Streetparade: 20 Years Love, Freedom, Tolerance & Respect

[caption id="attachment_520" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Streetparade 2011: Centre Stage, Bellevue[/caption]

Zurich: A city renowned for business, banks and a high standard of living. It all sounds so formidable. And serious! But every year at around about August, it’s time for the people of Zurich – and beyond – to let their hair down. It’s time to party!

The Streetparade event has been a magnet for techno and trance fans in ist 20 years of existence. With the first parade having taken place in 1992 with approximately 1000 participants, this number has now increased by a thousandfold. Throughout the 20 years it has established itself as one of the largest techno and trance events on an international level. With themes such as ’Peace!’ (2002), ’Today is Tomorrow’ (2005), ’Move Your Mind’ (2006) and ’Friendship’ (2008), the event is known for having proportionally few severe incidents throughout the years. An event that is affected by weather conditions, Streetparade 2003 and 2004 saw record temperatures of 37°c. But even at 17°c (2002 and 2006) partygoers still had a blast.

This year’s Streetparade was no exception. Starting at 13:00, six stages and approximately 30 floats known as ’lovemobiles’ caused the centre of Zurich to bounce. Under the theme of ’20 Years Love, Freedom, Tolerance & Respect’ approximately 900,000 ravers partied hard under the sun of Zurich. As every year

Many attend Streetparade afterparties – Energy being the most prominent. Starting well before the midnight hour, the event takes ravers through the night and into the early morning hours. Known as the largest indoor event of Switzerland, thousands of ravers flocked from Zurich’s city centre towards the Hallenstadion in Zurich-Oerlikon. The amazing David Guetta, DJ Antoine and Sir Colin were some of the DJs in this year’s lineup at Energy.

While the Streetparade event itself is free, the CHF 90.40 charged for Energy 2011 may cause some partygoers to think twice about attending. For the first time also, this year’s Streetparade organisers insured themselves against a financial loss due to bad weather conditions. So while Zurich became unimaginably unrecognisable on Saturday 13^th August 2011, some things simply remain to remind us that we are in Switzerland after all...

Streetparade: Temperature vs. Participants