City Parade cancelled due to World Cup clash

The City Parade electronic music festival in Brussels has been cancelled this year because of a clash with the World Cup.

The 18th edition had been scheduled to take place on 23 June - but big screens around the city that evening will be showing the Red Devils play Tunisia.

Last year's City Parade took place around the Atomium. Organiser Claude Van Cools said: "I wanted to return to the city centre this year, but it just wasn't possible on this date because of the World Cup.

"I don't want to postpone the event either because we would then be competing with the many music festivals organised over the summer."

The City Parade is an open-air techno festival with several carnival sound-systems on trucks. It regularly attracts up to 300,000 partygoers and has been held since 2001 in Liège, Ghent, Charleroi, Mons and Brussels.

Van Cools said the next edition would take place on 22 June 2019 - but not necessarily in Brussels. The organising team are in contact with several Belgian cities to explore what is possible.