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Love Parade

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For other uses, see Love Parade (disambiguation).
Love Parade
(German: Loveparade)
GenreElectronic dance music festival and parade
Location(s)Various locations in Germany
Years active1989–2003; 2006–2008; 2010
Founded1989

The Love Parade (German: Loveparade) is a popular electronic dance music festival and parade that originated in 1989 in West Berlin, Germany. It was held in Germany annually between 1989 and 2003 in Berlin, and then from 2006 to 2010 in Ruhr. The 2004 and 2005 events in Berlin and the 2009 event in Bochum [1] were cancelled.

On 24 July 2010, at least 19 people were killed in a stampede in a tunnel at the Love Parade, with at least 350 others injured.[2][3][4] As a consequence of this, the organiser of the festival announced that no further Love Parades would be held. They also said that the Love Festival was permanently cancelled.[5][6][7][8]

Internationally, spin-off Love Parades have taken place in:

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History

File:Loveparade-jpatokal.jpg
Siegessäule, Love Parade 2001
File:Loveparade-girl-jpatokal.jpg
Dancer, Love Parade 2001

The Love Parade first occurred just months before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. It was started by the Berlin underground at the initiative of Matthias Roeingh aka "Dr Motte" and his then girlfriend Danielle de Picciotto. It was conceived as a political demonstration for peace and international understanding through love and music.

The parade was held on the Berlin Kurfürstendamm until 1996. For reasons of overcrowding on the Kurfürstendamm, the festival moved to the Straße des 17. Juni in the Tiergarten park in the center of Berlin. The festival became centered around the militaristic Siegessäule in the middle of the park; and the golden angel, atop the column and facing Paris, become the parade's emblem.

Rainer Schaller, president and chief executive officer of McFit and the Love Parade organizing company Lopavent

Many people from Germany and abroad traveled to Berlin to take part in the Parade—over a million attended in the years 1997 through 2000 and 800,000 in 2001. Attendance at the 2001 festival was significantly lower because the date of the parade was changed with little advance notice. 2002 and 2003 also saw lower figures, and in 2004 and 2005 the parade was canceled due to funding difficulties and coordinated opposition from most of Germany's green parties. The parade had inspired opposition on account of the damage done to the Tiergarten by participants, who were provided with insufficient toilet facilities. Opponents allegedly complicated matters for organizers by booking their own events in Berlin and so to exclude the Love parade from being able to register with city police. In 2004, however, a scaled-down version took place which served more as a mini-protest and was promoted with the title 'Love Weekend'. Dozens of clubs promoted the weekend-long event all over the city, with various clubs staying open for 3 days straight without closing. In 2006, the parade made a comeback with the help of German exercise studio McFit.

The Love Parade 2007 was planned for July 7, 2007 in Berlin. However, the Berlin event was cancelled in February as the Senate of Berlin did not issued the necessary permits at that time. After negotiations with several German cities, on July 21, it was announced that the Love Parade would move to the Ruhr Area for the next five years. The first event took place in Essen on August 25. The Parade in Essen saw 1.2 million visitors in comparison to the 500,000 who attended the 2006 parade in Berlin.

In 2008, the festival took place in Dortmund on July 19 on the Bundesstraße 1 under the motto Highway of Love. The event was planned as a "Love Weekend", with parties throughout the region. For the first time the Turkish electronic scene was represented by its own float, called "Turkish Delights". The official estimate is that 1.6 million visitors attended, which makes it the largest Loveparade to date.[9]

The 2009 event, planned for Bochum, was cancelled; a year later, the deaths of 19 attendees at the Duisburg venue prompted the Love Parade's organiser Rainer Schaller to declare an end to the iconic festival."The Love Parade has always been a peaceful party, but it will forever be overshadowed by the accident, so out of respect for the victims the Love Parade will never take place again," Schaller said.[10]

The music played at the events is predominantly electronic dance music: in this case mainly Trance, House, Techno, and Schranz music. Attempts to introduce other music styles, such as hip hop, have failed. Hardcore and Gabber music were part of the parade in early years, but were later removed. They are now celebrated separately on a counter-demonstration called "Fuckparade".

The Love Parade is seen to be louder and more crowded than most concerts. With its water-cooled sound systems on every truck, the parade produced an extremely loud sound floor.[citation needed] After the 2001 arrangement, vets at Berlin Zoo blamed the Love Parade for giving more than half of its animal diarrhea. Chairman Heiner Kloes said vets told him the heavy bass was to blame for disturbing the animals.[11] The parade consists of the sound trucks that usually feature local, or important, clubs and their DJs. It has become a rule that only trucks that have sponsors from a techno related field, such as clubs, labels or stores, are allowed, but advertising space was increased after the 2006 event to offset the high costs of equipping a truck. The trucks are usually open on top and feature dancers, with box-systems mounted on the side or rear.

The Love Parade is a place where some exhibit and enjoy other people's exhibitionist tendencies.[citation needed] Some attendees enjoy carrying around toys such as pacifiers or face masks. Often the crowd is imaginative in terms of clothing (or lack thereof) and appearance.

