What changed
Elisabeth Polaczy, the 80-year-old operator of Munich Oktoberfest’s Teufelsrad, is handing out free cycling shorts to women and girls wearing dresses. She has distributed more than 100 pairs this year, extending a practice she began three years ago to deter people filming under skirts as riders are spun off the attraction.
The scale is stark: at least 32,000 Teufelsrad videos have circulated online, some viewed millions of times. One clip reportedly earned €9,000.
Why it matters
The shorts are a small, practical response to a problem that has outgrown the ride itself. The Teufelsrad’s rotating platform makes skirts fly up, while phones in the surrounding crowd can turn a few seconds of spectacle into material copied and monetised online.
Upskirting is illegal in Germany and can carry a two-year prison sentence. Police arrested one 45-year-old Swiss man at this year’s festival; there were 10 arrests last year and seven in 2024. But Josephine Ballon of Hate Aid says the law does not cover every image made when a skirt simply flies up, and she is also warning about camera glasses.
Munich has banned live streams from the festival and requires paid permits for filming. Police have run anti-upskirting poster campaigns since 2025. Yet Polaczy says it is impossible to control everyone holding a smartphone.
The immediate fix is therefore personal protection, not proof that the problem is solved. Whether the shorts reduce filming or change how people attend the ride remains unclear. What is certain is that a traditional amusement attraction now sits inside a digital market where an accidental view can become a widely shared, profitable video.
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