Right, I'm gonna wade into this with my size 10's here, but tbh I don't really give a **** what's being said here about the line-up, the disagreements between Fusion and SC, or any of the other stuff that's come up in the conversation. I have a deeply held viewpoint on this and I'm gonna express it.

This event, as far as I'm concerned, is pretty much a fecking disgrace, and as far as I'm concerned disgrace's any night that as chosen to be involved with it. The original Leeds Love Parade imo, was one of the best events ever held in the UK, and symbolised a unity in clubland that is rarely seen, and the nigts involved in that were actually putting something back into the scene by putting the event on for free. Okay, they will have profitted in the long run through association with the event and the publicity generated, but they still managed to take over Leeds for a day and put on the biggest free event the UK's ever seen.

Taking the point further, the Berlin Parade was originally started as a political statement, standing up for the cause of dance music, which has been attacked universally across Europe by governments of all kinds for the last 15-20 years. It's not often we get to show that we're not just the drug munching ravers portrayed by the tabloids, and the Love Parade in essence is about showing just that with a peaceful parade of music through Berlin.

As for this event, it strikes me that the nights involved have simply looked at the situation created by the refusal of successive councils across the UK to allow a second Love Parade, and realised that there is an opportunity to make some money by cashing in on the name and claiming to put on a seconf Leeds Love Parade. How the feck they can claim this is beyond me, when you consider that there is no parade, and the event is £25 a ticket (or more). The word Love can be taken many ways, but for me in this context it should be taken as a love of the music, as exemplified by the willingness to put on such an event for free - the same kind of love as is shown by the hard working people on the free party circuit who risk the law and the expense involved to put on their parties for free. Therefore, how can this event possibly be called a Love Parade when it has no parade, and no love is being shown what so ever or else they wouldn't be charging in. For me, this is a raping of an institution in dance music for commercial gain, and hence every night involved in doing so should hang their heads in shame, as it is raping of the scene like this that has caused so much dance music, and the associated core values that came along with the out break of the rave generation.

As for the points regarding pissed up nobheads, kids and bad transport planning at the last Love Parade, all I have to say is:

1) Pissed up nobheads
This event will still be full of pissed up nobheads - I was flyering outside Super Conductor at Mission last Friday and the place had a large percentage of them anyway, let alone with the addition of the crews from places like Federation, Kiss Da Funk, and the stripey jumpered coke-heads that frequent old school nights like Joy.

2) Kids
What's wrong with kids at festivals? The big hippy festivals of the 60's and 70's (Isle of Man etc) allowed kids, and the free party scene has no problem with it. At the end of the day, getting young people into dance music early is vital to the future of the scene, as if we don't then the generations that follow will be like the one coming through now, and only be interested in hip-hop, garage, and rock, and as a result our scene will die a slow death. At the end of the day I'd rather put up with some kids drinking cider than them growing up having no idea what they are missiing out on by ignoring dance music and dance events.

3) Bad transport
This is down to Leeds Council to sort out, and if they could get it right the money that comes into Leeds economy by the influx of people would more than cover the extra cots of policing, cleaning up and additional transport services, so this is no argument raelly. The fact is that because of nonsense reasons like this another Love Parade won't be allowed, but that is no excuse for the commercial nights of Leeds (+ Parlez-Vous & Goodgreef) to rape the event to make some money!

Sorry if this is a bit long-winded, but this event goes against everything I stand for and believe in so I feel it's necessary to be so long-winded for me to explain why.