One famous picture from the Love Parade is people sitting and dancing on streetlamps, trees, commercial signs, telephone booths, which gave the event's nickname "the greatest amateur circus on earth".

The Love Parade has been quite peaceful for event of its size, seeing few arrests. In 2008, for example, charges were pressed for 6 robberies, 3 sexually-related offences, 40 thefts. 23 participants were caught with drugs and 49 were charged with bodily harm. 177 Love Parade visitors were provisionally arrested by the police.[12] Arrests are usually related to drug crimes and most other incidents feature mostly people passing out due to dehydration or hyperthermia. In 2000, after the parade, a girl under the influence of ecstasy was run over by an S-Bahn after she had been leaning on the door too hard.

The finale of the demonstration is by the so-called "Abschlusskundgebung" which are half-hour sets of the world's leading top DJs such as DJ Tiesto, Paul Van Dyk, Carl Cox, Armin Van Buuren, DJ Rush, DJ Hell, Westbam, Drum Connection, Miss Djax, Marusha or Chris Liebing. During this time all trucks (usually about 40) are connected to each other and set online to the statue of victory where the turntables are. This is one of the few chances a DJ can ever have to play for a crowd of about one million people.

At the weekend of the Love Parade many clubs hold special events and parties and book well-known DJs for this occasion. Parties range from clubs with a hundred mostly exclusive guests, to almost raves with several floors and ten thousand dancers. Many people used to come to Berlin only for the parties and miss the parade in order to sleep.[citation needed] Or they enjoy it with other "ravers" in the park right next to the parade route.

Together with Mayday, Nature One the Love Parade is one of the oldest and largest Festivals of Electronic music.

At the 2010 Love Parade in Duisburg, Germany, the number of people attending reached 1.4 million, when the original expectation was around 800,000. At least 19 people were killed, and hundreds injured, in an overcrowded tunnel leading into the festival.[3] Safety experts and a fire service investigator had previously warned that the site was not suitable for the numbers expected to attend.[13] Organizer and CEO Rainer Schaller said they will not continue the festival in the future. Many critics have suggested that if the Parade had not been forced to relocate from the wide avenues of Berlin this tragedy would not have happened.

Love Parade International

There are similar festivals in other cities like Zürich's Street Parade, Geneva's Lake Parade, Rotterdam's FFFW Dance Parade and Love Parades in Vienna. In 1997 a Love Parade was held in Sydney, Australia. Unlike its overseas counterparts, however, it was a smaller "rave party" version of the festival, held at the infamous Graffiti Hall of Fame in Redfern. On Saturday 8 July, 2000 a Love Parade was held in Roundhay Park, Leeds, United Kingdom sponsored by BBC Radio 1. In 2001, the official UK parade had moved to Newcastle upon Tyne which was to have seen a parade through the streets of Newcastle before ending up on Town Moor but was cancelled after the police refused a license: BBC Radio 1 still hosted a more contained event, however [3]. Since then no Love Parade had taken place in the United Kingdom.

Loveparade 2007 in Essen.

After being held in the North-American Continent for the first time in Mexico (2002), in the fall of 2004, the Love Parade was held in San Francisco. They had held their inaugural Parade in September 2004 with 37,000 attending. The parade was held again in San Francisco in September 2005 as a rousing success drawing over 50-60,000 people. In 2006, the parade was held on September 23 and was renamed Love Fest because the Loveparade Berlin organization did not renew any of their worldwide licenses not already under contract so they could focus on their own event. 2009 was the biggest success of LOVEVOLUTION (formerly Lovefest/Love Parade) with over 100,000 people. The first Love Parade in Santiago was held in 2005 and gathered over 100,000 people; the 2006 version gathered over 200,000 people. The first Love Parade in Caracas was held in June 2007 and gathered over 25,000 people.

Legal issues

Under German law the state has to pay for security during political demonstrations as well as cleaning up the streets after the demonstration. In the case of a commercial event however, the organizer must cover these expenses. For a large event like the Love Parade the costs are quite high: an estimated €300,000 to €400,000.

The Love Parade was initially held as a "political demonstration" to save costs; however it is organized by two companies set up just for the Love Parade. The name of the demonstration, Love Parade, is a registered trademark and the organizing companies have been busy getting license fees for the use of their name. This not only included merchandise and CDs but also fees for participating clubs, vendors of soft drinks and the like along the streets and even broadcasting fees for the TV stations MTV and Germany's counterpart, VIVA, along with, for the first time, Germany's RTL 2. Love Parade 2006 was the first time in that Berlin's RBB did not broadcast direct from the Siegessäule.

Due to this there was a dispute between the organizers and the city of Berlin every year about the status of the Love Parade and who should bear what costs. Finally in 2001, the courts ruled that the Love Parade had to be held as commercial event. In 2004, the organizers claimed they do not have the necessary funds anymore to host it again. Since there are numerous other Love Parade-like but commercial events in Germany, there are speculations that the funding is not, or at least is not the only reason, for the cancellation, the other being the fast dropping number of participants.[citation needed]

Anthems

Every German parade has had its own anthem.

