Were you inspected under the scrutiny of a big magnifying glass or trapped in a net like an unusual creature at Westwood Cross yesterday?

If not, you might have been one of the lucky ones as Looping the Loop's eccentric explorers were out in force to alert people that the festival had well and truly started.

The street performers have taken many different guises in locations across the Isle over the last few years but this time they donned 1920s explorer gear and treated shoppers like animals they had never seen before.

Looping the Loop festival spokesman Lorraine Williams said: “It was really funny to watch and a great day, we always put the street performers in an unexpected place to catch people’s attention.

“The aim of the whole festival is to open people’s minds to what performing can be and to fire up people’s imagination.

“One moment yesterday perfectly summed it up too, a five-year-old boy made a butterfly and a spider out of a paper plate and his mum was so shocked saying he’d never been creative before.

“The boy said it was so the eccentric explorers had something to catch and this is exactly what we want to do, show people something different.”

Looping the Loop is a festival of live arts in towns across the Isle.

It is part of the Collaborative Touring Network, a partnership between six towns and theatre promoters across the UK.

Ramsgate Arts is the lead promoter in Thanet working in collaboration with the Tom Thumb Theatre and freelance director Ellie Jones.

The eccentric explorers will be back on May 2 at Pierremont Park to take families full of adventurers on a hunt to find a whole range of interesting things including knitted animals.

For a full range of activities visit www.loopingtheloopfestival.org.uk