It’s a ceremony their ancestors have performed for more than 500 years, but when the Papantla Flyers started scaling the 90-foot-high pole at the waterfront Friday evening, people in the audience still wondered if they’d pull it off.

“Oh my goodness, I can’t believe I’m seeing this,” said Rebecca Rexrode, 22, of Bangor. “I think this is – aaahhhh – on the edge. Very on the edge. It’s crazy.”

The Flyers hail from Papantla, Veracruz, Mexico, where traditional sun dances draw flocks of tourists. Though Rexrode has visited Mexico several times, she had to wait for the National Folk Festival to see the ritual.

“People go to Mexico to see this,” Rexrode said. “And here they are in Bangor.”

She was one of more than 10,000 people Bangor police estimated to be in the audience for the kickoff of the 64th National Folk Festival. While festival organizers said numbers are usually lowest on the first night of a city’s inaugural festival, the crowd exceeded expectations.

“I’ve talked to colleagues of mine who have worked on the festival since the ’70s, and they’ve said this is the biggest crowd for opening night they’ve ever seen,” said Julia Olin, associate director for the National Council for the Traditional Arts, which produces the festival.

Though people may complain about long food lines, poorly lit pathways and trouble with the Flyers’ microphone, there was more to cheer about on the first day of the city’s first National Folk Festival. And NCTA technical director Dwain Winters said his crew is making adjustments to better accommodate crowds today and Sunday.

“I don’t think the city has looked this good in a long time,” Mayor Mike Crowley told the crowd at a pre-festival party.

And the local festival-goers noticed.

“It was exciting watching the city get ready for this,” said Carolyn Hart of Brewer, who made the festival a family affair.

Though Hart’s two children and two grandchildren live in Scarborough, they came home for the festival, which the family has anticipated “since we heard about it.”

“We’re very excited about it,” Hart’s husband, Ray Thompson, said as he listened to the dieselbilly tunes of Bill Kirchen and Too Much Fun. “It’s very good for the area – very good.”

In its last host city, East Lansing, Mich., the National Folk Festival pumped more than $1 million a day into the local economy, according to officials there. The festival was also a major factor in the revitalization of downtown Lowell, Mass., during its stay there more than a decade ago. A spinoff festival, the Lowell Folk Festival, now draws more than 200,000 annually.

At least three Lowell-area residents with local ties were in Bangor on Friday night.

“We’re here to see how Bangor’s going to kick it off,” said Larry Zimmerman of Dracut, Mass., whose wife, Alice, grew up in the area. “I had to come. I never miss the folk festival in Lowell, and I’m sure not going to miss the one in Bangor.”

Alice Zimmerman was quite impressed in her hometown’s efforts.

“You’re quite well-organized, I have to say,” she said. “I hope it does well. The folk festival has become the highlight of being in Lowell.”

If Friday night was any indication, that also will be the case in Bangor. Kirchen got the crowd moving with “Hot Rod Lincoln.” Later, the Treme Brass Band’s New Orleans-style jazz had people of all ages grooving to the music as bandleader Fred Johnson swung his umbrella and sashayed through the crowd, leading a parade to the Railroad Stage area.

“Come on people, dance,” Judy Weatherbee of Bangor, a volunteer who had the night off, yelled to the people walking beside her. “I’m having a blast and I’ve only been here a half-hour.”

Mark Meadows, the mayor of East Lansing, had so much fun the last three years that he and his wife, Pam, decided to come to Bangor this year.

“I like the layout,” Meadows said. “The river – you have a beautiful city.”

Though Kirchen and Too Much Fun performed at East Lansing, the Papantla Flyers were new to Meadows, and he was wowed.

“That was amazing,” he said.

At the Great Lakes Folk Festival, East Lansing’s spinoff festival, Nathan and the Zydeco Cha-Chas played, and it’s an act Meadows would recommend.

“They were absolutely spectacular,” he said.

“I hope people make a point to visit the dance tent,” Pam Meadows added. “It is so much fun.”

Now that the first night is over, festival organizers can have a little fun, too. Though Joe Wilson, executive director for the NCTA, is not in attendance due to an illness, he’d be proud. And his colleague Olin breathed a big sigh of relief when she saw the crowd – and the crowd’s reaction to the opening acts.

“The first year of presenting the National Folk Festival in a new city is like throwing a party for about 60,000 of your closest friends but nobody R.S.V.P.s,” Olin said. “It’s kind of like ‘Field of Dreams.’ If we build it, will they come? I guess the answer is yes.”