Editing Love Parade (section)

==History==
[[File:Liebende.jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|Lovers on the Love Parade, 1999]]
The parade first occurred in July 1989, when 150 people took to the streets in Berlin.<ref name=Borneman/> It was started by the Berlin underground at the initiative of [[Dr. Motte|Matthias Roeingh]] (also known as "Dr. Motte") and [[Danielle de Picciotto]], who were partners at the time.<ref name=Borneman/> It was conceived as a [[political demonstration]] for peace and international understanding through love and music. The idea came from the administrative employee Miriam Scheffler https://www.zeit.de/online/2009/27/loveparade-interview <ref name=Borneman/> Over the years, the Berlin Love Parade was mainly organized by Dr. Motte, Sandra Molzahn, Ralf Regitz and William Röttger (until the takeover by Mc Fit in 2006)<ref>https://www.zeit.de/2009/27/Love-Parade-27/seite-2</ref><ref>https://www.morgenpost.de/printarchiv/berlin/article104262140/Friede-Freude-Eierkuchen.html</ref>It was at the beginning supposed to be a bigger birthday party for Roeingh, and the motto ''Friede, Freude, Eierkuchen'' (in English&nbsp;— ''Peace, Joy, Pancakes'') stood for [[disarmament]] (peace), music (joy) and a fair food production/distribution (pancakes). Roeingh dissociated himself from the parade in 2006 because of the [[commercialization]] of the event.

The parade was held on the Berlin [[Kurfürstendamm]] until 1996. Because of overcrowding on this street, the festival moved to the [[Straße des 17. Juni]] in the [[Großer Tiergarten]] park in the center of Berlin. The festival became centered around the ''[[Berlin Victory Column|Siegessäule]]'' in the middle of the park; and the golden angel atop the column became the parade's emblem.

Many people from Germany and abroad traveled to Berlin to take part in the Parade&nbsp;— over a million attended in the years 1997 through 2000 and 800,000 in 2001. Attendance at the 2001 festival was significantly lower because the date of the parade was changed with little advance notice. 2002 and 2003 also saw lower figures, and in 2004 and 2005 the parade was canceled because of funding difficulties. The parade had inspired opposition because of the damage to the Tiergarten by attendees, who were provided with insufficient toilet facilities. Opponents allegedly complicated matters for organisers by booking their own events in Berlin and so to exclude the parade from being able to register with city police. In 2004, however, a scaled-down version took place which served more as a mini-protest and was promoted with the title ''Love Weekend''. Dozens of clubs promoted the weekend-long event all over the city, with various clubs staying open for three days straight without closing.  In 2006, the parade made a comeback with the help of German exercise studio [[McFit]].

The Love Parade 2007 was planned for 7 July 2007 in Berlin. However, the Berlin event was canceled in February because the [[Senate of Berlin]] did not issue the necessary permits at that time. After negotiations with several German cities, on 21 July, it was announced that the parade would move to the [[Ruhr Area]] for the next five years. The first event took place in [[Essen]] on 25 August. 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 19 July on the [[Bundesstraße 1]] under the motto ''Highway of Love''. The event was planned as a "Love Weekend", with parties throughout the region. The official estimate is that 1.6 million visitors attended, making it the largest parade to date.<ref>
{{Cite news
  | last = Volmerich
  | first = Oliver
  | title = Feucht, fröhlich, friedlich
  | newspaper = [[Ruhr Nachrichten]], Dortmunder Zeitung
  | pages = DOLO1x1
  | date = 21 July 2008
  }}, in [[German language]]</ref>

The 2009 event, planned for [[Bochum]], was canceled;<ref>{{cite news|title=Loveparade 2009 Fällt Komplett Aus|date=15 January 2009|url=http://www.wdr.de/themen/freizeit/freizeitgestaltung/loveparade_bochum_09/index.jhtml|language=de|work=[[Westdeutscher Rundfunk|Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR)]]|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090118210642/http://www.wdr.de/themen/freizeit/freizeitgestaltung/loveparade_bochum_09/index.jhtml|archive-date=18 January 2009|access-date=16 January 2009}}</ref> a year later, the deaths of 21 attendees at the [[Duisburg]] venue prompted the parade's organiser [[Rainer Schaller]] to declare an end to the 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.<ref name="guardian"/> The parade was one of the oldest and largest festivals of electronic music, together with [[Zürich]]'s [[Streetparade]], [[Mayday (music festival)|Mayday]] and [[Nature One]].