River Festival back in Chippenham for another year

By Lois_Avery | Friday, March 05, 2010, 09:49

Chippenham’s River Festival will be taking place for the second year running, on August 28 and 29.

Festival

After last summer’s first successful event the organisers have decided to bring it back for another watery weekend.

Set to go ahead on August Bank Holiday weekend, the event will see Monkton Park transformed for wet and wild family fun.

Over 3000 people flocked to the park despite the cloudy weather, and the main event, a dragon boat race, saw thousands lining the bank of the river Avon on the Saturday.

Organiser John Clark said: “Last year dragon boat racing was provided by the highly professional Dragon Boat Events Ltd and was great fun. This year we are going one better and organising Raft Racing ourselves.”

Teams of four or six are invited to take part and there will be different categories. The fee is £10 per head plus £10 for the organisation. In addition you can raise sponsorship for your pub, club, school etc, or for your chosen charity.

The racing will start at 10 am and finish at 5 pm or shortly after, with an hour’s break for lunch.

Rules can be found and downloaded along with entry forms on the www.chippenhamriverfestival.co.uk web-site

A full programme is also planned for the Sunday, including boat Canoe races and demonstrations swimming and a pirate grand finale, featuring ‘Jack Sparrow’.

And for those who prefer their feet on dry land there will be plenty of on-shore events across the weekend, such as the chuffy land train, street artists, river walks and a Punch and Judy show.

For further information about how you can get involved contact John Clark, festival organiser at john@seagry39.wanadoo.co.uk and keep checking Chippenham People for regular updates.