BERLIN -- The world's biggest techno party could be in trouble.
Organizers of Berlin's Love Parade -- which drew a blissed-out crowd of over a million to the Tiergarten last July -- were too slow this year in applying for a permit from local authorities for what would have been the 13th annual event.
The Association for the Protection of the Tiergarten -- which opposes the Love Parade on the grounds that the noise and littering it produces are unacceptably extreme -- got there first. It secured rights to hold a public event in the Tiergarten that day.
As a result, Berlin's Minister for Interior Affairs, Eckart Werthebach, said earlier this month that he was denying the Love Parade a permit -- despite estimates that the event brings more than $100 million to the city from visitors.
"It's a great event for the image of Berlin, these pictures of young people that show Berlin is a vibrant city," said Hartmut Rhein, a spokesman for Werthebach. "Those pictures go all over the whole world and that's good for Berlin.
"But on the other side, we are bound to the law. We cannot break the law, even for somebody we like. (They didn't) do their homework, so to speak, which would have been to apply early enough as we told them. Unfortunately, they did not respond to our hints."
To say that the Love Parade's organizers -- and many fans -- were stunned by the denial of a permit would be a considerable understatement. Their first reaction was denial. Then came bluster. Now they are trying to make a deal.
"We are making an offer of a cooperative solution," Love Parade spokesman Enric Nitzsche said in a statement that suggested that the event could occur using only part of Tiergarten.
"We have presented the suggestion of a route compromise for the 14th of July that is being directed to the Berlin Authority for Assembly," Nitzsche said. "It would relieve some of the strain on the Tiergarten and could appease the citizens' initiative."
But working out a compromise might not be easy. Nitzsche said Love Parade organizers would also consider pushing the date of their huge event back one week. That might not be possible, though. Other groups opposed to the Love Parade have reportedly secured permits for other weekends in July.
Rhein confirmed there was a potential conflict with another event on July 21. He said his office would need some time to mull safety issues involved with holding the Love Parade at the same time as another event, regardless of the date.
The Association for the Protection of the Tiergarten event claims it will draw a crowd of 25,000 -- large enough for event and counter-event to pose security problems -- and Rhein said his office must take the claim seriously.
"We are required by the law to take that estimate seriously, unless we have some serious hints that this number is totally unrealistic," he said.
At stake is an event with growing international fame. They call it a parade, and in fact it features floats -- more than 50 of them last year -- that cruise down the main boulevard of the Tiergarten, meeting at the Victory Column.
But mostly the Love Parade provides a setting for people to mill around, dance, drink and do drugs -- and practice their social skills. Isolated incidents of violence occur, but the head of last year's contingent of 3,000 police officers patrolling the event called it "a peaceful party."
People dress up, or undress. Over near the huge screen set up near the Victory Column last year, you could see a gay male couple in shocking-pink fringe paints and glitter next to a few representatives of the local "We Remember the Grateful Dead" chapter next to a young German woman dancing on a platform wearing a see-through top and smiling when passersby glanced at her nipples.
All trends for the event have been toward more growth and a higher profile. It started in 1989 as a birthday party for Love Parade founder Matthias Roeingh, when 150 friends gathered with one float. Now the Love Parade rakes in corporate sponsorship -- and last year inspired sister events in Leeds, England, and elsewhere around the world.
