The Love Parade was an electronic dance music festival and technoparade that originated in 1989 in West Berlin, Germany. It was held annually in Berlin from 1989 to 2003 and in 2006, then from 2007 to 2010 in the Ruhr region. Events scheduled for 2004 and 2005 in Berlin and for 2009 in Bochum were canceled.
A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, floats, or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually celebrations of some kind.
A rave is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance music scene when DJs played at illegal events in musical styles dominated by electronic dance music from a wide range of sub-genres, including drum and bass, dubstep, trap, break, happy hardcore, trance, techno, hardcore, house, and alternative dance. Occasionally live musicians have been known to perform at raves, in addition to other types of performance artists such as go-go dancers and fire dancers. The music is amplified with a large, powerful sound reinforcement system, typically with large subwoofers to produce a deep bass sound. The music is often accompanied by laser light shows, projected coloured images, visual effects and fog machines.
Christopher Street Day (CSD) is an annual European LGBTQ+ celebration and demonstration held in various cities across Europe for the rights of LGBTQ+ people, and against discrimination and exclusion. It is Germany's and Switzerland's counterpart to Gay Pride or Pride Parades. Austria calls their Pride Parade Rainbow Parade. The most prominent CSD events are Berlin Pride, CSD Hamburg, CSD Cologne, Germany and Zürich in Switzerland.
A technoparade is a parade of vehicles equipped with strong loudspeakers and amplifiers playing electronic dance music. It resembles a carnival parade in some respects, but the vehicles are usually less elaborately decorated. Unlike some carnival parades, a technoparade does not share the tradition of bombarding the spectators with sweets. However, the revellers do occasionally throw confetti and spray foam from the vehicles onto the crowd.
A float is a decorated platform, either built on a vehicle like a truck or towed behind one, which is a component of many festive parades, such as those of Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, the Carnival in São Paulo, the Carnival of Viareggio, the Maltese Carnival, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Mardi Gras in New Orleans, the Gasparilla Pirate Festival, the 500 Festival Parade in Indianapolis, the United States Presidential Inaugural Parade, and the Tournament of Roses Parade. For the latter event, floats are decorated entirely in flowers or other plant material.
The Fuckparade is an annual summer technoparade in Berlin. The event began in 1997 as a demonstration against the increasing commercialisation of culture and public life and the misuse of the right of assembly by purely commercial ventures, in particular the Love Parade. The event has had problems with the authorities since 2001, but in 2007 the Federal Administrative Court of Germany decided that it met the definition of a demonstration.
The Lake Parade is a large technoparade who is organised every year from 1997, on month of July, in Geneva on the quay of Lake Geneva.
German electronic music is a broad musical genre encompassing specific styles such as Electroclash, trance, krautrock and schranz. It is widely considered to have emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s, becoming increasingly popular in subsequent decades. Originally minimalistic style of electronic music developed into psychedelic and prog rock aspects, techno and electronic dance music. Notable artists include Kraftwerk, Can, Tangerine Dream and Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft. German electronic music contributed to a global transition of electronic music from underground art to an international phenomenon, with festivals such as Love Parade, Winterworld and MayDay gaining prominence alongside raves and clubs.
The Hanfparade is a hemp legalization demonstration in Berlin. It has taken place each year in August since 1997.
Moscow Pride is a demonstration of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender persons (LGBT). It was intended to take place in May annually since 2006 in the Russian capital Moscow, but has been regularly banned by Moscow City Hall, headed by Mayor Yuri Luzhkov until 2010. The demonstrations in 2006, 2007, and 2008 were all accompanied by homophobic attacks, which was avoided in 2009 by moving the site of the demonstration at the last minute. The organizers of all of the demonstrations were Nikolai Alekseev and the Russian LGBT Human Rights Project Gayrussia.ru. In June 2012, Moscow courts enacted a hundred-year ban on gay pride parades. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly ruled that such bans violate freedom of assembly guaranteed by the European Convention of Human Rights.
LovEvolution was a technoparade and festival that occurred annually in the Bay Area in late September and early October. From its inception in 2004 to 2009, the parade included 25 floats and started at San Francisco's 2nd and Market Streets. The parade continued all the way to San Francisco Civic Center Plaza. The 2009 parade drew over 100,000 people.
On 24 July 2010, a crowd disaster at the 2010 Love Parade electronic dance music festival in Duisburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, caused the deaths of 21 people from suffocation as attendees sought to escape a ramp leading to the festival area. 652 people were injured.
Energy was a techno-music event taking place after the Street Parade in Zürich, Switzerland. It is considered the largest indoor event of its nature in the country. In 2010, around 14,000 people attended.
Switzerland, a country which has long held a stance of neutrality in its relations with other nations, has not been immune to the movement of equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens. Prior to the 20th century, sodomy and other types of sexual intercourse between people of the same sex was held in various levels of legal contempt. Today, the modern LGBT rights movement in Switzerland is related to the larger international movement which developed largely after 1969.
Minsk Pride — gay pride in Minsk (Belarus). This is a festival in support of tolerance for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people in Belarus.
The Jerusalem gay pride parade is an annual pride parade taking place in Jerusalem. Since the first March for Pride and Tolerance in 2002, Jerusalem Pride—"Love Without Border"—has become an established event in Jerusalem.
Union Move was a technoparade that occurred annually in Munich from 1995 to 2001. It was an initiative by Munich event organizers and nightclub owners to demonstrate against the Munich curfew and excessive police controls. A recurring motto of the parade was "Music is the only drug!". The first Union Move took place on 27 May 1995 and attracted 60,000 people. The 1996 parade for the first time attracted 100,000 people, as well as the 1997 parade which involved 16 trucks equipped with sound systems. The next three parades attracted between 60,000 and 70,000 people, but in 2001 attendance declined. The parade usually started at Münchner Freiheit square and continued over Leopoldstraße all the way to Odeonsplatz, and in the first years even further over Isartor to Marienplatz where the final took place. After the final ravers could board a Housetram and this way continue partying through the city. At night the festival was continued at multiple after-parties in the local nightclubs under the motto Night Move. In 2015 an initiative was launched to revive the parade. So far, however, these attempts have not been successful.
Stéphane Imbach, performing as Madwave, is a Swiss trance DJ and producer.
Equality marches or equality parades are the Polish equivalent of pride parades, which aim to improve LGBT rights in Poland. They have been held in various Polish cities and towns since 2001.
