No more Loveparade

Many news reports used something like “Dead…Loveparade”  as a title for the tragedy in Duisburg. And just the connection of these two words seems so strange to me… how could such a big festival turn into a disaster all of a sudden.

My condolences to all tragically involved.

I think what we need is not another shocking news report or Youtube video, not another quick judgmenent, but maybe a reflection on what has happened so far.  As an electronic music fan, I give you my personal Loveparade story;

I only once went to Loveparade in, in 2006. I danced — or whatever you want to call it — at the opening event of Loveparade with a comfortable 2000-3000 people, but then was rather too tired to go to the real rave the next morning. But somehow I found myself strolling around the Brandenburg Gate, very quickly passed the security gate which was directly installed under the famous arches of the Gate. I thought the people there, mostly cliché ravers, were disgusting but, as I told you, I was not in a party mood. I remember the fences around the Tiergarten, to prevent destruction and trash there, but in a situation of panic, these fences would have fallen easily. Thank god.

Just yesterday, I saw a short Youtube video in which the project manager rejects the concerns about the small area with humour: “Half a square metre is enough to dance….” (or so). I did not worry then, I thought “Well, there must have been enough heads in the city to think about that.” Compared to the spaciousness of Berlin’s Tiergarten area, the Duisburg area was a birdcage. And the same amount of people was expected as in the peak years of the former Loveparade.

As a child, I saw some of Dr Motte’s openings of Loveparade on TV — and I wondered about these crazy people dancing to brainlessly booming music. Some years later I found myself at a smaller rave and sensed why people like this music; music that was there played by a real DJ, so non-Scooter, so non-DJ-Bobo-like. It was so energetic, so creative, so without limits. Pure excess, pure escape.

Loveparade illustrated (simple past here, I guess the parade itself is dead now) the commercialization of techno music. After the political flirts of the parade in the 90s, the festival today was more a socially-accepted carnival for everyone. And of course, I liked the fact that more and more people got enthusiastic about the music I grew into and in which I discovered my own taste.

Still, the scene grows and in my hometown Hannover I discover a great variety of electronic events organized by the local scene. Not that big and mainstreamy, but very creative and intense. Techno was born in such small, clubby environments in which it still flourishes. Loveparade in Duisburg was  a Zombie — the event itself was dead, kept half alive by McFit and Duisburg City, but the scene was and is growing and growing, still in the stuffy clubs were it started. That the organizers and the city did not care about anything anymore is the toxic waste of absolute commercialization.

Sad to see that the music has been instrumentalized for purely commercial interests, and when reading this article and the comments (!!!) warning about a stampede way before the parade started on can only ask: How careless were the organizers? How deep was the city’s greed for money?