Quick Facts
Biography
Rainer Schaller (born 4 January 1969) is the president and chief executive officer of McFit GmbH, Lopavent GmbH, which since 2006 has been the organizing company of the Love Parade, an electronic dance music festival and parade, Loveparade Berlin GmbH and LoveParade.net GmbH.
On 24 July 2010, at least 21 people were killed, with at least 511 others injured, following a stampede in a tunnel at the 2010 Love Parade - "The Art of Love" in Duisburg, Germany, which was organized by him. The number of people attending was somewhere between 200,000 and 1.4 million, considerably higher than the original estimate of approx. 800,000. As a consequence of this, he announced that no further Love Parades would be held.
The original organizer of the Love Parade, Dr. Motte (Matthias Roeingh), who had distanced himself from the event in 2006 citing the upsurge of commercialisation, has described Schaller as a "marketing locust".