LEWISTON – Crowd estimates soared along with the hot-air balloons, which dazzled thousands of spectators at the Great Falls Balloon Festival during the weekend.

Organizers for the 9-year-old festival said they have been drawing record crowds. Gail Turner estimated 50,000 people attended a Saturday-evening balloon launch alone, and she predicted Sunday’s attendance would set another record.

Saturday’s launch featured 38 balloons that soared high above Lewiston and Auburn.

Turner attributed the turnout at least in part to this year’s move to Railroad River Park in Lewiston. The new site is bigger and more visible than the Great Falls Plaza where the festival used to be held.

Most balloons rise between 500 and 1,000 feet off the ground, but that was not the case with one of the crafts featured this weekend. Destiny, which is said to be the largest balloon in New England, was kept at an altitude of no more than 200 feet.

Workers from Aerial Adventures began inflating the balloon before dawn Saturday at a field in Auburn. The nylon balloon weighs 675 pounds and holds 210,000 cubic feet of air. The basket suspended from Destiny weighs 1,125 pounds and holds up to 12 people.

That capacity was needed to carry Jake Irish of Turner, who just turned 7, along with his father, sister, nanny, two uncles and a cousin for an early-morning ride.

Pilot Dick Varney kept the balloon low, skirting over the tops of trees, power lines and church steeples.

“We picked some leaves off the trees and said ‘good morning’ to a few people who were on their back decks having their morning coffee,” said Mark Tanous of Auburn, one of those along for the ride.

In addition to balloons, the festival offered helicopter rides, a climbing wall, a Hummer vehicle display and microreality stock car racing. The Great Falls Canoe Races on Saturday included professional, amateur and recreational races.