I have tried to find every bit of info I can (both in English and German) they are being very quiet about it but the main statement was that they could not guarantee a good quality event with the local promoters they use (the organisation itself is based in NL but operates in many other countries). they are not blaming cops/councils/licensing authorities -to be fair if that were the case it would have been mentioned ages ago.
one of the comments is from a German complaining about some problems with organisation/access to certain areas and local overcrowding. these may have been relatively minor but after loveparade 2010 noone is going to take any chances. It appears that other large events in DE which aren’t even music related have been cancelled for safety concerns and this is in a country with a tradition of permitting far larger open air gatherings than the UK.
it is partly the recession but none of this happened overnight. German events are swelled by people arriving from places like NL and the UK due to their local public authorities clamping down on events in these countries, not because they have suddenly fallen in love with everything German (they still haven’t been totally forgiven for the war and probably never will be!). NL also had many similar events but stopped licensing so many in the mid 2000s as they were getting fed up with drugs tourists. Loveparade itself got shifted from Berlin to a suburban/rural area because the organisers couldn’t afford increased licensing / security costs over the years and the Berlin authorities no longer wanted them there as it had become a excuse to take fuckloads of drugs rather than simply celebrate the fall of the Wall which although good for some people hasn’t been the miracle folk expected (its hard to explain fully unless you know a bit of German and have spent some time working in this area). Same as the concept behind the Euro. Both were products of good economic times which are now gone, and its making people across Europe rethinking whether its cost effective to permit large music events bringing in loads of foreigners who fund the areas criminal gangs especially when they are from neighbouring nations who have stopped licensing such events for the exact same reasons.
Todays Germany certainly isn’t going to make the same stupid mistakes as they did many decades ago, but they are going to be counting their euros very closely, and if cause more costs/risks they bring in in tax revenue or as profit to the promoters they tend not to be licensed as much. Exactly the same happens here in a coastal area of England, they make more money from normal mainstream commercial shopping and entertaintment venues than from specialist dance music events (which feed a lot of money straight to the illegal drugs market) and even alcohol-centred venues are being scrutinised and judged a lot harder.
Whilst Brighton is of course near the sea and still has a fair few music events but thats mostly because the Greens managed to become the largest political party in the Council mostly due to the youth vote and ageing hippies they want to keep it – but they don’t even have a majority, they narrowly only beat the Tories in terms of votes and the area is bitterly divided in reality. also many of todays politicians are my age and know exactly how events like raves are sometimss funded using the black market and also the impact the drugs culture has especially on European nations with public funded health systems. the ones in our day were way out of touch with “da yoof” and were actually quite naive TBH, evne Thatcho’s lot could be got to turn a blind eye when music events were seen as “young entrepreneurs starting up businesses”…
