Designer Shoes for Festivals!

When you think of a festival, what comes to mind?  For me music, booze, dust, tents and overpriced burgers all spring into my consciousness; other people may include sun-cream, blisters and toilet paper to the equation.  For sure everybody has their own festival experience, complete with amazing memories (or memory-loss), but I wager nobody’s immediate thought when they think “festival”...is “shoes!”  

Well maybe that is all about to change, as leading designers are becoming ever-more aware of the potential demand from millions of festival-goers for fashionable, summery designer shoes.  There may be some people out there that genuinely enjoy romping around in plastic flip-flops that fall apart within a few hours, or heavy steel-toed boots that make their feet ache before the first band are over, but I expect most of us festivalees would rather spend our few days of fun in comfort and (more importantly) style!

Depending on the kind of festival you are planning to attend, there is a variety of cool footwear to suit your needs; from designer wellies for folk at Glastonbury and gladiator strap sandals for pop rock Reading, to Doc Martins for metalheads at Download and leather flip-flops for sun-worshipers at Bennacasim – no matter what your style, there is high-quality footwear out there to suit you!  

Over the last seven years I have been to dozens of different festivals across the world and found that a few things are the bare essentials for having a good time; a light-weight and preferably disposable tent, a toothbrush, your wallet, a little torch, a couple of t-shirts and a good pair of shoes.  If you can be certain that it’s not going to rain, you can even leave the tent behind and rock up with nothing but a couple of shirts, a toothbrush in one pocket, a bunch of Euros in another pocket and a blanket or towel draped over your shoulder for kipping under.  But one thing should never be left behind – the shoes.  Even if you’re not a fan of getting into the think of the crush, where your feet will be mangled within seconds without adequate protection; shoes are still essential for avoiding the plethora of nasty things that carpet every festival floor.  Just wandering around a festival is enough to cake your feet in an assortment of horribleness; if it’s not mud and excrement, it’s half-eaten burgers, bits of broken flags and, despite the festival’s best attempts, shards of broken glass.  I have, like many, tried the festival-without-shoes and believe me when I say it takes a few hours at most before you find yourself scanning the floor for lost footwear!

Simply bringing shoes along is not enough either, you must make sure that thee shoes you bring will survive the festival!  Shoes are essential, but they’re useless if they’re in piece on the ground, along with all the other junk.  So make sure you invest some sturdy, well-made footwear that will survive the chaos!  That doesn’t mean you have to start wearing New Rock goth boots either; there are loads of retailers that specialise in making high quality and fashionable designer shoes that won’t fall apart on you and leave you ankle-deep in festival gunk!