Panic At Love Parade, Duisburg, Germany

The Love Parade is a place where some exhibit and enjoy other people's exhibitionist tendencies. Some attendees enjoy carrying around toys such as pacifiers or face masks. Often the crowd is imaginative in terms of clothing (or lack thereof) and appearance. One famous picture from the Love Parade is people sitting and dancing on streetlamps, trees, commercial signs, telephone booths, which gave the event's nickname "the greatest amateur circus on earth". The Love Parade has been quite peaceful for event of its size, seeing few arrests. In 2008, for example, charges were pressed for 6 robberies, 3 sexually-related offences, 40 thefts. 23 participants were caught with drugs and 49 were charged with bodily harm. 177 Love Parade visitors were provisionally arrested by the police. Arrests are usually related to drug crimes and most other incidents feature mostly people passing out due to dehydration or hyperthermia. In 2000, after the parade, a girl under the influence of ecstasy was run over by an S-Bahn after she had been leaning on the door too hard. The finale of the demonstration is by the so-called "Abschlusskundgebung" which are half-hour sets of the world's leading top DJs such as DJ Tiesto, Paul Van Dyk, Carl Cox, Armin Van Buuren, DJ Rush, DJ Hell, Westbam, Drum Connection, Miss Djax, Marusha or Chris Liebing. During this time all trucks (usually about 40) are connected to each other and set online to the statue of victory where the turntables are. This is one of the few chances a DJ can ever have to play for a crowd of about one million people. At the weekend of the Love Parade many clubs hold special events and parties and book well-known DJs for this occasion. Parties range from clubs with a hundred mostly exclusive guests, to almost raves with several floors and ten thousand dancers. Many people used to come to Berlin only for the parties and miss the parade in order to sleep. Or they enjoy it with other "ravers" in the park right next to the parade route. Together with Mayday, Nature One the Love Parade is one of the oldest and largest Festivals of Electronic music.
At the 2010 Love Parade in Duisburg, Germany, the number of people attending reached 1.4 million, when the original expectation was around 800,000. At least 19 people were killed, and hundreds injured, in an overcrowded tunnel leading into the festival. Safety experts and a fire service investigator had previously warned that the site was not suitable for the numbers expected to attend. Organizer and CEO Rainer Schaller said they will not continue the festival in the future.