INDIANAPOLIS — Central Indiana will be bustling this weekend, the first weekend of October and Oktoberfest is in full swing.
Friday through Sunday get your stein on at The Cradle at Monon 30. In just its 14th weekend in operation, the new mixed-use entertainment venue, located along the Monon Trail near the corner of 30th St & Dr. Andrew J Brown Ave in the historic Near North Side, is serving up German-style fare and fun all weekend long.
The Cradle at Monon 30 is primarily open on Fridays and Saturdays, with a few Thursdays and Sundays sprinkled in between. This weekend will be busy with bands booked for each day with a total of eight bands in all.
“The big thing we’ve got is we’ve got a ton of live entertainment,” Monon 30 Vice President of Operations Zach Wilks said. “We’ve got Friday, Saturday and Sunday, bands booked each day – I think we’ve got a total of eight bands and maybe a couple of DJs interspersed in between.”
Saturday afternoon the band Der Polkatz will perform polka versions of top 40 songs – the entire schedule of events is up on the Monon 30’s website.
Along with plenty of music, there will also be a 1960’s fire truck that has been converted to a ‘tap truck’ with beers being poured straight from the hose including offerings from SunKing, who has partnered with Monon 30 to pour five of their beers along with the venue’s own brews.
Food will also be served including sausages and pretzels on top of tacos and BBQ with an indoor German style market inside as well.
“Who doesn’t like an Oktoberfest, you know?” Monon 30 Events & Promotions MVP Molly Kruger said. “You’ve got brats, you got pretzels, you’ve got beer and for non-beer drinkers, we’re gonna have other things: wines, margaritas… but I think the atmosphere’s just gonna be really fun.”
Kruger, dressed in full dirndl, and holding a wiener dog, explained there’s also an open call out to all wiener dogs throughout central Indiana for a full-on wiener dog parade Saturday at 3 p.m.
“We’ve had a call out to all wiener dogs in the community, we will take partial wiener dogs, but we also love full bred wieners,” Kruger said. “We have about 30 participants at this point!”
Tickets purchased ahead of the event on the EventBrite website cost $20, a three-day pass runs $35 and tickets at the door day of the event cost $25.
“We’re really looking forward to a great weekend. We’re hoping to get anywhere from three and five thousand people out this weekend,” Wilks said. “We’ve just made so many new friends and connections and this is a small piece of a much bigger project, and this is the community center and event space of that and getting to be a part of that aspect and bringing the community together, meeting all of these people has been very great.”
Aside from the Oktoberfest celebration there are several other events spread throughout the Indianapolis area including the Indy Jazz Fest & Flicks at Victory Field.
Gates for the Indy Jazz Fest, an outdoor festival at Garfield Park, open at 2 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday. Lawn seat tickets start at $50 with additional options ranging in price.
Watch Disney’s Encanto on the field or from the stands of Victory Field during the final Flicks at Victory Field event of the year. Gates open at 6 o’clock Saturday for a 7 o’clock screening. Tickets for the movie start at $15.