@stylez 431193 wrote:
Understood, but even festivals in Germany are granted 24hr music licsencing, have little security, can go on for more than 3 days and cost a third of what you pay in the UK for much, much less. It’ll be a shame if this changes though!
Germany (like many if not alll other European countries) is split up into regional units which have much more local autonomy than a English county. The way this works (and their politics) is complicated to us used to the English system but it means some areas can be very progressive and others in fact much more conservative than the UK. On another forum I am on, there is this half German half American dude old enough to be my Dad, bemoaning the fact you can’t even find a hippy folk music festival in the part of Germany he was staying in…..
in France some areas let you do free parties without any paperwork, others send in armed cops. In EU nations you also get hard right wing parties with real power, as opposed to the somewhat laughable efforts in the UK.
The reason the ill-fated Loveparade got shifted out of Berlin (where it was perfectly safe) was that it was getting a certain amount of public funding and the the voters of that area disagreed with it via the ballot box and refused to fund it any more. So it was moved to areas where unlike a capital city they were less prepared to deal with the crowds. As a comparable example, imagine Notting Hill Carnival being shifted to Portsmouth!
Even in the UK, in fact its really only the richer areas where late night dance music events have been restricted as their leisure economy makes as much if not more from less contentious events (particularly traditional seaside type things!) Many events still happen in poorer/higher crime areas where less problematic drug use isn’t a major issue for the cops, and where middle class drug users suffering problems is overshadowed by real bad violent crime. its not just “old killjoys” (who for all their faults have been democratically elected) but the fallout from our generations being stupid and not being able to play nicely together (which is something else Europeans are slightly better at).
