Panic At Love Parade, Duisburg, Germany

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".
The Love Parade is seen to be louder and more crowded than most concerts. With its water-cooled sound systems on every truck, the parade produced an extremely loud sound floor. After the 2001 arrangement, vets at Berlin Zoo blamed the Love Parade for giving more than half of its animal diarrhea. Chairman Heiner Kloes said vets told him the heavy bass was to blame for disturbing the animals. The parade consists of the sound trucks that usually feature local, or important, clubs and their DJs. It has become a rule that only trucks that have sponsors from a techno related field, such as clubs, labels or stores, are allowed, but advertising space was increased after the 2006 event to offset the high costs of equipping a truck. The trucks are usually open on top and feature dancers, with box-systems mounted on the side or rear.