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History of the festival: 12 (2005)
2005 - the 13th festival
- and more firsts, including an art trail and a beer
festival. The inaugural Burnham Art Trail featured the
work of 20 contemporary local artists exhibited around
town at a wide variety of local venues with exhibits
including paintings, sculpture, jewellery, textiles,
photography and mixed media work.
In place of the usual
Scratch Orchestra event, Maldon Youth Orchestra gave a
concert at St Peter's High School. The Scratch Orchestra
- where young (and not-so-young) players of classical
music get together for an instant concert - had its part
to play in the success of the Maldon Youth Orchestra,
now numbering around 40 young musicians.
Water Music was as usual
provided by local band the River Rats and friends, but
this time playing from the deck of fishing vessel
Maverick, their raft having finally been consumed by
real rats!
When the organising
committee learned that the date which they had fixed for
the music weekend had also been chosen for Bob Geldof's
Live8 concert, they almost decided to cancel. Instead,
they managed to obtain permission to screen Live8
in a separate marquee on the RIVERfest site. This turned
out to be a great success - whole families brought picnics and
sat in the June sunshine watching their
favourite stars on Live8 then strolling over to the main
tent to sample
RIVERfest's own live music. The many
highlights, included a rousing performance from Sunday's
headliner, American
funk and soul diva Taka Boom - sister of international
chart-topper Chaka Khan.
 Sadly, at the end of what
was probably the most successful weekend in the the
festival's 13 years, Tim Aves - main driving force
behind the festival since its beginning - announced his
decision to leave the festival committee in order to
devote more time to making music with his band The Rockin' Armadillos. He will be a hard act to
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