Record-breaking shoe sale at autumn market fair

The Goldener Oktober festival in Saarburg witnessed something truly remarkable on Sunday: a full 278 pairs of shoes on display outside Müller-Hamann clothes shop near the central roundabout. This is a record for Saarburg, as the town has at least four shoe shops within 200 metres of each other, and nobody has ever stocked so many shoes for Saarburg's 6,000 inhabitants in one go.

An anonymous spokesperson for another rival shoe shop a few metres further on the next street said, "This is obviously a vanity project. Considering most people buy three pairs of shoes a year, if they bought one pair from each of the shops in town, it would take them 15 to 18 months before they came back to your shop. Müller-Hamann is just trying to take all our business, and we are barely floating as it is." When questioned about whether it was time to start selling something else, the spokesperson responded, "No. Shoes are what makes our shop unique in this town, and we will continue to do so until everyone ese is out of business."

When asked if Saarburg should start trying to encourage other businesses to the area, a spokesperson for the town council said, "Saarburg is good at many things. One of those things is selling shoes. We have more shoe shops per head of population than most German cities. We are proud of this fact, and I don't see any reason why we should put this remarkable statistic at jeopardy. Having only one bakery, one butcher and no greengrocer should not detract from the fact Saarburg is very good at shoe shops."

The Goldener Oktober festival in full swing

Apart from four shoe shops, other highlights of Saarburg include five pharmacies, seven coffee and cake houses (three owned by the same person), four Italian restaurants and four supermarkets. Despite closing on Saturday afternoons when everyone is free to go shopping, Saarburg has Sunday opening events every quarter. The town spokesperson continued, "Having so many pharmacies and shoe shops means if you are having stomach pains or headache, or you've lost a shoe and it happens to be on one of our Sunday open days, you're in luck because you can come on down here and get yourself the necessary items." When asked why this would not be possible on Saturday afternoons, the spokesperson declined to comment.

Music for the festival was provided by Adelbert's Rolling Disco Show, and was enjoyed by several people