Imagine 1.6 Million people, more than forty 18-wheelers with massive sound systems and a dj set up on each, and a shut down highway leading to one massive main stage. Sprinkle in some of the worlds best Electronic Dance Music Artists and a whole lot of LOVE.. all in one day.. and all for FREE.. What more could you ask for right? Oh and did I mention, plenty of nudity?

“The Loveparade is one of the world's biggest and most peaceful events. Each year people from all over the world gather in the name of electronic music to send the whole world the message of peaceful togetherness.” – www.loveparade.de

The Love Parade is a Festival that started in Berlin Germany in 1989. It was first held as a political demonstration for peace and international understanding through music. It was held every year in Berlin until 2003 when the city (Berlin) had finally had enough with cleaning up after the massive annual party that attracted over a million people every year. The Love Parade is and has always been a free party, the government believe it or not covered the bill. This was another reason why Berlin decided to stop hosting it, as it was rather expensive. 

There was no parade in 04’ or 05’ however Berlin decided to host the Love Parade once again in 06’ and 07’. After 07’ Berlin once again flip-flopped and said take your parade somewhere else. A new plan was devised where the parade would change cities in Germany each year. So in 2008 (the year I got to attend the parade), Dortmund, Germany was chosen as the host city.

The festivities started around 2pm. Unfortunately the weather was over cast, but as the old saying goes, “No one was going to rain on our parade”. Any to be honest the weather didn’t seem to dampen anyone’s spirits what so ever. The parade route was a section of a highway (shut down for the day, just for the event) that lead into a huge park that had the main stage. I’d say the entire parade route was about 5km long. The trucks drove to one end turned around and then returned to the main stage area where they parked and then became a part of the stage. As I mentioned each truck had a massive sound system and dj onboard. They were driving really slowly as well so this lasted until midnight, when the party took off on the main stage.

The line-up on the main stage included a hefty line up of power house superstars such as; Armin Van Buuren, Audion, Carl Craig, DJ Hell, Dubfire, Daivd Guetta, Felix Kröcher, Italoboyz. M.A.N.D.Y., Moby, The Märtini Brös, Paul Van Dyk, Richie Hawtin, Westbam, Underworld. Need I say more?

Now this was almost a year ago now so I can’t give you all the highlights of the night as my memory is a tad foggy for undisclosed reasons.. But with a line up like that how can you not have fresh beats and heavy bangers all night long?  

Another really interesting thing about the parade was the people that were there. The majority were between 16 and 30, but there were also plenty of kids as well as adults that were.. how can I put this nicely, getting up there in age. It was really great to see so many people come together to celebrate the idea of love (I know a tad corny and sentimental, shoot me). Maybe even better was seeing two 10-year-old boys drinking beer in public lol.  

All in all, despite scattered showers, I had an awesome day/night partying with 1.6 million people who were all there just to have fun and listen to bomb electronic tunes. I think this party is an amazing concept and I really hope to do it again sometime in the future.  

So the bad news.. “The organization and the local authorities are afraid that too many people will visit the city and they can't handle that. The organization will not look for another option this year. In 2010 they plan to do a new Love Parade party somewhere else”
- www.loveparade.ro  

So for all you hopeful partiers that were wanting to go this year, it looks like you will have to wait until 2010.   

Aaron

“Getting down to business, so you can get to the business of getting down”

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