From Zenon M. Feszczak Sent Sun, Jul 12th 1998, 14:39
From Zenon M. Feszczak Sent Sun, Jul 12th 1998, 14:39
Love Parade turns 10,
but not everyone in
Berlin is celebrating
July 10, 1998
Web posted at: 11:00 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT) www.cnn.com
BERLIN (AP) -- It started out small: just 150
people dancing behind a VW van.
Ten years later, the Love Parade has become
the world's biggest open-air rave -- a colossal
blowout in the heart of Berlin to the
thumping, electronic beat of techno music.
Last year, 1 million exuberant techno lovers
shimmied around the bass-booming
megaspeakers, a turnout expected to be matched
Saturday at Love Parade 98.
Hotels, restaurants, bars and dance clubs rejoice at
the extra business, estimated at $100 million
in 1997. City officials revel in the positive
publicity and youthful image the psychedelic parade
gives Berlin.
Organizers call it a paean to peace and tolerance.
Environmentalists
decry Love Parade
But despite the mellow
message -- this year's theme is
"One World, One
Future" -- not everyone loves the Love
Parade, which in 1996
was rerouted for safety reasons
from a crowded
commercial strip to a boulevard through
the Tiergarten park.
Environmentalists
trash it as a tree-killing, animal-scaring
eco-disaster.
And local officials
grouse about cleanup and repairs.
"With such a mass of
people, plants are devastated and the
ground is tramped down so much that the trees will
eventually die," says Carmen Schultze of
BUND, a national association of environmental
watchdogs.
Even the birds and squirrels get stressed.
"They just withdraw from this area and hide," she
says. "Of course it disturbs them."
Last year, city officials had to pick up 264 tons of
trash, not to mention hosing down grass and
bushes with 80,000 gallons of water to dilute the
produced by the dancers.
Aerating trampled earth and replacing injured
vegetation cost the equivalent of $144,000, says
Horst Porath, a Tiergarten official who wants the
parade out of his backyard.
And because the parade is registered as a political
demonstration, rather than a commercial event,
the city has to pick up the tab.
Getting on the love train... and commercial bandwagon
Legally speaking, the Love Parade has no official
organizer, so it qualifies as a demonstration
despite its moneymaking aspects, says Petra Reetz,
spokeswoman for the city transportation
department.
Besides, "the city absolutely gets something out of
it," she adds, namely tax revenues, an
international spotlight and lots of free advertising.
Airlines are offering special Love Parade fares to
Berlin. The German railway added 69 Love
Parade trains. And the subway system is offering a
weekend Love Parade ticket, an "attractive
and fluorescent" armband.
Planetcom, the multimedia firm that runs the parade,
has copyrighted the yellow sun Love Parade
logo, which appears on T-shirts, caps and other items.
Sales are so brisk on Love Parade weekend they've
even attracted counterfeiters. Last year police
seized about 4,500 phony items worth about $56,000.
Planetcom also charges the 50 or so sound trucks
$2,800 each to join the parade and even has
negotiated a deal with a TV soap opera to film
during the event.
All that raises about $833,000, which Planetcom
manager Ralf Regitz insists is just enough to
cover costs, although he declines to release a
detailed accounting.
Techno purists: For love or money?
Techno purists, something of a counterculture bunch,
complain the parade has become less about
love and more about money.
Regitz, 34, insists it's all about people expressing
themselves and says the lack of violence
proves the message is still getting through.
"Here's a culture that's open and peaceful," he
says. "That's the vision of the Love Parade."
For the masses, though, it's more like a big party.
"Peace and happiness and a lot of harmony -- there's
nothing wrong with that," says Heiko
Thedens, 25, a student from Hamburg who'll be
attending his fifth Love Parade this weekend.
"But I have to confess I never think a lot about it.
I'm more there to have fun."
Copyright 1998 Associated Press.