30,000 crowd streets for parade

Samba drummers brought the beat and Indian belly dancers added the spice but it was the jolly man in red that had thousands of children waiting in excited anticipation at yesterday afternoon's TrustPower Christmas Festival and Santa Parade in Mount Maunganui.
A crowd of more than 30,000 people gathered along Maunganui Rd from Pacific Ave down to Rata St to catch a glimpse at 37 different floats, ranging from stock cars to tinsel-covered trucks.
Marching, riding, dancing and skating among them were the Blue Spirit Tribe Belly dancers, the Pacific Guards Leisure Marching Team, Bay of Plenty Pipes and Drums members, the Mount Militia Derby Crew and dragon dancers from Mount Maunganui's Kwang Chow restaurant.
FMX Battle motocross riders whizzed alongside spectators, holding hands out for high fives as they went.
But the big moment for Te Puke 2-year-old Charlie Bowyer was seeing Santa, who eventually rolled by in a sleigh filled with presents. "He's been talking about Santa every day for the last two weeks," dad Paul Bowyer said. "He thinks everything he sees is Santa. He had to bring his Santa hat today too, he wasn't going to come without it."
Across the street, Mel Watts of Matua and his three grandchildren, Blair brothers Ashton, 6, Alex, 9 and George, 11, didn't mind waiting in the 25C heat to see Santa.
"It's definitely worth it," George said.
Mount Mainstreet manager Leanne Brown said the parade and festival was "everything I wanted and more".
"It was nice to move among the crowd and see kids look at the floats and say 'wow Mum, look at that'."
She made special mention of the float entered by residents of Campbell Rd, who won the not for profit community organisation category for their effort.
"That was the epitome of what we want the Christmas parade to be like."
In other categories, Kwang Chow won the commercial section, Otamarakau School won the education category, the City of Tauranga Under 12s Marching Team scooped the sports and social clubs category for youth and Tauranga Samba won the adults sports and social clubs category.