BERLIN (Reuters) - Berlin looks set to pull the plug on the Love Parade after organisers said they had failed to secure funding for the
summer festival that used to attract over a million gyrating techno fans.
The Parade, which became a symbol for Berlin's hipness during the 1990s, has waned in recent years, narrowly avoiding financial
collapse and drawing smaller crowds as techno music has lost its trendsetting appeal and entered mainstream culture.
Its decline has coincided with a steady gentrification of the city. Gleaming modern buildings have been completed in its centre and
many of the eastern districts once fashionable for their dilapidation have been refurbished for yuppie families.
"It is with great regret that we have to announce there definitely won't be a Love Parade in Berlin this year," organiser Loveparade
Berlin said in a statement on Wednesday.
Many of its usual sponsors had been hit by the economic downturn in recent years, and talks with the cash-strapped city had not
produced a financing deal, with just three months to go before the festival was due to take place, it said.
Berlin's city-owned trade fair company backed the Love Parade in 2003 and made a loss of 500,000 euro (333,700 pounds) as a
result.
Some 750,000 ravers came to the Love Parade last July, half the 1.5 million the festival attracted at the height of its popularity in the
late 1990s.
The Love Parade started making losses after it lost its status as a demonstration in 2001, which forced it to pay for a host of services
which the city had provided free of charge before, such as blocking off roads and relocating bus stops.
A Berlin city spokesman held out hope of a reprieve, saying more talks were scheduled between the city's economy department and
the organisers.
The Parade first took place in 1989, four months before the fall of the Berlin Wall when DJ "Dr Motte" staged what he called a "House
Music Demonstration" in West Berlin for tolerance, respect and international understanding.
What started with one truck fitted with turntables and loudspeakers spiralled into an annual music event that drew techno fans from
around Europe to crowd around up to 50 trucks that blared out deafening rhythms.
Reuters |
