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Techno music fans for annual Love Parade |
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July 9, 2000
BERLIN, (AP) - Driven by thundering beats, hundreds of thousands of techno music fans converged in central Berlin on Saturday for the annual Love Parade - the world's biggest dance party of its kind. Organizers of the daylong event said 1.7 million people, most from Germany but also many from abroad, were expected to jam Berlin's main axis stretching west from the Brandenburg Gate and past the Victory Column with its golden angel on top. A simultaneous parade in Leeds, England, was meant to underline this year's motto of "One World, One Love Parade" and what organizers see as the music's power to bring people together across borders. "Techno is a movement, a youth culture, not a fashion," said parade spokesman Enric Nitzsche. "It connects people from all over the world and lets them party and have fun together peacefully." Booming beats came from 52 sound trucks moving along the route, where traffic ceded to bobbing orange- and green-haired youths sporting sunglasses and skimpy attire despite cloudy weather. Among the security precautions, city workers had removed street light chandeliers in the Tiergarten park so people wouldn't climb on them. But one party seeker died even before things got under way. The 20-year-old man, in town Friday night apparently for pre-parade events at Berlin techno clubs, opened the door of a moving elevated train and was fatally struck by an oncoming train, police said. With beer and party drugs fueling much of the action and mounds of trash to sweep up afterwards, not everyone took a benign view of what organizers dubbed a "parade for respect, tolerance, communication between peoples and love." Police spoke of "the world's biggest drug party," estimating that 50 million marks (dlrs 25 million) worth of illicit substances were sold at last year's parade. To help cut down on garbage, drinks along the main route were being sold in recyclable cups for the first time. Since its debut in 1989 as a street party with 150 people on then West Berlin's Kurfuerstendamm boulevard, the Love Parade has grown steadily into a huge annual event - still led today by its founder Matthias Roeingh, better known as DJ Dr. Motte. |