Berlin’s cash-strapped Love Parade cancelled

22 April 2005

BERLIN – For the second year in a row, Berlin’s annual Love Parade techno party has been cancelled due to lack of sponsorship.

Loveparade Berlin GmbH confirmed on Wednesday that the event would have to be cancelled after mooted major sponsors pulled out. There was no longer sufficient time to continue negotiations with potential sponsors, the organisers said.

“We very much regret that it is not possible for us to stage the Berlin Love Parade this year”, said the organisers in an official statement. “We will do everything we can, via constructive dialogue with the State of Berlin and representatives of the economy and the media, to reach a solution which will enable the popular Berlin parade to return in the year of the football World Cup.”

The Love Parade lost its status as a demonstration in 2001, leading to enormous increases in the costs of staging the event, which remained free for the hundreds of thousands of ravers who attended. This, coupled with the poor economic climate, meant that it was no longer possible to organise the Love Parade in such a way that the costs could be covered, said the organisers.

However the Love Parade continues to be one of Germany’s export successes, with Love Parades taking place this year in Tel Aviv, Acapulco, San Francisco and Santiago de Chile, among other cities.

Meanwhile Berlin’s clubs are preparing to step in to fill the gap, according to the Tagesspiegel newspaper. The ‘Club Commission’, made up of representatives from various party organisers, are discussing a substitute programme for the second weekend in July, the traditional Love Parade date. In 2004, the club scene organised a ‘Love Week’ with more than 100 events after the Love Parade was cancelled for the first time.

The Tagesspiegel quoted budget airline Air Berlin spokeswoman Angelika Schaff as saying that many people had held back from booking tickets to Berlin for the Love Parade weekend. In particular, the British, normally “good customers” for the Love Parade, had postponed booking their tickets, according to Schaff. 

[Copyright Expatica News 2005]

Subject: German news