Love Parade

The Love Parade is a popular festival and parade that originated in 1989 in Berlin, Germany, and has
now spread throughout the world. Past Love Parades have occurred in Tel Aviv, Mexico City, Acapulco,
Vienna, Cape Town, San Francisco, Leeds, Sydney and Santiago. Only the Acapulco, Tel Aviv,
Santiago, and Berlin Love Parades continue to operate.

Love Parade is the largest techno gathering in the world. The tradition started 10 years ago with a few
hundred ravers and has grown to a million and a half people. That’s right: 1.5 million people. Held in
downtown Berlin, the parade features dozens of floats, each with its own soundsystem. The floats go up
and down a long street (Unter Den Linden), going through Brandenburger Tor, a gate that used to divide
East and West Berlin. Love Parade is a massive celebration of techno, the re-unification of Berlin, and all
things wacky, tacky, and wild. Wish you could be there? Well, close your eyes and come with me.

Imagine catching a train at 6am on a Saturday. It’s filled with ravers and as it snakes towards Berlin,
each station becomes more densely packed with kids sporting “Run Lola Run” hair and Buffalo boots.
Imagine arriving in Berlin to find the station screaming with the sound of hundreds of whistles, which
were being sold by vendors outside. Unlike American whistlers who go for rhythm, German whistlers go
for a long maintained shrill.

Now, imagine being stuck in a huge line outside a party. You can hear the music in the distance and
everyone is excited, so you know you're somewhere good, but you can't see past the armpits of the
person in front of you. Now, imagine that the line you're stuck in is 1.5 million people long, and that
you're in that line for NINE HOURS. Imagine that it’s hot and sunny. Now imagine that everyone in that
line knows a secret... like a secret language perhaps, like German. Imagine the sound thousands of
whistles going on and on, screaming in a never-ending tweet. Imagine dogs’ heads exploding all over
Berlin from that sound.

As for the floats, imagine 40 huge trucks with soundsystems on them, each one decked out to suit the
sponsor. People told me it would be commercial, but this was over the top! The Camel float featured
men dancing in red G-strings and women dancing in red hotpants. The Fanta float featured men dancing
in orange hot pants and women dancing in orange G-strings. Imagine the music pumped from the floats
being decent, but imagine the records perpetually skipping as dancers in G-strings and hotpants bump
the DJ.

Imagine that every time a float gets within thumping distance (as in, you can feel that hard German
techno thump somewhere between your chest and your groin) people throwing their hand in the air,
shrilling their whistles, and dancing like concrete has been bad and needs to be punished.

Imagine six miles of ravers, clubbers, acid casualties, and boring people dressed up as freaks-for-a-day.
Imagine all these people brought together to enjoy the music they love. Imagine the energy. Imagine the
smell of urine in the Tier Garten, the park that surrounds Unter Den Linden.

Imagine the TWO THOUSAND METRIC TONS of garbage the ravers dropped on the street. Imagine
that it is just windy enough to blow the garbage all over and fuel a massive trash fire. Imagine 1500 DJs.
Imagine the day that beat-freaks take over the streets and eat every pill in a three-country radius.
Imagine that the Mayor says it’ll happen again next year, despite the fact that many Berliners
intentionally go on vacation to avoid the chaos every July.

Imagine the train ride home. Thanks to shedding feather boas on the shoulders of thousands of disco
queens, every train station looks like flocks of small, brightly colored birds have been slaughtered there.
Imagine whistles still blowing the next morning at stations eight hours out of Berlin.

A million and half techno fans brought together for a day is something you just don’t see in America. If
you look up “awe-striking” in the dictionary, you should see a picture of Love Parade. It’s something
every American dancer should experience just to see and feel that many people brought together for one
party. The experience made me appreciate the small, relatively underground scene in America. Sure, we
have big parties of 25,000 people in California and Florida. But if you imagine 60 of those parties

1

happening all at once in one place, you will understand why, although I’m glad I went, I will never go to
Love Parade again.

The Loveparade is hugely popular, attracting some of the biggest DJs and crowds from around the world
and spanning all facets of electronic music. It has even spawned a series of sister events in such far-
flung places as the UK, Israel and South Africa.

The event completely takes over the city, prowling through the streets like a giant monster. Each float is
fashioned by club and party organisers, who bring their own DJs and their own brand of techno. Fifty-one
different floats create a cacophony of beats for the people who dance alongside, blowing whistles and
often wearing very little bar body paint.

