The Love Parade (German: Loveparade) was an electronic dance music festival and technoparade that originated in 1989 in West Berlin, Germany.

On 24 July 2010, a crowd crush at the Love Parade in Duisburg caused the deaths of 21 people, with at least 500 others injured.

[1] It was started by the Berlin underground at the initiative of Matthias Roeingh (also known as "Dr. Motte") and Danielle de Picciotto, who were partners at the time.

The idea came from the administrative employee Miriam Scheffler https://www.zeit.de/online/2009/27/loveparade-interview [1] It was supposed to be a bigger birthday party for Roeingh, and the motto Friede, Freude, Eierkuchen (in English — Peace, Joy, Pancakes) stood for disarmament (peace), music (joy) and a fair food production/distribution (pancakes).

The festival became centered around the Siegessäule in the middle of the park; and the golden angel atop the column became the parade's emblem.

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.

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.

[6] The 2009 event, planned for Bochum, was canceled;[7] 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.

On 9 July 2022, the first Rave The Planet Parade took place in Berlin to call for the city’s electronic music culture to be added to a World Heritage list.

[citation needed] After the 2001 arrangement, veterinarians at the Berlin Zoo blamed the parade for giving more than half of its animals diarrhea.

[citation needed] The trucks were usually open on top and featured dancers, with box-systems mounted on the side or rear.

One famous picture from the 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".

[11] Arrests were usually related to drug crimes and most other incidents featured people passing out due to dehydration or hyperthermia.

[14] Safety experts and a fire service investigator had previously warned that the site was not suitable for the numbers expected to attend.

On Saturday 8 July 2000 a Love Parade was held in Roundhay Park, Leeds, United Kingdom sponsored by BBC Radio 1.

In Summer 2000 one of the first public events that took place in post-war Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, was Futura, Festival of Electronic Music.

Some of the world's most famous DJs, including the organizers of the Berlin Love Parade, performed in a bombed and burnt out factory.

In 2006, the parade was held on 23 September and was renamed Love Fest because the Loveparade Berlin organization did not renew any of their worldwide licenses not already under contract so they could focus on their own event.

[1] Due to this there was a dispute between the organizers and the city of Berlin every year about the status of the Love Parade and who should bear what costs.