A couple dozen spectators watched from the line at the ticket booth at noon Wednesday as City Councilor Jeffrey Sosnaud cut the ribbon to open the 141st edition of the Bangor State Fair.

With the Blue Hill Brass Quintet providing the accompaniment, the start of the day’s crowd walked through the gate on Dutton Street.

Fair officials said the steady drizzle was responsible for the dismal size of the afternoon crowd. They expect the turnout to pick up when the weather clears.

Among the first fair-goers were state officials checking the safety of rides and food trailers.

“We’ve inspected all of them,” James Ellis, an investigator with the state Fire Marshal’s Office, said Wednesday as he watched children file off a ride.

“There were problems with only a couple because they had varied from the manufacturer’s specs,” Ellis added. “Only one was torn down, and that was by their choice. The rest were fixed.”

What crowd there was did not throng to any of the rides, but some appeared to draw more than others. The hottest ride of the fair is customarily given the spot at the point of the midway, just up the hill from the Dutton Street entrance. This year the featured ride is the Sky Master — two enclosed gondolas that seat about 20 people on counterbalanced arms that loop the loop.

The third ingredient in a good midway, in addition to rides and games of chance, is food. The state inspector who checks the food stands says her chore is mostly a matter of reminding concessionaires about safe practices.

“There’s three of us, and we come around the first and second day of the fair inspecting all the food joints,” Sherry Hinckley, a health engineer with the Department of Human Services, said after checking a fried dough stand.

“We look at how they handle the food. Sometimes we have to tell them to keep food covered to keep off the flies,” she said. “We also tell them not to dump gray water on the ground. Dirty dishwater should be disposed of properly.”

Taking time out from coping with the number of minor problems that crop up at the start of the fair, Michael Dyer, marketing director for the Bangor Auditorium and Civic Center, said that things were moving as smoothly as could be expected.

“It’s like we never got out of it from last year,” he said. “I just stepped right back into it. It seemed like this year the vendors weren’t quite set up when the gates opened. But the rain probably held them up.”

Bass Park officials were anticipating a good turnout for the fair. The attendance record is 113,000.

On a marker board in one of the offices are the attendance estimates from the employee pool. The guesses range from a low of 98,000 to a high of 121,000.