Riverside Festival 2023

If it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me!

Headlining at the Riverside Festival, Gravesend, this year is 90's pop band Dodgy.

The first time round, Dodgy were only together for seven years but in that time they sold over a million records worldwide, released three albums and enjoyed 12 Top 40 singles, including ‘Staying Out For The Summer’, ‘If You’re Thinking Of Me’, ‘In A Room’, and the massive hit ‘Good Enough’ - officially one of the most played tracks on British radio in the last 25 years.

Event line-up main stage

The main stage will also feature lots of other entertainment too including tribute band Oasish, Ultimate Dua Lipa tribute and Stevie Wonder tribute. There will also be performances from local bands Beer Pressure and Skabretta. 

KMFM DJ, Andy Walker, will be presenting for the main stage.

Performing with Skabretta is special guest, Jamaican reggae singer Susan Cadogan. In early 1975 Susan shot to stardom when Lee ”Scratch” Perry asked her to sing his version of ‘Hurt So Good’. The single reached number 4 in the UK charts and was followed by releases ‘Love Me Baby’, ‘Piece of my Heart’ and ‘Tracks of my Tears’. Susan is returning to live performance for the first time in four years.

Family Fun at Fort Gardens

Away from the main stage area at the Riverside Festival, there’s fun for all the family in Fort Gardens throughout the day, including Centre Stage children’s party and performances on the bandstand from midday, party games, workshops and lots more.

You can meet Pete the T-Rex and the baby dinosaurs, and listen to Dr Digby Rocks our children’s archaeologist who will be giving talks throughout the day. 

Visit Roxy, our waste team’s recycling guzzling dinosaur, feed her your recycling and pose for a selfie. 

Visit our Horticulture team to learn all about how wildflowers help our pollinators, the importance of home composting, and get your hands dirty by making seed bombs to take home; also learn how you can create a habitat for wildlife in your own garden.

Go back in time and have a peek into what a 1940s shop would have been like.

Other attractions include storytelling, balloon modelling, face painting, Punch & Judy shows, drop-In children’s arts & crafts, helter skelter, rodeo bull, and giant garden games. Plus, Creepy Claws will be bringing their reptiles and talking about how to care for them.

There’s also bubble fun with giant bubbles, people inside bubbles, bubble haircuts and bubble tricks – shows throughout the day. 

All our activities are FREE, although there is a small fee for face-painting and balloon modelling.

Active area

On the main river front we have Circus Sensible delivering free shows throughout the day. In the Active Area some of the free activities to take part in including:

• crazy golf
• Kangoo Jumps
• climbing wall
• boxing
• Laser Tag
• and more

Food outlets

The Prom Café will be open and there will also be a selection of pop-up traders both on the river front and in the Fort Gardens selling food and drink. 

Fun Fair

Smith’s Funfair will be on site over the whole weekend:

• Thursday 29 June 2023 -12 noon to 8:30pm
• Friday 30 June 2023 - 12 noon to 8:30pm
• Saturday 1 July 2023 - 12 noon to 9:00pm
• Sunday 2 July 2023 - 12 noon to 9:00pm

Getting there and parking

The Riverside Leisure area is accessible by foot. Parking officers will be patrolling to ensure people do not block the roads.

Are you driving? Milton Place and Ordnance Road car parks will have very limited spaces. Please use other town centre car parks. The next nearest public car parks would be:

• Parrock Street Car Park
• Gurdwara Car Park

On street parking restrictions will be in place as usual and will be enforced. Please park considerately.

Please note timings and activities are subject to change