Morrisville International Festival

Morrisville is one of the most internationally diverse towns in North Carolina, and this is the festival built around that fact.

More than half the town's residents were born outside the United States, which is an unusual figure anywhere in the state and makes a town-run international festival something other than a gesture. The communities represented are the communities that live there.

What is on across the three hours:

• Food from across the cuisines represented in the town
• Cultural performance and music
• Community and cultural organization stalls
• Activities for children

A 4 to 7 p.m. slot on a September Saturday is a good window. The worst of the heat has gone, the light is pleasant for the first two hours, and it does not eat the whole day.

The Indian Creek Trailhead sits beside Town Hall Drive and connects to the town's greenway network, so it is genuinely reachable on foot or by bike for anyone local. For everyone else there is parking around the Town Hall campus.

Our read: three hours is short for a festival of this kind, which means it is dense rather than sprawling. Arrive near the start rather than drifting in at six.

Free to attend.

Come hungry and plan to eat rather than browse. The food is the strongest part of this festival and three hours goes quickly once you have lined up twice.