The first public festival in memory of a talented musician who was killed in a car crash has been hailed a huge success.

CozFest took place on Saturday at a strip of land in Sible Hedingham bought in honour of Coz Powell, 21, who died with his friend James Simmons, 18, when a driver high on drugs and drink hit his vehicle.

Featuring an eclectic mixture of tunes from talented musicians based across the area, the event brought hundreds of people together at the Halstead Road venue.

Gennie Powell, Coz's mum and organiser of CozFest, said: "The festival was an amazing success.

"The weather looked a little dodgy to start with so the ice cream van deserted us and only half the stalls booked turned up but the ones who stayed said they’d had a fantastic day and thoroughly enjoyed it.

"We had a really good mix of different genres of music and managed to work around Braintree TVs Band Wars final.

"The winner of that was State Of The Millenia and it was very well deserved."

World renowned heavy metal band Bullet For My Valentine, who have been supporters of the family since Coz's death in 2014, recorded a special message which was shown at the festival.

Mrs Powell said: "I must thank the Gosfield Social Club for running the beer tent all day, the Gosfield Players for the loan of their stage and members who all turned out to help and even Gosfield Fete Committee who loaned us their coconut shy.

"In fact we felt really supported by the people of Gosfield in general.

"There are far too many people to thank individually, we are very, very grateful and know that Cozzie would be very proud."

"The people manning the gates said that it was really nice to see everyone leaving with a smile on their face.

"Everyone they saw out smiled and waved their thanks for the help.

"We did over run on band times, something else we must improve on but there was a really lovely vibe all day."

To keep up to date, visit www.facebook.com/landforcoz.