Love Parade: From humble beginnings, to major music festival, to tragic ending

Matthias Roeingh, better known by his stage name Dr. Motte, organized the first Love Parade in Berlin in 1989 along with fellow DJs Jonzon, Westbam and Kid Paul. Roeingh said he wanted the festival to be seen as a protest for peace. Some 150 party-goers, followed by three cars blaring techno music, danced down Berlin's Kurfürstendamm boulevard under the banner "Peace, joy and pancakes."

It wasn't long before the Love Parade grew into one of the largest music festivals in Europe. As the number of party-goers increased, so did the number of artists and event organizers who brought their own floats, or "love mobiles," to the parade.

After almost half a million people flooded Berlin's Kurfürstendamm for the Love Parade in 1996, it became clear that a larger venue was needed. The following year, the festival was moved to Berlin's Straße des 17. Juni (17th of June Street), with the Victory Column, Brandenburg Gate and Tiergarten Park providing a historic backdrop to the frenzied techno rave.

But as the festival attracted ever more revelers, it also attracted more trouble ... and much, much more rubbish. Mountains of garbage in the Tiergarten became a common sight, to the disgust of many locals. However, because the Love Parade was still, in theory, a political festival, Berlin's state government had to bear the costs, both for security and for the mass clean-ups.

For all its controversies, the main point of criticism directed at the festival was its increasing commercialization. Love Parade organizers made a pretty profit through licensing, advertising and merchandise sales. However, that also drove many techno heads to distance themselves from the Love Parade, with some even starting an annual counter festival, know as the "F*** Parade" (pictured above).

In 2001, Germany's Constitutional Court revoked the Love Parade's classification as a demonstration. The court found that the festival offered no clear political message, a requisite for any protest. Since organizers did not want to bear the security or clean-up costs, the 2004 and 2005 Love Parade festivals were cancelled.

Under the banner "The Love is back!" the Love Parade relaunched in 2006, bringing more than a million revelers to Berlin. But it would also be the last edition to take place in the German capital. That year, Rainer Schaller, an entrepreneur who runs a chain of fitness centers, took over the company in charge of organizing the festival. His plan was to bring the Love Parade to Germany's Ruhr area.

According to the Love Parade organizers, more than a million flocked to the city of Essen for the first edition of the festival in western Germany in 2007, while some 1.6 million people partied in Dortmund the following year. Several people, however, have claimed that the numbers were massively inflated by organizers, likely for marketing purposes.

High on the festival's successes in Essen and Dortmund, organizers wanted to bring the Love Parade to the city of Bochum in 2009. However, city officials refused, citing security concerns. This ultimately forced the party to be cancelled in 2009, provoking outrage from seasoned ravers and parade-goers.

Organizers wanted to make up for the lost year by staging a massive festival in Duisburg in 2010. The festival coincided with the city's selection as a European Capital of Culture and attracted over a million visitors. But the party ended in tragedy. Panic broke out as crowds converged in a tunnel leading to the festival grounds, resulting in the deaths of 21 people, and injuring a further 650.

The very same day as the deadly stampede, Love Parade organizers announced that there would be no further festivals. Every year on July 24, Germany comes together to commemorate the victims of the festival tragedy.

In December 2017, more than seven years after the tragic Love Parade incident, prosecutors launched criminal proceedings against six Duisburg city employees and four festival organizers. The trial is set to be one of Germany's largest ever court cases, with 70 lawyers involved — 32 representing defendants and 38 representing 65 joint plaintiffs, mainly relatives of the young people killed.