Thousands of additional people swelled Tauranga's normal lunch time crowds for the Boobs on Bikes parade on Thursday – with many buying lunch.

The bars along The Strand appeared to be doing good business, as were the food shops on Devonport Road.

Boobs on Bikes drew a crowd of about 3000 people, with them bringing with them lunchtime buying power, which inner city businesses enjoyed.

Sammies in Devonport Road had a strong day's business, says manager Nigel Cranfield.

'I think they should do it on a monthly basis,” says Nigel.

'It was just nice to see people in town, and it was a good crowd, a very mixed crowd,” says Nigel.

'We had from school kids to old age pensioners and it was good. There were lots of people. It was a great atmosphere, I couldn't believe it.

'We had increased business and everyone was very jovial. We had a few protesters, but overall everyone seemed to have a good time for the quarter of an hour that it lasted.

'It was just good to see the town alive. Not that I'm a believer in what they did, but it brought the people into town, and it was something different.”

Helen Kiernan at Pluto, also on Devonport Road, says they were also busier that normal.

'It was a busy day all day, to be fair,” says Helen.

'We had an exceptionally busy afternoon as well, but it was definitely concentrated over lunchtime.”

Mainstreet Tauranga coordinator Kirby Weis is laid up with the flu and hasn't polled retailers about any increased business resulting from parade crowds.

'I'm letting that one go,” says Kirby today.

'There were definitely more people in town, but whether that equated to people coming in and doing their shopping afterwards, I didn't collate that straight away after the event.

'I'm sure there would have been a few people getting their lunch.

'There did seem to be a few contractors and people that probably don't work and live in the city, so I'm sure there would be some kind of economic spin off from that – whether it's people buying lunches or getting stuff from dairies.”

He expects to be back on his feet next week, but he's not going to be worrying about it too much.

'We'll let sleeping dogs lie now that it's over and done with.”