Love Parade, Berlin 13 July 2002

From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Sat Jul 13 2002 - 10:51:45 MDT

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I heard about this about eight years ago. Someday I should see this.
'Only' 1/2 million have showed this year, which showed 1.5 million
in past years.

Love Parade
13 July (2002) - Berlin, Germany

Some News:

In German (site seems to be currently loaded down)
http://www.loveparade.de
Another:
http://www.BerlinOnline.de/kultur/love_info/.html/index.html

In Italian
http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Cronache/2002/07_Luglio/13/loveparade.shtml

In French
http://www.berlin-en-ligne.com/loveparade.php

The "Official Fuck the Love Parade Homepage"
http://www.bembelterror.de/fuckparade/

Something in English:

current: BBC Radio at the Berlin Love Parade
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/dance/berlin_loveparade.shtml

Pictures from last year:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/entertainment/music/newsid_1451000/1451785.stm

-------------------------------------------------
A past news story:
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,37468,00.html

All You Need Is a Parade
by Steve Kettmann

10:15 a.m. July 10, 2000 PDT
BERLIN -- They call it the Love Parade, and they're not kidding.

The city that hosts this annual love-in was wild back in Marlene Dietrich's
heyday. Berlin gave us the cabaret world of Sally Bowles and was a haven for
freaks, free-thinkers, radicals, and misfits during the years of the Berlin
Wall.

But none of those blips on the screen can match the annual Love Parade in
sheer, sweeping scale. As it grows in size and profile -- this year's event
drawing more than a million people and spawning a copycat Love Parade in
Leeds, England -- the event, now in its 12th year, is reaching new heights
in mass reveling.

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People come from all over the world for an unhinged, exuberant celebration
of sexual vibes that makes precursor events during the San Francisco hippie
days seem piddling in comparison. The constant throb of techno and the
groovy slow dancing of a good ecstasy high are constants, and so is a
once-a-year openness and ease in all things sexual.

"You can feel the love," Belgrade-born Berliner Bojana Djordjevic said
without irony on Saturday afternoon, smiling for emphasis.

Djordjevic looked like an aerobics instructor in her body sheath. She
couldn't walk 10 feet through the swarm of bodies in Berlin's Tiergarten
without having a man stop her. They were all working variations on the
oldest question known to man, and Djordjevic smiled and flirted back before
breezing onto the next encounter. Over near a stand selling cocktails, she
even kissed one friendly admirer.

"I love it, you can feel comfortable," said Djordjevic's friend and fellow
Berliner, Monika Uchman. "It's a day when you can kiss someone, you can
squeeze them close, you can do whatever you want."

More than 70 specially chartered trains brought people from around Germany
and other nearby countries to the mobbed center of Berlin for the event.
Techno music throbbed from 50 so-called floats, not so much floats but
moving platforms for a chosen few to show off their costumes or lack
thereof.

Michael Rosch, a 27-year-old who works for Microsoft in Munich, drove to
Berlin for the weekend since he had tickets to be on a float operated by two
clubs, one from Berlin and one on the party island of Ibiza.

"My girlfriend Christiane and I had a great time. It was very loud and we
were just dancing all the time for 5-6 hours. You see a million dancing
people, young people, old people, all kind of people and all parts of
society, and they come from all over the world. I think the atmosphere is
unique. You can't find any trouble or any fights. The whole parade is very
peaceful and all the people are happy together and just having a very big
party."

This was notably true, even with isolated exceptions. One young woman died
of an apparent ecstasy overdose, and a stabbing was reported. But total
arrests numbered less than 200, mostly for drug offenses or petty theft, an
unimaginably small number when one considers that over one million people
attended the event.

The history of the Love Parade goes back to 1989, when 150 friends made a
float and gathered for the birthday of Matthias Roeingh, who is now
considered the founder of the annual event. Now the parade is a showcase for
corporate sponsorships, gets credit for boosting the local economy by more
than $100 million, and is an event likely to keep getting bigger and better
known.

The scene is youth-dominated, but one middle-aged, pear-shaped man was
walking around with a sign on his safari hat reading "Looking for a
Girlfriend." Everyone seemed cool with that.

Cloddish displays of interest are rare. It is, in fact, the world's largest
meat-market, fanning out from the world's largest Mosh Pit, shown all day on
live TV. But with so many people, and so many possibilities, there's no need
to get pushy. Some of the bare-chested young men just spray-painted their
email addresses in electric green on their backs to make the collecting of
digits that much easier.

That this happens in Germany of all places is both fascinating and oddly
appropriate. Other than Oktoberfest, Germans are not world-renowned partiers
-- or haven't been up until now.

"The German people have some problems showing feelings, but on this day all
the people show their feelings," Uchman said.

Event organizers have copyrighted the Love Parade name. Don't be surprised
if it keeps spreading and spreading, maybe to a city near you.