Scheuerfest

08:23 Aug 6, 2004 

And here comes the answer (?) from the agency.
"bitte lassen Sie den Begriff deutsch in Anf�hrungsstrichen stehen. Es war einfach die Veranstaltung "Scheuerfest" im Dresdner Zwinger."
I hate those kinds of answers. I like to know and be able to name or describe things exactly in English. For future reference and future translations I think I'll use your answer of "barn party". So, thanks Sonja and everyone.

08:15 Aug 6, 2004 

Thanks Sonja. Your added note makes a lot of sense and might well be true. Any pictures I've found on the Internet of a Scheuerfest show a lot of people drinking beer, no different from any other party. I'll leave the question open for another while because I've also asked the agency to ask the customer. If I get a different reply from them, I'll share the information here.

07:45 Aug 6, 2004 

Barn party sounds very plausible for Scheuerfest. However, the reference I have is to a Scheuerfest held "am Zwinger" (might have been in the 1920s or 1930s). As there are a lot of references also to Dresden, I thought the Zwinger in this context would be the Zwinger building in Dresden and so I'm a little uncertain if "barn" fits into the context of a city.