Berlin plans 'love train' techno parade

Five years after 21 people were killed in a mass panic at the "Love Parade" techno music festival in Duisburg, Germany, organizers announced Monday they are planning to launch a new electronic music festival this summer in Berlin.

The new festival, dubbed the "love train," is expected to take place in July, organizers said. It does not aspire to be the next "Love Parade," which was founded in 1989 in Berlin and then discontinued after the disaster in June 2010.

That was when Duisburg, a city in western Germany, hosted the Love Parade festival, attended by hundreds of thousands of techno music fans. A bottleneck formed at one of the tunnels leading into the festival grounds, and as people attempted to move in both directions through the tunnel, people began to panic. Nineteen individuals either suffocated or were trampled to death at the scene, while a further two victims died in hospital.

"We don't want a revival of the love parade," parade organizer Jens Hohmann told news agency dpa. "It is a demonstration for more cooperation and tolerance."

The parade will also address concerns about rising rent prices as well as conditions for refugees.

"With a pure demonstration only 50-100 people would come. With music we reach more," Hohmann said.

Parade organizers are expecting a crowd of about 15,000 for the event. As of Monday, nearly 19,000 people have indicated they would take part in the parade on Facebook. Participants are being encouraged to bring banners and placards with political messages as well.

"We have no guiding principle, we have no sponsors, and we also don't want to book any international DJ's. We are a demonstration," parade organizer Martin Hüttmann told broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenberg

The parade route will run from Alexanderplatz in the center of Berlin and south, to the Kreuzberg district. Hohmann said there will also be a minute of silence to honor the victims of the 2010 Duisberg parade disaster.

bw/jr (dpa, rbb)