KentOnline

bannermobile

News

Sport

Business

What's On

Advertise

Contact

Other KM sites

CORONAVIRUS WATCH KMTV LIVE SIGN UP TO OUR NEWSLETTERS LISTEN TO OUR PODCASTS LISTEN TO KMFM
SUBSCRIBE AND SAVE
News

Maidstone River Festival arrives with a splash

By: Alan Smith ajsmith@thekmgroup.co.uk

Published: 17:01, 27 July 2024

Updated: 17:05, 27 July 2024

A town’s annual river festival is in full swing.

The Maidstone RIver Festival kicked off in glorious sunshine at midday when the festival chairman Cllr Dave Naghi fired off a maroon and sounded a 1940’s air-raid siren.

Maidstone River Festival: Boats lining the riverbank
Maidstone River Festival: Festival chairman Dave Naghi with the deputy mayor of Maidstone, Cllr Martin Round
Maidstone River Festival: a boat dressed as a landing craft

More than 85 boats are lining the riverbank, many dressed with flags and bunting.

In Coronation Square, at Lockmeadow, there are two large stages, which will host a dozen music and dance acts non-stop throughout the day, with Beats Workin headlining at 8.40pm.

There is also a children’s funfair at Lockmeadow, with an adventure house, hook-a-duck and many other favourites.

mpu1

The main event - the famed raft race - is at 2.30pm, starting at the High Level Rail Bridge, when teams of volunteers will battle to be the first across the finish line in a variety of weird and wacky homemade craft, while trying to avoid the buckets of water thrown at them by the boat-owners.

Meanwhile, the church tower at All Saints’ Church is open, giving visitors with enough energy to climb to the top spectacular views across the town.There is a vintage double-decker bus giving free rides throughout the town, and over at Maidstone Museum, there is a simultaneous Steam Punk fair.

Maidstone River Festival: An India dancer on stage
Steam punks at Maidstone Museum

If you don’t know what steam punk is, best pop across and take a look, but it’s a fashion more related to Phileas Fogg than The Stranglers.

For a full festival programme visit here.

Lots of fun is being had, but there’s also a slightly more sombre note this year - several boats have been dressed to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day, and Service groups attended a memorial service held at Fremlin Walk to remember the dear from the Second World War.

The day concludes with a fireworks display at 10pm, followed by the sounding of the All Clear siren.

More by this author

sticky

© KM Group - 2024