Yup, a huge electronic music festival. Starting at 14:00 there was a parade of floats through the whole city. The floats were spread quite far apart and each float had a DJ lineup so it was kinda like 60 mobile concerts all at once and they were all free! You could stand in one place and watch them all go by or you could follow one of them. At the end of the day all the floats came together at a huge plaza where there was a stage built up and then all the top DJs kept the party rockin' till 2 in the morning. There were an estimated 1.2 million people there! I took some pictures with my cell phone:

The trains on the way there were totally packed. We ended up taking a taxi from Duisburg to Essen.


All the streets of Essen were closed for traffic and everything was packed with people! Here's a shot of the parade from about 100 meters away. The amount of people was incredible, and the whole city looked like this.


Then we arrived at the Berlinerplatz, the central plaza where the stage was built up. The stage was huge, 4-sided and there were people on all sides. While one artist was performing on one side, they were setting up the next one on the other side. There were huge screens on all sides so that one could always see what was going on on the other side.


people everywhere!


and more people!


Then came the start with Drum Connection.


Then it slowly got dark, but the party kept going...


Here's the Blue Man Group:


Definitely one of the best parties of the year. Can't wait till next year....