Love Parade

c010depunkk · Aug 24th, 2007, 19:50

Tomorrow I'm headed for Essen to participate in the Love Parade. Should be sweet: great DJ line-up, weather is supposed to be fantastic. I pity all you folks who can't come.

Is anyone else planning to be there on Saturday or Sunday?

I even drew myself a T-Shirt:

MrMadison · Aug 24th, 2007, 19:55

nice shirt........

dab42pat · Aug 24th, 2007, 20:07

Hi

I spent seven years in the british army in that area, if the weather is like what I remember (1990-97) I envy you and hope you have a great time.

All the best

Pat

D3niss3 · Aug 24th, 2007, 20:52

Have fun! I heard lots of people attend to that big event so take care.

alexgeek · Aug 26th, 2007, 01:45

is it like a festival? I've never heard of it before. have fun

Daniel · Aug 26th, 2007, 11:35

Its a big festival - started in 1989 in Berlin (germany) but has now spread round the world.

Leeds held it once.

Heres the history of it (curtesy of Wiki)

The Love Parade has its roots in the spirit of a changing Europe. In 1989, it was first celebrated 4 months before the demolition of the Berlin Wall. It was started by the fresh Berlin Underground under the initiative of Matthias Roeingh aka "Dr. Motte". It was held as a political demonstration for peace and international understanding through music.

Until 1996, the parade was held on the famous Berlin "Kurfürstendamm". Since by then, not only the Kurfürstendamm was overcrowded but the streets and even railway tracks near the Ku'damm, too, the parade moved to the "Straße des 17. Juni" which is near the Tiergarten Park in the center of Berlin by the Brandenburg Gate and provided plenty of space. The center of the parade is the Siegessäule in the middle of the park, and the golden angel atop the column has become a symbol of the parade.

Many people from Germany, Poland, and other countries travel 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. In 2006, the parade made a comeback with the help of German exercise studio McFit. The parade saw its highest attendance in over 9 years.

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".

Anyone who wants to experience Love Parade in the middle weekend of July should be aware of the fact that it is louder and more crowded than most concerts. With its water-cooled sound systems on every truck, the parade produces a sound floor of many megawatts. The parade basically lives through those trucks. The trucks 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. It costs a lot of money to equip a truck. They are usually open on top and feature dancers. Their box-systems are mounted on the side or the rear. There are two tactics to choose from: Follow a truck that features a style that you like, or have them all pass you so you can see and hear more.

Love Parade is a place where some exhibit and enjoy other people's exhibitionist tendencies. Some attendees enjoy carrying around toys such as pacifiers or facing 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". Although it is not allowed, there is probably no better way to see and be seen. However some people used this for special jokes, like hanging up things such as bicycle locks, on trees and poles, but such actions are very rare. The police of Berlin are usually quite tolerant when it comes to people enjoying themselves. There haven't been any major incidents in over twelve years of parade history - except for the high drug use and people passing out due to dehydration or hyperthermia, the number of injuries as well as the number of crimes is extraordinarily low. 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 Paul Van Dyk, DJ Rush, DJ Hell, Westbam, Drum Connection, Miss Djax 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.

With the end of the parade the fun is far from over. Love Parade weekend in Berlin is probably the only time and place worldwide where a whole city is practically turned into a club. Many DJs are booked for one of the huge number of parties that are held before and after the parade. Parties range from clubs with a hundred mostly exclusive guests, to almost raves with several floors and ten thousand dancers. Many people today come to Berlin only for the parties and miss the parade in order to sleep. Or they enjoy it with other "ravers" in the park right next to the parade route.

The Love Parade may be a dinosaur and together with Mayday, Nature One and few others the remainder of a rave culture that marked the beginning of the era of modern Electronic music.

There are similar festivals in other cities like Zürich's Street Parade and Love Parades in Vienna. In 1997 a Love Parade was held in Sydney, Australia. Unlike it's overseas counterparts, however, it was a smaller "rave party" version of the festival, held at the infamous Graffiti Hall of Fame in Redfern. In 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 but was cancelled after the police refused a license: BBC Radio 1 still hosted a more contained event, however. Since then no Love Parade had occurred in the United Kingdom. After touching base in the American Continent for the first time in Mexico (2002), in the fall of 2004, the Love Parade was held in San Francisco, marking its second expansion into North America. With the success of both 2002's and 2004's events, it was held again in 2005 and 2006 with great success, although the "Loveparade San Francisco," has been changed to "Love Fest San Francisco," due to the fact that Dr. Motte is no longer participating with the Love Parade organization, and forever indefinitely as a permanent event in these two places.

c010depunkk · Aug 26th, 2007, 11:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexgeek

is it like a festival?

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....