The traditional route of the parade snakes past the Angel of Peace monument in the middle of the
Tiergarden and down to the Brandenburg Gate, a potent symbol of German reunification. Here the focus
shifts to one massive arena. Two DJ booths surrounded by hundreds of cameras are raised on
scaffolding high above the cheering crowd, giving the headlining DJs their moment of glory.

Giant video screens light up the sky as the likes of Westbam, Sven Vath and Paul Van Dyk play to the
crowd, cameras broadcast live around the world and two million people go absolutely wild.

History

The Loveparade was originally the brainchild of the fresh Berlin Underground under the initiative of
Matthias Roeingh aka "Dr. Motte"., who hit upon the idea of holding a free, mobile acid-house party in
the street. It was held as a political demonstration for peace and international understanding through
music.

The first Loveparade was held in 1989 just 4 months before the demolition of the Berlin Wall and
attracted just 150 revellers, who followed two cars with cassette recorders along the Kurfurstendamm. In
the 1999 Loveparade, 1.4 million people followed 51 floats along the Strasse des 17 Juni and past some
of Germany's most important monuments and landmarks, all in celebration of Love, Freedom and
Techno!

Until 1996, the parade was held on the famous Berlin "Ku'damm". Since by then, not only the Ku'damm
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 (German: Brandenburger Tor) and provided plenty of space. The center of the parade is the
Siegessäule (Victory Column) 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-

2

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 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 the high drug use and people passing out due to dehydration or overheating, 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 initially 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.

Legal issues

The Love Parade is a very special case. By German law the state has to pay for security during political
demonstrations as well as cleaning up the streets after the demonstration. In case of a commercial event
however, the organizer has to pay for all this. For a large event like the Love Parade the costs are quite
high: an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 Euro.

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

3

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 have been arguments between the organizers and the city of Berlin every year about
the status of the Love Parade (and who pays for it). 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 only one reason
for the cancellation, the other being the fast dropping number of participants.

Anthems

Every parade has its own Anthem. In the last year 2006 it was the famous “The love is Back” from “The
Love Committee”

Future of Love Parade

The Love Parade returned to Berlin on July,15 in 2006 after being canceled in 2004 and 2005 due to a
lack of funds. Although the forefather of the Love Parade, Dr. Motte, did not participate due to issues
with the parade's organizers McFit. The Love Parade was planned again on July 7, 2007 with the
sponsorship of McFit. After being confirmed in November of 2006 by the organizers, a press conference
on February 21st by the team announced the cancellation. The main reason cited was the failure of the
City of Berlin in granting a written approval.

An alternative parade in Berlin is the Techno Demonstration Fuckparade, every year since 1997, in July
or August.

Different versions of the Love Parade have been popping up around the world in places like Santiago,
Chile; Tel Aviv and Mexico City. The Love Parade officially continues on in the city of San Francisco as
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 due to the fact that the
Loveparade Berlin organization did not renew any of their worldwide licenses not already under contract
so they could focus on their own event. 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 Love Parade in popular culture



The event inspired the 1998 Dance classic "Meet Her At The Love Parade" by Da Hool.



The love parade was featured in the 2004 film, Chasing Liberty.



The entire movie Be Angeled was filmed at the Loveparade 2000 and featured many veteran DJs
such as Lexy and the late Mark Spoon.



In the German film Julietta the first 10 minutes were filmed on location at Loveparade 2001. The
plot is also built around events that happened to the main characters at the Loveparade.

4

List of Love Parades in Berlin

Year

Motto

Participants

1989 Friede, Freude, Eierkuchen

150

1990 The Future Is Ours

2,000

1991 My House Is Your House And Your House Is Mine 6,000

1992 The Spirit Makes You Move

15,000

1993 The Worldwide Party People Weekend

31,000

1994 Love 2 Love

110,000

1995 Peace on Earth

280,000

1996 We Are One Family

750,000

1997 Let the Sun Shine In Your Heart

1,000,000

1998 One World One Future

800,000

1999 Music Is The Key

1,500,000

2000 One World One Loveparade

1,300,000

2001 Join The Love Republic

800,000

2002 Access Peace

750,000

2003 Love Rules

750,000

2006 The Love is Back

1,200,000

5

6

7

8