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2023 NORTH CAROLINA - September 2023
Food Festivals, and Other Food, Wine & Beer Events
(see also: 2018  -   2016  -  2015)

September 1-4, 2023
North Carolina Apple Festival
Hendersonville, North Carolina
The North Carolina mountains are known for their apple orchards. In celebration of King Apple, music, a parade, and arts and crafts fill city streets. Many of the growers also feature items such as fried apple pies, apple cakes, apple butter and apple cider.

October 6-8, 2023  North Carolina Seafood Festival
Morehead City, North Carolina
The weekend will include all of the following: seafood sampling, cooking demonstration by highly renowned chefs, seafood vendors, boat show, ship tours, entertainment on four stages, playground for kids, over 150 arts & crafts vendors, sporting events, rides, fireworks and Blessing of the Fleet.

September 7-9, 2023  Ayden Collard Festival - Ayden, North Carolina
The Official Collard Festival of the State of North Carolina. Family festival with music, parade, golf, horseshoe & tennis tournaments, art show, collard cooking and eating contests.

October 8, 2023  Carolina Mountain Cheese Festival
Black Mountain, North Carolina
The WNC Cheese Trail celebrates local food and makers during the Carolina Mountain Cheese Fest at Oak And Grist Distilling Company In Black Moutain, NC.  Showcasing more than 20 local food businesses representing cheese, charcuterie, crackers, breads, chocolate, and other products.  The Carolina Mountain Cheese Fest is an annual festival that benefits the WNC Cheese Trail. The WNC Cheese Trail is a non profit whose goal is to spread the word about the amazing cheese being made in WNC.

September 8-9, 2023  52nd Sneads Ferry Shrimp Festival
Sneads Ferry, North Carolina
The annual event will include an all-day street dance, fireworks, food & craft vendors, carnival, beer & wine garden, karaoke contest, parade and shrimp peeling & cooking contests.  Attendance: 10,000.

September 8-17, 2023  North Carolina Mountain State Fair
Fletcher, North Carolina
The NC Mountain State Fair celebrates the people, agriculture, art and tradition that make our region great. Attended by over 180,000 people annually, the fair features agricultural exhibits, fair food, midway rides, and competitions.  Attendance: 180,000.

September 9, 2023  North Carolina Hot Sauce Contest & Festival
Oxford, North Carolina
North Carolina’s finest hot sauces and  barbeque sauces, along with breweries and wineries spice up the blends and texture of downtown’s historical streets. Enter the NC Pepper Eating Contest sponsored by Bailey Farms. Capture all the history of Oxford by visiting the Granville County Museum and their September Sensations Bazaar as well as at the Harris Exhibit Hall, famous for showcasing local artisans.  Visit the Granville Gardeners Plant Sale.  We have activities for children, lovely local shops waiting to greet you and great restaurants, all at your fingertips.  NC Hot Sauces and Barbecue Sauces, all will be competing for the title of North Carolina's Best!!!!!!!   Attendance: 18,000.

September 16, 2023  31st Annual Dublin Peanut Festival
Dublin, North Carolina
Dublin is known as the Peanut Capital of the South. It is the home of Houston’s Peanuts, that is known and whose peanuts are shipped worldwide.  We will have the Classic Cruisers Car Show, Some of North Carolina’s best Food Vendors, Craft Vendors, Bar-B-Que Lunch & Plate sale, Kiddie and Women’s Tractor Pull, All Day Live Entertainment, Peanut Recipe Cook-Off, Mechanical Rides, Games, Our Secret Recipe Hot Dogs & Sausage Dogs.  We have also added Steak and Chicken Fajitas to our own food lineup.  Back by popular demand we will be selling hot boiled peanuts on site this year along with our cold boiled, salted in the shell, roasted and green peanuts.
 

September 16, 2023  BugFest - Raleigh, North Carolina
BugFest is back downtown! The largest bug-centered event of its kind in the entire country, BugFest educates and engages the public in science and the natural world. Museum guests participate in more than 100 exhibits, crafts, games and activities as you interact with entomologists and other scientists while learning about the fascinating world of arthropods.  This year, BugFest spotlights the subphylum Myriapoda, which has about 13,000 terrestrial species, sure to delight participants of all ages with their numerous legs!  Attendance: 35,000.

September 16, 2023  Black Walnut Festival - Bethania, North Carolina
The festival features Arts, Crafts, Food and Music in the historic Town of Bethania. Presented by the Town of Bethania this year’s celebration should be an event that one does not want to miss. We are excited about the festival and look forward to seeing you there!  The festival features crafters & artisans who show and sell their creations in one of the state’s most picturesque settings.  Historic and beautiful Bethania, North Carolina sets the stage for this glorious event.  Food vendors, non-profit displays, and music will be present to round out this day of fun.

September 18-24, 2023  Annual Mayberry Days - Mt. Airy, North Carolina
Surry Arts Council Mayberry Days is a festival for the whole family with activities and events for the fans of the Andy Griffith Show.  Includes: Aunt Bee's Bake Sale, Pickleland, Mr. Tucker's Apple Peeling Contest, Pork Chop Eating Contest, Pie Eating Contest, and much more!  Enjoy a bottle of pop while playing checkers, relax to music from many local bands playing the same songs that Andy grew up with and performed on The Andy Griffith Show.

