When the ancient Romans gathered together for festivals, man sparred against lion and there was blood and death. Today, excluding the running of the bulls in Pamplona, we have a slightly different version of festivals. It’s a chance for food, family, dancing, buying beautiful crafts or showing off your ability to create beautiful crafts. It is important that we continue a timehonored tradition such as this – especially one that has evolved into a chance to take your hair down, put on a long skirt and dance around with a drink in your hand.
In our area, there are many local festivals. Some have been celebrated for decades and others are still blossoming and within their first five years. However, all are a chance for art, music and/or family fun.
A crowd-pleaser is the 17th annual Carrboro Music Festival. This year the event will be started Saturday, Sept. 27 with a free kick-off concert held at the Cat’s Cradle Back Room. The day-long event will begin the following Sunday, Sept. 28, at 1 p.m. and include 180 performing acts at 25 different indoor and outdoor venues located around Carrboro. These performances will include bluegrass, folk, jazz, country, rock and roll, classical and world music. This event’s goal is to bring people together with a strong sense of community to enjoy Triangle-area performers. If you’re looking for a fun festival for you and your friends or family and leashed pet, then you’ll enjoy Centerfest in downtown Durham. Centerfest will be hosted in the downtown Durham Loop on Main and Chapel Hill Streets in the Five Points and CCB Plaza areas for the 40th year in a row. It is the largest arts and community festival in Durham. This year it will take place on Saturday, Sept. 20 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 21 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Entrance to the festival is free but a $5 donation at the gates to help fund the event is recommended. Centerfest will be hosting 140 juried visual artists from 17 states. These artists will be displaying art in clay, drawings, fibers, glass, paintings, printmaking, photography, wood, jewelry, mixed media and sculpture. There will also be over 70 performing acts on six different stages playing music and dancing. There will be locally sourced foods and international cuisine, a bike valet for easy transportation and a kid-zone with face-painting and a Moon Bounce.
October brings nearly unlimited fun in the way of festivals. Pepperfest began in 2008 with a few friends tasting peppers from Piedmont Biofarms. This year, on Sunday, Oct. 5, at Briar Chapel there will be music, dancing, entertainment, food, beverages, and – did we mention? – peppers front and center.
On the same day, Festifall will be held for the 42nd consecutive year, on West Franklin Street in downtown Chapel Hill. It will feature performing arts and a multitude of local artists selling hand-made crafts. Join the Chapel Hill community in meeting different artists and maybe inspiring your own inner artist, discovering new downtown restaurants, dancing to local music and watching amazing local dance groups and even participating in making new handson arts and crafts.
Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival is a local treasure. From Oct. 9 to 12, enjoy four days of four stages with over 60 bands performing throughout the weekend. This family-friendly festival for music and dance lovers takes place in Chatham County at 1439 Henderson Tanyard Road in Pittsboro. Tickets to the four-day event can be purchased online for $90 to $110.
For all you foodies, a true local gem is the TerraVita Food & Drink Festival. This will take place from Oct. 9 to 11 in Chapel Hill. TerraVita features five events over the course of three days. This festival is in its fifth year and to celebrate the half-decade mark, they have made tickets to all five events plus three private events available. Don’t miss this chance to learn from some of the top North Carolina chefs and taste some of their delicious concoctions.
“This year we’re honored to host the North Carolina premiere of the second season of the award-winning PBS series A Chef’s Life, with Chef Vivian Howard – a longtime TerraVita supporter,” said Colleen Minton, the festival’s founder and director. Additional dinners, tasting events, educational classrooms, after parties and chef demos have been added.
Autumn Fest is an annual festival held in downtown Mebane that was started with the intention of embracing and celebrating Mebane’s unique small-town atmosphere. It will be held on Saturday, Oct. 11 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. There will be a kid’s area, hayrides, live music and vendors set up on Clay Street selling antiques, vintage goods and handcrafted items.
Perhaps the most obscure of the bunch, a rather well-kept Carrboro secret, is the West End Poetry Festival. This is a two-day event that takes place Friday, Oct. 17 and Saturday, Oct. 18. The festival will begin Friday evening at Flyleaf Books, 752 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, Chapel Hill, with five readings from poets and some light wine and hors d’oeuvres before and after. The festivities will continue at noon on Saturday at the Century Hall in Carrboro, 100 N. Greensboro St., Carrboro, with four 75-minute sessions on writing poetry – one taught by Cathy Smith Bowers, a former North Carolina poet laureate, about using form in poetry. The sessions will be followed by an hour-long reception, poetry readings from local and national poets, and an open-mic session.
“Carrboro is a great place, open and committed to the arts and artists, and the West End Poetry Festival is one way the town proves that every year,” said Celisa Steele, the current poet laureate of Carrboro and a member of the Carrboro Poets Council. “I love that the festival offers an eclectic mix of poets – behind the podium and in the audience listening – and that there’s the chance, during breaks and receptions, to meet new people and reconnect with old acquaintances.”
If poetry is not your thing, try the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Chatham County. This festival will be held at a farm located at 1064 Walter Bright Road in Sanford on Saturday, Oct. 18 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 19 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. This is a young festival, celebrating its fifth year. It began in 2010 with only six vendors and now will be operating at maximum capacity with 40 vendors. The vendors will be set up in barn stalls, a covered riding ring, the barn lot and in the front horse pasture. The vendors will be local artists from painters to potters, woodworkers, basket and jewelry makers, quilters and much more. There will be microbreweries selling beer, baked goods, Italian ice, hot food and live music throughout the festival. There will also be horses in the back pasture that visitors can visit and feed with the assistance of volunteers.
Oct. 27 brings Oktoberfest to Motorco Music Hall in Durham. This year the daytime family-friendly event with live German music & dancing with Little German Band from noon – 5 p.m. will be joined by an evening adult show from 6 p.m. – 11 p.m. that will include themed dance routines from burlesque troupe The Vaudevillain Revue along with the Little German Band. Now in its third year, Motorco continues to expand the event with an indoor & outdoor beer garden as well as the main Showroom fully decorated like a tent at the Oktoberfest in Munich.
For more information about these festivals visit:
www.centerfest.durhamarts.org
www.carrboromusicfestival.com
www.abundancefoundation.org/events/pepper-festival
www.townofchapelhill.org/festifall/
www.shakorihillsgrassroots.org
www.terravitaevent.com
www.downtownmebane.com
www.westendpoetsweekend.com
www.threeriversartsfestival.net
www.durhamoktoberfest.com