Year Artist Title
1997 Dr. Motte and WestBam Sunshine
1998 Dr. Motte and WestBam One World One Future
1999 Dr. Motte and WestBam Music Is the Key
2000 Dr. Motte and WestBam Love Parade 2000
2001 The Love Committee You Can't Stop Us
2002 The Love Committee Access Peace
2003 The Love Committee Love Rules
2006 WestBam & the Love Committee United States of Love
2007 WestBam & the Love Committee Love Is Everywhere (New Location)
2008 WestBam & the Love Committee Highway to Love
2010 Anthony Rother The Art of Love

List of Love Parades

File:Berlin Loveparade-guy-jpatokal.jpg
Cyborg, Love Parade 2001
Year Location Motto Participants
1989 Berlin Friede, Freude, Eierkuchen
(Eng.) Peace, Joy, Pancakes 		150
1990 Berlin The Future Is Ours 2,000
1991 Berlin My House Is Your House And Your House Is Mine 6,000
1992 Berlin The Spirit Makes You Move 15,000
1993 Berlin The Worldwide Party People Weekend 31,000
1994 Berlin Love 2 Love 110,000
1995 Berlin Peace on Earth 280,000
1996 Berlin We Are One Family 750,000
1997 Berlin Let the Sunshine In Your Heart 1,000,000
1997 Sydney
1998 Berlin One World One Future 800,000
1999 Berlin Music Is The Key 1,500,000
2000 Berlin One World One Loveparade 1,300,000
2000 Leeds Radio One - One Love 300,000
2001 Berlin Join The Love Republic 800,000
2001 Newcastle upon Tyne (cancelled)
2002 Berlin Access Peace 750,000
2002 Mexico City
2003 Berlin Love Rules 750,000
2004 San Francisco
2005 San Francisco
2005 Santiago Sal a la calle y baila (eng. Get out there and dance) 100,000
2006 Berlin The Love is Back 1,200,000
2006 San Francisco (as LoveFest)
2006 Santiago El Baile es de Todos 200,000
2007 Essen Love is everywhere 1,200,000
2007 Caracas Live the Love! 80,000
2007 San Francisco as LoveFest 89,000
2008 Dortmund Highway to love 1,600,000
2008 Rotterdam Olympic Edition 500,000
2008 San Francisco as LoveFest[14] 120,000
2008 Caracas Keep the Love Alive!
2009 Bochum (cancelled)
2009 San Francisco as LovEvolution[15] 150,000
2010 Duisburg The Art of Love 1,400,000

The "Participants" figure is the estimate given by the organizers. Police estimates have been as much as 30% lower. Accurate counts are not available since entry is free and uncontrolled. The mayor of Dortmund and the police confirmed the number of participants in Dortmund.[16][17][18]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Loveparade 2009 Fällt Komplett Aus". WDR (in German). 15 January 2009. Retrieved 16 January 2009.
  2. ^ Connolly, Kate (25 July 2010). "Love Parade Stampede in Germany Kills at Least 18". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 25 July 2010.
  3. ^ a b Staff writer (25 July 2010). "Stampede at German Love Parade Festival Kills 19". BBC News. Retrieved 25 July 2010.
  4. ^ Staff writer (24 July 2010). "19 Dead in Love Parade Stampede — Eighteen People Have Been Killed in Germany During the Country's Annual "Love Parade", Held This Year in the Former Industrial Ruhr City of Duisburg". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 25 July 2010.
  5. ^ Staff writer (25 July 2010). "Organisers Blamed for German Love Parade Deaths — Survivors of a Stampede at a Free Dance Music Festival in Germany in which 19 People Were Killed Have Blamed Organisers for the Deaths". BBC News. Retrieved 25 July 2010.
  6. ^ [1]
  7. ^ [2]>
  8. ^ "No more Love Parades as pressure on organisers increases". 25 July 2010. Retrieved 25 July 2010. {{cite news}}: Text "workThe Local" ignored (help)
  9. ^ Volmerich, Oliver (21 July 2008). "Feucht, fröhlich, friedlich". Ruhr Nachrichten, Dortmunder Zeitung. pp. DOLO1x1., in German
  10. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/25/germany
  11. ^ www.quiet.org/noiseletter/spring2003/page8.htm, visited 25th July, 2010
  12. ^ Anon (21 July 2008). "Friedliche Party". Ruhr Nachrichten, Loveparade 2008 Dortmund. pp. LPDO1., in German
  13. ^ The Guardian : 25 July 2010 : Prosecutors Investigate "Ignored" Safety Warnings After 19 Die in Love Parade Crush Retrieved 26 July 2010
  14. ^ http://www.sflovefest.org
  15. ^ http://www.sflovevolution.org/
  16. ^ "Loveparade bricht Besucherrekord" (News article). Germany: loveparade.dortmund.de. 21 July 2008. Retrieved 21 July 2008.
  17. ^ "1,6 Mio. Menschen feiern in Dortmund" (News article). Germany: loveparade.dortmund.de. 21 July 2008. Retrieved 21 July 2008.
  18. ^ "Raver-Rekord im Ruhrgebiet" (News article). Germany: tagesschau.de. 21 July 2008. Retrieved 21 July 2008.

External links

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