Love Family Park

Love Family Park is a techno and house festival that first ran on 23 June 1996 at the Dunlop-Bad, the Dunlop leisure park in Hanau, Hesse. Fedi Choukair organised it under the name Love Park. About eight hundred people came. Sven Väth and DJ T. played; the poster showed Väth as a Buddha and DJ T. in the belly. In 1997 the name became Love Family Park because the Unity Bath organiser in Berlin held the Love Park mark. The Dunlop site held the Fest through 2001. From 2002 it moved to Hanau’s Mainwiesen, the first Sunday in July.

Väth has played from the first edition and Robin Ebinger of Cosmopop called him the face of the Park. In 2008 capacity was put at fifteen to twenty thousand. Choukair sold his shares to Cosmopop in 2007–2008. The website guestbook closed the day after the 2009 edition, after criticism of the organisation. Early bills fit on one hand: 1997 Väth, Frank Lorber and Paul Cooper; 1998 Väth and Toni Rios; 1999 Väth, Chris Zander and Massimo; 2000 Väth, DJ SebBo, Ricardo Villalobos and Alter Ego live.

Nature protection pushed the Fest out of Hanau. From 2014 to 2016 it ran at the Mainz-Hechtsheim exhibition grounds. In 2017, the first blank year since 1996, the site lease failed. On 28 July 2018 it returned on Rüsselsheim’s Mainvorland, between Landungsplatz and Bootshaus, 10:00 to 22:00, the twenty-second edition, up to twenty thousand people. Ebinger said Rüsselsheim was the wished-for site. Väth closed the Mainfloor. Solomun, Richie Hawtin, Nina Kraviz, Amelie Lens, Boris Brejcha, Maceo Plex, Fritz Kalkbrenner, Dominik Eulberg, Lexy & K-Paul, Adriatique, andhim, Butch, Chris Liebing, Dixon, Karotte, Loco Dice, Moonbootica, Oliver Koletzki, Pan-Pot, Villalobos and Seth Troxler filled the rest.

In 2023 Cosmopop opened Rebstockpark, in west Frankfurt, Bockenheim, between the A648, Rebstockbad and the Kuhwaldsiedlung. The city capped volume; Cosmopop put six-figure losses on the sheet. Neighbours who had lived through Wireless with seventy thousand people in 2019 measured less trouble than feared. Ebinger told FAZEmag why the park: two floors, grass, skyline and Taunus, airport and public transport. The site lovefamilypark.com remains home. The 2026 aftermovie records that park stage.

Love Family Park began as a Sunday of eight hundred people at a Hanau pool, not as a coastal yard. Dunlop, Mainwiesen, Mainz, Rüsselsheim and Rebstockpark mark the Main map. Cosmopop, from Mannheim, has run it since Choukair’s sale. Väth anchors the Mainfloor. Techno and house measure the bill. Hanauer Anzeiger, Frankfurter Rundschau, FAZEmag and German Wikipedia are the record. Grass by the Main and, later, the Frankfurt park set the daytime scale. The Fest holds in that Hessian geography, not in an alpine valley.

Frankfurter Rundschau covered 6 July 2008, the twelfth edition on the Mainwiesen, and called Väth the sun king after twelve summers. DJ T. had shared the first bill. Cosmopop, based in Mannheim, negotiated a decibel cap in Frankfurt; the twenty-thousand and seventy-decibel target was left for later. The Rüsselsheim site faced the Main, with the Stadtpark and fortress walls. Rebstock faces the Taunus and the skyline. FAZEmag filed the 1996 TBT and the 2023 Ebinger interview. Hanauer Anzeiger dated the debut in a 7 July 2012 recap. German Wikipedia pins Dunlop, Mainwiesen, Mainz, the 2017 gap and Rüsselsheim. The 2026 aftermovie closes the park cycle. Toxic Family and Technoszene measured the 2018 return. The Fest holds as a Sunday — and later a Saturday — of techno and house by the Main. The 2023 FR called the Rebstock debut the twenty-fourth edition and said sweepers left the park cleaner the next day. Ebinger cited MOMEM, Frankfurt’s electronic-music museum, as cultural frame. Picnic blankets fitted between the two floors. The site sits near the airport and the centre. Choukair was no longer in charge after 2008. Dunlop-Bad was a pool and park, not a trade-fair yard. The Mainwiesen are Main meadows. Mainz-Hechtsheim is a fairground district south in the Rhine-Main. The Fest measured each move in grass, in capacity and in Väth’s name at the close. Cosmopop still lists Mannheim as home. Greenfields Open Air in Munich later cited the Park as a Sunday-format reference. The first poster put DJ T. inside Väth’s Buddha belly. 1998 held Väth and Toni Rios only. 2001 was the last Dunlop year. Main-Spitze quoted Ebinger on the city’s positive stance in Rüsselsheim and said the town bore no festival cost beyond staff support. The 2018 bill put Väth last on the Mainfloor as usual. lovefamilypark.com sold the tickets that summer.