international news _ Jonty Skrufff _ 2nd May 2005
Berlin's Love Parade Is Cancelled Again
Organisers of Berlin's annual Love Parade announced that for the second year running, the event has been cancelled, after they failed to find sponsors to help fund that outdoor event.
"We very much regret that it is not possible for us to stage the Berlin Love Parade this year. We will do everything we can, via constructive dialogue with the State of Berlin and representatives of the economy and the media, to reach a solution which will enable the popular Berlin Parade to return in the year of the Football World Cup," the organisers announced in a statement posted on their website this week.
"If all those involved pull in the same direction and continue to be open for dialogue, the Love Parade will be back in its hometown in 2006."
The world famous street party first hit serious trouble in 2002 when numbers dropped from to 400,000 revellers from 1.5 million the year before. Swedish techno star Adam Beyer was one of the million revellers missing that year, telling Skrufff soon afterwards that he considered the event 'old news'.
"The Love Parade has been going for twelve or thirteen years, nothing new has come along," said Beyer, "So people perhaps prefer to go elsewhere or even staying home."
Speaking to Skrufff this week, British techno don Dave Clarke was typically harsher, blaming its demise on a range of factors.
"The council doesn't want the festival because no-one took a responsible view of all the rubbish, and let's be honest here, the 'Love Parade' was hijacked by trance and pop music in the mid to late nineties. It had very little to do with techno," said Dave.
"Berlin, to me, was never a centre of techno, anyway; the best techno parties have always been in the former East, or Frankfurt. I always hated playing in Berlin- there's too many people trying to be uber-cool, it suffers from that capital city syndrome," he snarled.
(Jonty Skrufff/Skrufff.com)
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