Why are music fans choosing to wear ear plugs at festivals?

Loop’s website features images of people wearing their devices in casual, fun settings, and the brand also collaborates with festivals like Coachella and Tomorrowland.

Alpine CEO Arthur van Keeken says earplugs are popular with “young, urban people,” which is exactly the audience for such events.

He believes they are becoming more conscious of taking care of their hearing, and he wants a future where audiophiles look at ear protection the way skiers look at helmets.

The British Association of Audiologists, healthcare professionals who specialize in diagnosing and treating ear problems, says hearing loss is one of the most common disabilities.

It affects one in three adults in the UK, according to the Royal National Institute of Deaf People (RNID).

Franki Oliver, the charity’s director of audiology, says that under a microscope, the sound-detecting cells in our ears and the tiny hairs that grow from them look like a piece of grass at a festival.

“The grass looks absolutely beautiful on the first day,” he says. “Nice and green.”

“After the first few days it’s fine. But by the end of the weekend it looks pretty dead and probably won’t come back.”

“The same thing happens to our ears when we expose them to loud sounds.”

Oliver says it’s a good thing that earplugs are increasingly seen as “an accessory for a night out rather than something you have to use.”

However, like our ears, not all of them are created equal.