Streetparade: 20 Years Love, Freedom, Tolerance & Respect

by Guest Post on September 3, 2011

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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

the event featured big names in the world of techno and trance – Boy George, Carl Cox and Paul van Dyke, just to name a few. With free admittance one must add! Not a bad deal for an event taking place in Switzerland’s largest city in the heart of Europe. Everyone can come! And they did... Many loyal ravers have travelled from various parts of Europe to attend the 20th anniversary of Streetparade.

 

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 13th August 2011, some things simply remain to remind us that we are in Switzerland after all...

Streetparade: Temperature vs. Participants

 


YEAR


TEMPERATURE


PARTICIPANTS


1992


-


1,000


1993


27°c


10,000


1994


-


20,000


1995


24°c


150,000


1996


-


350,000


1997


27°c


475,000


1998


28°c


450,000


1999


30°c


550,000


2000


32°c


750,000


2001


21°c


1,000,000


2002


17°c


650,000


2003


37°c


900,000


2004


37°c


1,000,000


2005


23°c


1,000,000


2006


17°c


800,000


2007


23°c


800,000


2008


24°c


820,000


2009


19°c


600,000


2010


22°c


650,000


2011


28°c


900,000

 


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