‘The spirit of Love Parade’: organisers to bring techno event home to Berlin

Neon bodypaint, string vests and no-nonsense four-to-the-floor beats will return to the streets of Berlin this weekend because the legendary Love Parade techno occasion makes a comeback within the German capital after a hiatus of greater than 15 years.

Saturday’s daytime out of doors occasion carries a brand new title – the Rave the Planet Parade – however is being organised by among the identical individuals who put collectively the primary Love Parade on the eve of the autumn of the Berlin Wall.

“The unique spirit of the Love Parade hasn’t been current since 2003,” founder Matthias Roeingh, AKA Dr Motte, instructed the digital music journal Resident Advisor. “It’s now time to reactivate this spirit and make it experienceable for all.”

The Love Parade beneath its previous title was discontinued in 2010, when 21 folks suffocated and 652 others had been injured in a crowd catastrophe within the western metropolis of Duisburg, to the place the occasion had relocated after its naming rights had been bought to the proprietor of a sequence of health studios in 2005.

The brand new not-for-profit parade will set out at 2pm and journey 7km throughout the German capital, from the Kurfürstendamm boulevard within the west to the Großer Stern roundabout in Tiergarten, the place a closing rally will happen.

Initially deliberate for 2021 however rescheduled because of the pandemic, the occasion has been crowdfunded with small donations, with which donors might purchase mini raver collectible figurines that had been added to a mannequin parade on show in central Berlin, and “fundraver” livestreamed DJ units.

Workers from the Rave The Planet organisation set up a miniature model of Berlin’s Strasse des 17 Juni boulevard and Victory Column.
Staff from the Rave the Planet organisation arrange a miniature mannequin of Berlin’s Strasse des 17 Juni boulevard and Victory Column. Photograph: Hayoung Jeon/EPA

Organisers mentioned the parade had been registered as an illustration with 25,000 members – a far cry from the 1.5 million who trekked by way of Berlin at Love Parade’s peak in 1999, but additionally a extra sizeable crowed than the 150 ravers on the inaugural occasion.

About 150 digital artists will carry out on floats representing Berlin, Sweden, Belgium, Estonia, Poland, Ukraine and the Netherlands, amongst others. A UK float will likely be hosted by Save Our Scene, a marketing campaign based to maintain Britain’s unbiased digital music scene alive throughout the Covid-19 disaster.

If Love Parade’s authentic motto, Friede, Freude, Eierkuchen(“Peace, Pleasure, Pancakes”) was joyfully nihilistic, the Rave the Planet Parade presents itself in a barely extra critical guise.

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Organisers instructed the Guardian that that they had stayed in contact with the chums and households of the victims of the Duisburg crush and had determined towards holding a commemorative occasion after consulting with them.

As an alternative, political calls for will ring out in German and English over loudspeakers each hour, some in earnest, others extra tongue-in-cheek.

They embrace requires an finish to the decades-old “dancing ban” on Good Friday, an unconditional primary earnings for artists and culture-sector employees, and the popularity of Berlin’s techno tradition as an intangible cultural heritage in Unesco’s stock.

For the Sunday, there are plans to recruit volunteers to retrace the ravers’ steps and accumulate garbage. Confetti, the organisers warn, seems to be fairly however is non-biodegradable.

The techno parade makes a comeback in Berlin about 4 months after the town’s nightclubs reopened in early March, after nearly two years of closures and strict hygiene guidelines.

Throughout clubland’s shutdown, many younger Berliners found makeshift events within the metropolis’s public parks as a suitable various and seem to have developed a style for out of doors clubbing: Berlin’s senate is debating an alcohol ban in parks to curb the continued partying.

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