Seeing In The New Year With A Lion Awakening

We've decided we should try our hand at photographing some local events and today was the ideal opportunity as Maidstone was celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year.
The proceedings were to start at midday in the town's Jubilee Square with a "eye-dotting" ceremony to awaken the Chinese lions who would then perform a lion dance, an important ritual in Chinese tradition which is believed to bring good luck and drive away evil spirits on auspicious occasions. Accompanying sounds were to be provided by a musical ensemble playing traditional bamboo music of the Shanghai teahouses and music from the Chinese Opera.
However, when we arrived the square, which is not the largest of spaces, was packed with spectators three or four deep with some people having to find alternative vantage points, as you can see in my first extra.
Therefore, I just had to hold my camera above my head and fire off a couple to shots which you can see in the next two extras - one is one of the lions peeking out from behind someone's shoulder (I particularly like that it has completely ignored the no entry sign) and the other is of the rather wonderfully comical glum expressions (in my eyes) of some the local dignitaries at the opening ceremony, seemingly oblivious to a giant yellow lion standing right next to them! 
We felt a bit disconsolate by this stage as it seemed we had resolutely failed to capture the occasion properly due to the tardiness of our arrival in town and being unable to make our way through the crowd so we headed off to the Market House for a pint to drown on our photographic sorrows. We then made the decision to take one last stroll through the town centre, as we could still hear the music playing, to find that the lions had actually intended to prowl through the town centre, with their accompanying drummers, all along and we were more than delighted to follow them along the streets with the throngs of enraptured, and in some cases unsuspecting, shoppers as can be seen in my last extra.
I chose my main image as it was a straight on shot of one of the lions' heads, but still with a sense of movement, and I loved the little girl smiling on one side and the shop assistant on the other side in the doorway with her arms folded and a magnificently bemused expression!
What a fabulous spectacle with a huge thank you due to the wonderful performers!