Celebrating its 15th "birthday", Love Family Park is the brain child of Cocoon labels head honcho, Sven Vath. This festival boasts a lineup that outside of Sven himself includes, Richie Hawtin, Ricardo Villalobos, Loco Dice, Magda, DJ Hell, Reboot Live, Karotte and a slew of other high profile DJ's. It's as if Sven himself swooped in from the heavens of hedonism and scooped up all the resident Dj's of that far off party island in Spain (Ibiza) and laid them in Mainwiesen, a park in the city of Hanau,(one and a half hours out of Frankfurt, Germany) to entertain thousands of partiers.

Called by one event worker as the "Woodstock of Southern Germany", I gave it the nick name of "Techno-Stock" and it is easy to see why. Setup in a park as its name implies, this festival is littered with a cacophony of bright multi-colored tents as buff shirt less guys and blonde blue eyed bikini clad babes fight the burning heat of a hot German summer with an over-abundance of beer and the apathy that can only come with the revelry in bacchanalia. With the beats of their Dj's to shade them, these festival goers indulge in a decadence expertly crafted by the Cocoon master of ceremonies, Sven Vath.

The crowd at this festival was rather homogenous, but that's not a bad thing if you are into attractive 20 something year olds walking around in beach wear. The people by enlarge at LFP (Love Family Park) were generally very friendly. At many points in the festival I had people tap me on the shoulder and ask me to take their picture. We then sprang into conversation as they asked me about my origins and what had brought me all the way out to Hanau, Germany. Over the course of the day I met an aspiring young DJ whom hailed from the same home town as our Uber host, Sven. I met a girl named Roxy from America whom was living abroad in Germany and shared the same love of Techno and exotic festivals as this techno traveler does. As the day progressed I spoke with many different people, some of whom had traveled from other European countries to attend but most of whom were from various southern regions in Germany. What stuck out to me is how friendly everyone was, but I suppose that is the name of the game when you are at "Love Family Park".

Mainwiesen is essentially an open field which one can reach after a somewhat confusing 20 minute walk from the train station at Hanau. Within this field were setup 3 stages, 1 main stage and 2 smaller stages. The two smaller stages are your standard fare concert stage setups, good sound and lighting but nothing extraordinary. The mains stage looks like a giant tent, with a massive LED curtain suspended behind the DJ booth to provide Sven a multi-media back drop.

The central theme of Love Family Park seems to be "tents", as the entrance to the Festival is lined with tipi like structures; the main stage is a tent that resembles the Sydney Opera house. I assume that the event organizers were giving out free tents to all the partiers as I have never seen so many similar tent like structures setup outside of a Boy Scout convention.

To add to the tent city theme, kite like structure are suspended by ropes and fastened to the ground around the festival.

The entire experience does lend itself to my moniker of "Techno-Stock" and generally provides a really fun, festive and relaxed party experience.

Mind pounding, audio-orgasmic Techno; that is what comes to mind when I think of the sets that Loco Dice is capable of producing. This German born former Hip Hop/Rap DJ turned techno master was bringing his "A" game when I arrived at his stage. It was now approximately 4:00pm and the sun was beating down intensely on the masses of sweat covered German partiers were pumped with energy and going wild with every thump of the hard techno sounds. Delivering massive doses of hard pounding techno, loco dice drove the crowd into fervor, making one wonder as to which body of energy was generating more heat, the sun or the techno fueled crowd jumping up and down. This humble reporter thinks it may have been Loco Dice that knocked up the temperature a few degrees Celsius higher that afternoon.

This legendary Chilean born, German resident DJ's name is held in extremely high regard, whether someone is recalling an amazing 6 hour set they've heard this DJ play during some absurd morning hour or whether it is in reference to the fact that he hasn't played in America in over 7 years. Anyone familiar with the Minimal Techno scene is sure to know the weight that Villalobos carries.

During Detroit's electronic music festival, "Movement", Villalobos was to be the promoters trump card in creating an over the top festival lineup. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, (The promoters claimed some visa issue), Villalobos was a no show. Having gone through this frustrating experience and also having never seen Villalobos before, the anticipation in seeing him was very high for me.

So how was Villalobos? I would say that I was fairly impressed but not necessarily blown away. To me, playing minimal techno the right way definitely takes a lot of skill. By itself, the independent tracks in a minimal techno set are not overly impressive, but layered the right way by a skilled DJ, the sounds can carry the listener off into the world of the DJ's mind. Weaving in sounds of elephants trumpeting out to minimal kick drums and then dropping in some hard minimal tech sounds, Villalobos certainly did his reputation justice as he took the eager crowd on blissfully minimal techno led voyage on a hot German day.

Sven himself is as big a fixture of the Love Family Park experience as the entirety of the rest of festival. Never have I seen anyone convert such strong narcissism into so much fun. Commanding the main stage for an entire 8 hours, Sven manages not only to dish out the best techno beats this side of the Atlantic, but simultaneously directs his party minions to toss out free red bull into the crowd. Always the pillar of patriarchal party hosting, Sven will at times descend from his DJ dais and lovingly pass around shots of Jaeger Meister, Jaeger and Red bull…"who'd a thunk it"? Sven at the same time hosts his own entourage of VIP's on stage with small talk and an endless supply of Champagne. I'm not sure if James Bond could muster up enough panache to pull this all of in parallel as well as the suave Sven is able to do…for 8 hours in the middle of a fiery hot German summer. In short, I would probably go back to Love Family Park given the right situation, just to indulge into the Sven Vath experience.

The finale of Love Family Park is probably pretty obviously the best part of the festival. With Sven Vath closing out his epic 8 hour set, thousands of German ravers celebrating, fireworks shooting off for 30 minutes and a barrage of confetti, the senses are definitely overloaded with energy. I'll let the associated videos do the speaking for me. Enjoy!

Boasting an extended 8 hours set from "The" master of party ceremonies Sven, backed by some of the best European Techno and Tech-house DJ's, Love Family Park is definitely a great reason to venture out to the greater Frankfurt area. As long as you aren't put off by the potentially soaring temperatures and a predominantly young twenty something crowd, then you'll sure to be satisfied by the experience. While it may not be the best summer techno festival in Europe, the strong lineup of DJ's like Richie Hawtin, Marco Carola, Loco Dice, the "Sven Vath" experience and an incredible 30 minute long fireworks finale make a compelling reason for any Techno or Tech House enthusiast to come bask in the glory Love Family Park.