The wine was chilled. Candles were lighted. Flowers were in the vases.

The couple – on a first date at the Sea Dog restaurant in Bangor – sat across from each other, both nursing a drink, chatting lightly.

Do you have any kids? Have you ever been married? What do you do for a … Ding!

Eight minutes into the conversation, the date is over. The man and woman stand up, consult the cards in their hands, and wander over to find their next date, another of seven they would have on a recent evening as 8minuteDating kicked off its first event in the Bangor area on Tuesday.

The event, which was held in a backroom at the Sea Dog, was geared toward singles ages 30 to 45. Two more events are planned for the coming weeks, one for the younger crowd and another for the older set.

The idea is to have eight conversations with eight different people in one night, with no pressure to ask for contact information or reject anyone (that’s all done later on the company’s Web site, 8minuteDating.com).

Robin Stover, an author and free-lance writer, brought the concept to the Bangor area after a friend attended an 8minuteDating event in Portland. Stover was intrigued.

“I was like, oh my gosh, where do people go here, especially people my age?” said Stover, a 48-year-old Brewer resident who met her husband of eight years through a personals ad in the Bangor Daily News. “There are a lot of people who don’t go to church, don’t go to bars. So where do you meet somebody single? I just think this makes sense.”

Participants pay $35 per event. Event organizers, known as EOs, can earn more than $500 per event, depending on the number of participants they attract, according to the Web site.

8minuteDating claims 99 percent of participants say they enjoyed the experience, 91 percent report they met someone they would want to see again, and 62 percent receive a mutual match.

Plus, Stover said, there have been “many” engagements as a result of 8minuteDating, which is based in Boston but has expanded all over the country and into Canada.

The official 8minuteDating instructions call for eight couples, but there were just seven at the Sea Dog. Men were slow to sign up, so Stover launched a last-minute media blitz.

“I was very naive,” said Stover, who has a degree in advertising from the journalism department at the University of Maine. “I assumed I would get a lot of free advertising from the press, that the radio and TV and newspapers would jump on it and give me free promos beforehand. And that was not the case in the least, as long as I’m making money. At the last minute, I realized, I’ve got to invest some bucks.”

Stover placed ads on local radio stations with classic rock, country, news and sports formats.

“I needed males,” she said in between sips from a glass of white wine. “The females filled up right away.”

There were also signs posted in heavily traveled areas near the Sea Dog.

Sherry, a 36-year old who works in Bangor, found out about 8minuteDating through a sign at Bagel Central in downtown Bangor.

Her 17-year old daughter helped pick out her clothes.

“She said, ‘Mom, why do you have to go someplace where you have to pay money to meet other people who paid money?'” said Sherry, who lives in Hampden. “But I’m going to go home and tell her it was fun.”

The evening started out with four “dates” for each person and then a 20-minute intermission.

Things were a bit uncomfortable during the break. Four women stood together talking loudly near the bar, two men sat alone at separate tables, others stocked up on drinks, chips and salsa, and meatballs warming in a chafing dish.

Sherry went into the evening with a list of questions in her mind, but she didn’t need it – 8minuteDating provides couples with suggested topics for the eight-minute conversation, such as favorite books, best vacations … oh, and one’s hopes and dreams.

Immediately after the bell rings, participants are encouraged to scribble down a few notes and “discreetly” check off the box that describes what the single thought of his or her date: friend, business contact, or date.

Three dates later, the event was over. Dating cards full, participants lingered to find out who won the door prize (dinner for two at the Sea Dog). Some stayed to chat with Stover and her assistants. Others left, presumably to enter their findings into the computer and await the results (the Web site calculates who is interested in who and e-mails the corresponding contact information).

Some were likely to wake up the next morning with good news. Others?

“Oh well,” a woman told Stover’s assistants during some down time. “Chalk it up to experience, I guess.”

Jessica Bloch is a sports writer at the Bangor Daily News. She can be reached at jbloch@bangordailynews.net.

8minuteDating will return to the Bangor area Tuesday, Nov. 18 with an event for singles ages 21-30 at the Chocolate Grille in Old Town, and again Tuesday, Nov. 25 at the Muddy Rudder in Brewer for ages 30-45. For more information, including events in the Portland area, about 8minuteDating, log on to the company’s website, 8minuteDating.com, enter the city and state, and follow the instructions from there. Registration costs $35. Advance registration is required.