In cars and on bikes, by plane and on foot, in strollers and kayaks and motorboats, even aboard a cruise ship, they flooded Bangor’s waterfront, 110,000 strong, with one thing in mind: the 65th National Folk Festival.

The National, in its second of three years in the Queen City, steamed into town Friday with blaring horns and frenzied fiddles, cool honky-tonk and sizzling blues. It rolled along all weekend, picking up speed in the heat of the afternoon Saturday and chugging along despite a temperature drop of nearly 30 degrees in the early evening.

And it was a smooth and satisfying ride. The long lines for food and port-a-potties that snarled up last year’s crowd were considerably shorter this year. Foot traffic flowed through the expanded festival site, and the new entrance at West Market Square drew festivalgoers downtown, causing a surge in business for many Main Street merchants and restaurateurs.

“We were impressed last year – we had a great time,” said Fran Savoy of Glenburn. “It’s so much bigger and so much nicer than last year.”

Though some festivalgoers complained about the sea of people on the site, many said bigger is better for Bangor.

“Yes, it’s increased in size and it’s increased in volume but that’s what we all want,” she added.

Representatives from the Washington-based National Council for the Traditional Arts, which produces the festival, estimate that attendance over the three days was up 40 percent from last year. Bangor, population 31,000, is the smallest city ever to host the event, but Julia Olin, associate director of the NCTA, said this year’s festival is one of the biggest in the National’s 65-year history.

The crowd reached its peak on Saturday afternoon, before an ominous-looking cloud bank sent festivalgoers home to trade tank tops for turtlenecks. The sub-60 temperatures that settled in after dark kept the crowds at bay, but those who stayed made their own heat in the dance tent, whirling and waving their hands to the Cajun sounds of La Bande Feufollet and later to the Congolese rhythm of Wawali Bonane and Yoka Nzenze.

At the main stage, legendary bluesman Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, 79, showed up wearing a red polar fleece sweater under his black leather jacket – he’s from Louisiana, he was freezing, and he didn’t feel well, but he played on to the delight of thousands of fans.

One of them, Nerijus Aleksejunas of Lithuania, was so busy clapping and moving he hardly had time to talk. When asked what he thought of Gatemouth’s rendition of the wheelbarrow polka, he gave the thumb’s-up sign and pointed to his tapping feet. Clearly, he wasn’t dancing to stay warm.

But other festivalgoers did whatever they could to beat the chill. One bundled-up group hurried by with a sweater-clad puppy in tow. A man went downtown to Epic Sports and cleared the store shelf of hand-warmers – the kind you put in ski gloves. And enterprising vendors took advantage of the plunging temperature – one traded a board advertising “garden-fresh salad” for a sign that read “piping-hot chili.” Coffee sales skyrocketed.

“Once the clouds came out, people broke out their parkas and mittens and there was a line like it was Disneyland here,” said Mike McDonald, a Bangor resident and partner in DaVinci’s Italian-style Coffee.

McDonald and his family hope to start a coffeehouse in town, and they decided to use the festival as a jumping-off point.

Another Bangor-based food vendor said business hadn’t been as brisk as she had hoped. On Sunday morning, her sales hadn’t covered her expenses yet, but she said the exposure would probably boost business at her shop in the long run.

If that happens, it would be another positive economic spin-off from the festival, a trend that local organizers have seen since the National first came to town in 2002. John Rohman of Bangor, the festival’s chairman and a vocal supporter of the arts, said events such as the National are integral in shifting the region’s economic focus from natural resources to cultural resources.

“Maine has already hit the whole nationwide exposure for the creative economy,” Rohman said on his way to a bluegrass performance by Mountain Heart. “We are already seen as a model for rural areas. … The folk festival is just a cementing of that whole process, no question about it.”

Rohman has decided not to serve as the festival chairman next year, and his successor has yet to be named, but he said he has complete faith in the city’s ability to replace him and to sustain a locally produced event after the National moves on. The city needs to raise money, from Bangor and beyond, to ensure the festival’s future. But the structure is in place, the city knows what to expect and how to handle the crowds, and the event has the support of Gov. John Baldacci, Maine’s congressional delegation, and at least one honky-tonk musician.

“Everything is so conducive to the festival, with the river there,” said Dale Watson, country guitar man who first came to Bangor for a fund-raiser at Rohman’s home. “You couldn’t ask for a better layout. … That was my first impression – it was really perfect for this kind of festival and the people are perfect, too. It’s so hospitable here.”

The National has been here for only two summers, but many local residents couldn’t imagine a folk-fest-free Bangor now.

“It seems like people are hungry for it,” said Louis Pare of Brewer.

Pare and his wife, Nancy, came to the waterfront for all three days of the festival. On Sunday afternoon, he was in the audience to hear Don Roy, a Franco-American fiddler, and they stayed afterward to hear the mariachi performance.

“It’s good to see more activity [on the waterfront],” Louis Pare said. “It doesn’t have to be French.”

“I like the variety of all the different cultures,” Nancy Pare added.

This year, festivalgoers took in klezmer and gospel. They admired Acadian crafts from Maine’s St. John River Valley and then they watched drumming and dancing by Sounds of Korea. They learned about Chinese folk art and listened to Malian music. Much of it was unfamiliar, but almost every act received a standing ovation.

“Music gives people the opportunity to be in the same space together,” said Nick Spitzer, host of Public Radio International’s “American Routes” program and an announcer at the festival. “It cuts across the lines of culture, class and religion. Music creates a temporary state of mind and body and motion and emotion that makes people a group who were not a group before.”

The National proved Spitzer’s point. For three days in Bangor, residents and visitors danced and laughed and sang as one, on the waterfront, 110,000 strong.

– NEWS reporter Alicia Anstead contributed to this report.