September 23, 2023 - Whiskey Wine & Fire - Cary, North Carolina
This exclusive foodie celebration will feature: Whiskey Bars, Elegant Wines & Cocktails, Great Music, Tented Food Stations, Food Trucks, & Restaurants and Intimate Firepits throughout. Relax Around the Fire Gardens and enjoy an inspired take on fire-kissed BBQ, specialty grilling, and drink pairings. Enjoy the firebreathers and artists set the night ablaze. Please dress appropriately, the event is outdoors.

September 23, 2023  Apple Fest - Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Historic Bethabara Park.  One of our biggest and most-loved events! Join us as we celebrate the arrival of fall in all of its apple-filled goodness. Meet local artisans selling their wares while listening to music and enjoying a meal from one of our many food trucks. Don't forget to buy a bag of apples from a local orchard on your way out! The perfect souvenir for this family-fun event.

September 23, 2023  Annual Yadkin Valley Pumpkin Festival
Elkin, North Carolina
Includes Great Pumpkin Weigh-Off with pumpkins from growers located all over the East Coast. Some will weigh-in at an excess of 1,000 lbs with hopes of placing in the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth top ten. Main Street will be lined with vendors, plus a variety of live entertainment and the ever-popular pie-eating contest.  Attendance: 15,000.

September 30, 2023  Annual NC Muscadine Festival
Kenansville, North Carolina
Features over 250 wines and great music, wine making & cooking contests, farm implement exhibits, educational seminars, food and craft vendors.
 

2018 NORTH CAROLINA - September 2018
Food Festivals, and Other Food, Wine & Beer Events
events waiting for new dates

September 29, 2018  Annual Charlotte Oktoberfest
Charlotte, North Carolina
At Bojangles Coliseum.
 

2016 NORTH CAROLINA - September 2016
Food & Wine Festivals, Shows & Local Events
events still waiting for new dates

September 17, 2016  12th Annual Shine to Wine, Wine, Beer, Spirit and Art Festival
North Wilkesboro, North Carolina
'Shine to Wine Festival' A celebration of wine and art.

September 18, 2016  Share Our Strength's No Kid Hungry Dinner
Raleigh, North Carolina
No child in should grow up hungry in America, but one in five children struggles with hunger. Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign is ending childhood hunger in this nation by connecting kids in need with nutritious food and teaching families how to cook healthy, affordable meals. You can help surround kids with the nutritious food they need where they live, learn and play.
 

2015 NORTH CAROLINA - September 2015
Food & Wine Festivals, Shows & Local Events
events still waiting for new dates

September 4-7, 2015  Taste of the New South
Pinehurst, North Carolina
We’ve put a new twist on our annual Labor Day Weekend Event!  Celebrate all that’s great about the South at the Taste of the New South festival. Sip and savor your way through Labor Day weekend at Pinehurst, packed full of beer and wine tastings, culinary demonstrations by award-winning chefs, an authentic Southern Tailgate, a Carolina Oyster Roast & Pig Pickin’ and more-all with a touch of Southern flavor!

September 11-12, 2015  North Carolina Sweet Potato Festival
Snow Hill, North Carolina
The 2015 North Carolina Sweet Potato Festival, scheduled for September 11th and 12th has been CANCELLED by the Executive Committee. It was determined to be in the best interest to cancel the festival this year to seek other options for implementation and a site location. Plans are to resume the festival activities in 2016 to continue the celebration of giving thanks, and promote Greene County's agriculture heritage.

September 18-19, 2015  Southern Sauce, Beer Bar-B-Que & Bands Festival - Charlotte, North Carolina
It’s a Carolina good time with great food, great fun and great music! It will be a rockin’ 2 days of beer drinking, pork eating and shaking your pig tail at the Southeast's Favorite BBQ Competition!

September 19, 2015  North Carolina Poultry Festival
Raeford, North Carolina
The North Carolina Turkey Festival lasted for 30 years before the name change to North Carolina Poultry Festival came about. Many speculations have been made about the name change but the answer is simply this – when the Turkey Festival began “turkey” was the major commodity in Hoke County after 30 years “turkey” is still a popular commodity but has been surpassed by “chicken”. Not wanting to be called the Chicken Festival or wanting to leave our ever faithful Ladybird out of the logo it was obvious that the common ground became “poultry.”

September 26, 2015  Annual Wild About Game - Outdoor Sportsmen's Day - Robbinsville, North Carolina
If you love wild game, this day’s for you!  Don’t know if you like wild game?  Here is your chance to find out!  Visitors can taste bear, deer or boar prepared by local celebrity, hunter, and 'moonshiner,' Mark Rogers.  Activities start at 2:00 p.m. at the Village Shopping Center.   Visitors will have opportunities to taste wild game, enter a wild fruit jam and jelly contest, cheer for their favorite dish in the wild game cook-off, take a dancing lesson, listen to bluegrass music.