Panic At Love Parade, Duisburg, Germany

The Love Parade 2007 was planned for July 7, 2007 in Berlin. However, the Berlin event was cancelled in February as the Senate of Berlin had not issued the necessary permissions at that time. After negotiations with several German cities, on July 21, it was announced that the Love Parade would move to the Ruhr Area for the next five years. The first event took place in Essen on August 25. The Parade in Essen saw 1.2 million visitors in comparison to the 500,000 who attended the 2006 parade in Berlin.
In 2008, the festival took place in Dortmund on July 19 on the Bundesstraße 1 under the motto Highway of Love. The event was planned as a "Love Weekend", with parties throughout the region. For the first time the Turkish electronic scene was represented by its own float, called "Turkish Delights". The official estimate is that 1.6 million visitors attended, which makes it the largest Loveparade to date. The 2009 event, planned for Bochum, was cancelled; a year later, the deaths of 19 attendees at the Duisburg venue prompted the Love Parade's founder Rainer Schaller to declare an end to the iconic festival."The Love Parade has always been a peaceful party, but it will forever be overshadowed by the accident, so out of respect for the victims the Love Parade will never take place again," Schaller said. The music played at the events is predominantly electronic dance music: in this case mainly Trance, House, Techno, and Schranz music. Attempts to introduce other music styles, such as hip hop, have failed. Hardcore and Gabber music were part of the parade in early years, but were later removed. They are now celebrated separately on a counter-demonstration called "Fuckparade".