LEWISTON — The potentate is pleased.

“Could you ask for a better setting?” he said, sweeping his arm out toward Great Falls. “Could you ask for better weather? And what a great crowd we’ve got already.”

The potentate of the Kora Shrine, his name is Rick Hersom and he had a point. The Northeast Shrine Association Field Days celebration seemed blessed from the start. The weather for the opening ceremony was flawless and even a bit hot.

With hundreds of people filling Veterans Memorial Park before sundown, if you squinted a bit and ignored the fez-topped heads, it could have been the Fourth of July in Lewiston-Auburn.

Parents walked to the ceremony with children on their shoulders. Some claimed spots in the grass next to the Androscoggin River and threw down blankets. With Shriners coming from all over the Northeast and Canada, plenty of people were seeing Veterans Memorial Park for the first time.

“It really is something to see,” said Bill Gowan, a 50-year Shriner. “I never even knew all of this was here. It’s a beautiful spot.”

Gowan lives in Portland and will drive back and forth for the weekend celebration. With the iconic Shriner cars expected to be buzzing all over the place, and with activities such as a clown competition on the schedule of events, Gowan expects laid-back good times for three days straight.

Yes, Shriners are allowed to do that.

“We do a lot of charity work,” Gowan said. “But we do a lot besides that, too. We do a lot of good things and we also have a lot of fun.”

The big news, for some, is that this time they’ll be doing it in Lewiston-Auburn for the first time. It’s a great honor, Lewiston Mayor Robert Macdonald said. “We’ll be shutting down the city at 7 o’clock instead of 6.”

That’s a little mayoral humor right there. Macdonald wasn’t joking, however, about his appreciation for the thousands of Shriners and others expected to fill up local hotels over the weekend.

“We’re really honored,” he said, “that you chose Lewiston-Auburn as your destination.”

Auburn Assistant City Manager Denis D’Auteuil took it a step further, encouraging Shriners and their families to eat in local restaurants, browse in local shops and take in the ever-evolving face of the Twin Cities.

The Thursday night ceremony was a small taste of things to come. The music, go-carts and clowns will come together at 2 p.m. Saturday for a parade expected to last two hours or more.

David Walker, grand master of Masons in Maine, assured Shriners from other parts of the world that warmth and sunshine are practically guaranteed.

“The weather is always like this here,” he said. “Would I lie to you?”

Jay Poirier, a Shriner from Lewiston who also happens to spend time as Lugnut the clown, tried to categorize everything that’s planned for the weekend. That’s too much to handle in one breath, so he went for brevity.

“It’s going to be a great weekend,” he said.