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Schlagermove Hamburg

July 10, 2015

From Friday evening (10.07.2015) a frenzied party will come to the city on the Elbe, as hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets with sunglasses, wigs and costumes to parade through the Hanseatic city.

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Hamburger Schlagermove Ein Festival der Liebe
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/K. Nietfeld

While schlager icon Guildo Horn will kick off the formal festivities on the afternoon of July 11, diehard fans will be already descending on the Heiligengeistfeld in the St. Pauli district to warm up for the weekend of schlager madness. The area has five tents where people can get their groove on to Germany's much loved (and loathed) turbo-charged folk-pop genre.

The somewhat tongue-in-cheek celebration of folksy kitsch began in Hamburg in 1997 with a few tens-of-thousands of partygoers, modeled on the famed Berlin Love Parade. Now this weekend more than 350,000 revelers are expected to groove to the roving beats booming from speakers mounted on the back of 45 trucks. And then, of course, there's the Aftermove Party.

While Hamburg folk are widely considered cool and tolerant, there have been incidents at the mega roving party in the past - namely issues with mass public urination. This year the organizers promise to remedy the deluge with 400 toilet booths for party-goers.

ot/ak/jt (Hamburg.de, Hamburger Abendblatt)