Get Your Techno On

Rewind if you will to the second weekend in August, the hosting weekend the past 10 years of Zürich's single largest annual event. No, not the International Bankers Association convention, and not the Watchmakers-Clockmakers Institute flea market, but good guesses. Actually think something approaching the opposite. Yes, in its seemingly neverending paradoxical style, Zürich hosts the largest techno/rave party in Europe and one of the largest in the world, simply called Street Parade.

Zürich's techno club scene supposedly enjoys an outsized reputation for the city's modest size; we wouldn't know firsthand since it's not really our thing. But everybody here knows Street Parade. The kooks come in for one Saturday, from all over Europe and maybe the world, 800,000-1,000,000 people, a huge number dressed up or down or whatever you want to call it, the key themes being scanty and gothic. Maybe it's the way crazy ravers dress at 4:30am in hidden, pitch black, throbbing underground clubs, except in this case it's 2pm on a cloudless summer day and everything's wide open in public. The parade itself is a series of floats--each outrageously decorated blasting techno music and featuring gyrating costumed dancers--proceeding slowly along the side of Lake Zürich. The crowd masses alongside the procession (as shown above), drinking and dancing all afternoon. Good idea on somebody's part, I suppose.

So our core Australian friend invited us to her rooftop patio pre-Parade party along with more or less all the Rimini people and others, with only one catch--costume mandatory. Oh, what we won't do to build friendships, eh? Steph had been in Moscow (and liked the city!) for work the entire week prior, so we had precious little time to devise costumes. On our way to Zürich's flagship toy store (think FAO Schwarz) Saturday morning, we saw enough wackos already milling about to help focus our aim. Steph ended up in a boa and short skirt combo and I with a crazy devil outfit (sorry no pictures), both on the reasonable end of risque. As first time Parade-goers, we attained a more or less middle range of respectably weird at both the party and parade. Apparently with more experience, weird becomes more comfortable.

We partied it up on the rooftop on a beautiful sunny day (some people earning sunburns in strange places) and only descended in time to catch the tail end of the float procession, somewhat amusing but no great show. The crowd was crammed shoulder-to-shoulder for blocks upon blocks, but we persevered slowly to the event's center to be joined by other past Europameister friends (all parts of the same large group) near the beer tents; by early evening everyone was fairly swaying.

The group (not pictured here) broke apart slowly as sub-groups headed for different pre-parties or post-parties or all night rave parties or outdoor techno extravaganzas or who knows what. Steph and I and another Rimini couple selected a safe option, an all-ages free-of-charge techno party at the main train station; yes, the train station doubles as a big event hall. The station was (surprise!) packed solid, we hung around for one or two more drinks and danced with the sixteen year olds for a while, finally calling it quits around 1am. We'd later learn that we'd again achieved middle ground, with some of the rooftop group going toes-up by 10pm and others lasting until 5am. Ah, the luxury of youth.

So there you have it, our first and largest one-day outdoor costumed techno/rave parade party successfully completed. Is that the worst Zürich can throw at us? This is getting too easy...