BANGOR – The Bangor Mall on Black Friday?

“That would be crazy,” Bangor resident Cleo Luk said while standing in line with an external hard drive in hand at Staples, the lone open store at the Airport Mall at 6:15 a.m.

As “crazy” as the idea was to some area residents, most of the dedicated pre-dawn shoppers looking for this year’s after-Thanksgiving deals flocked to the Bangor Mall and surrounding stores in droves, while others avoided the mad traffic and long lines by visiting retailers in other parts of the city.

College students Jesse Arkebauer and Anthony Theriault, both of Orono, weren’t taking any chances on missing out on the heavily discounted LCD televisions at Circuit City and got into line around 1 a.m. for the store’s 5 a.m. opening.

Not surprisingly, they weren’t the first ones there. About 30 people were in front of them. As the clock neared the opening hour, others showed up to join friends or family who were holding places for them.

To those who had been standing there for hours, it was frustrating as other people cut in line in front of them, the friends said. When the doors opened for business and the “mad rush” began, however, the two got what they wanted, Theriault said.

With some items advertised at 50 percent discounts, lines outside the store and others at the Bangor Mall stretched like snakes through parking lots and around buildings.

Managers at Kmart, Circuit City and Wal-Mart in Bangor each said the crowds were massive during their early morning sales and continued throughout the day.

“It was just pretty cool; it was amazing,” Mary Jane Welch, Kmart store manager, said.

“It went extremely well and it’s still ongoing,” said Tim Gontarz, Circuit City operations manager, around 3:30 p.m. Friday.

To make finding items easier, Bangor Wal-Mart created store maps for customers to use, said Doug McMindes, store manager.

“All the special items we put on a map, and it seemed to be very, very helpful,” he said.

The line at that store, which opened at 5 a.m., stretched down one side of the parking lot and made a massive “J” with between 1,000 and 1,500 people waiting in the pre-dawn cold for the bargains of the season.

“I’m standing by customer service, and we’re still busy taking care of our customers,” McMindes said at 2:30 p.m.

Elsewhere, throngs of Christmas shoppers cheered as they charged into the Maine Mall in South Portland after the doors opened at 1 a.m., kicking off the Black Friday frenzy.

Anxious shoppers whooped it up as they were entertained by live music outside the mall before the big opening.

With the possibility of a tough shopping season ahead because of the high prices of food, gasoline and home heating fuel, stores began to have sales weeks ago. Kmart even had a pre-Thanksgiving sale on Wednesday to get a jump start on the holiday season.

While Black Friday is expected by some analysts to be the busiest day of the season, it’s not a predictor of how retailers will fare in the holiday season overall. In fact, the weekend only accounts for about 10 percent of overall holiday sales. But it does set the tone since what consumers see that day influences where they will shop for the rest of the year.

It can be a gauge, Gontarz said. “It’s definitely the launching point. If you have a good launching point, it’s a good way to start.”

Last year, retailers had a good start during the Thanksgiving weekend, but many stores struggled in December. A shopping surge just before and after Christmas wasn’t enough to make up for lost sales.

This year, analysts expect sales gains to be the weakest in five years. The Washington-based National Retail Federation has predicted that total holiday sales will be up 4 percent for the combined November and December period, the slowest growth since a 1.3 percent rise in 2002.

Holiday sales rose 4.6 percent in 2006, and growth has averaged 4.8 percent over the last decade.

But all of those numbers meant nothing to the hoards of bargain hunters prowling the stores Friday in Bangor. They simply were looking for the best deals.

The Associated Press contributed to this story. Nok-Noi Ricker can be reached at nricker@bangordailynews.net or by calling 990-8190.