Angeles Philharmonic's fall concert series at Walt Disney Concert Hall; El Cajon's two-weekend Oktoberfest 2020; and Anaheim's Fall Festival and Halloween Parade, a community tradition since 1923.

Meanwhile in Clayton, the Oktoberfest's organizers now have set their sights on 2021, with the October Friday, Saturday and Sunday dates still pending.

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