Two months before Germany's right-wing AfD party's planned national conference in Essen, the city and other protagonists are organising demonstrations against the party, with tens of thousands of participants.
The organisers are expecting 30,000 demonstrators at a main rally on the last Saturday in June. At the event, prominent representatives from politics and business are expected to take to the stage.
Various groups and alliances are also planning activities throughout the party conference weekend, including a music parade.
The police are preparing for a large-scale operation - especially as three round of 16 matches of the European Football Championship are also taking place in North Rhine-Westphalia on the same weekend.
A police spokesperson said that a total of 10 rallies with a total of 66,000 participants had been registered for the party weekend. Although the number of participants is only a rough estimate so far, the police are preparing for the largest demonstrations in Essen for years.
The AfD has rented the Grugahalle in Essen for its national party conference on June 29 and 30. Messe Essen, as the landlord, still wants to try to withdraw from the contract. A spokeswoman said that a legal review is still ongoing.
However, courts have recently ruled in favour of the AfD in several cases where landlords wanted to cancel a contract that had already been concluded.