You’ve Got to Be at the Got to Be NC Festival This Weekend!

With more than 100 tractors, North Carolina food and beverages, music, a carnival and free kids’ activities, the Got to Be NC Festival is an event you don’t want to miss at the N.C. State Fairgrounds in Raleigh, May 17-19. “The antique tractor and farm equipment display, featuring a daily tractor parade, and the Food Lion Local Goodness Marketplace are two of the unique highlights of the festival,” said Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler. “We have one of the largest antique tractor displays in the Southeast, and the marketplace features around 80 North Carolina companies offering the opportunity to sample the…

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Taste of the Fair

We’ve got a delicious way to help you get ready for the N.C. State Fair! The first-ever ‘Taste of the State Fair’ events will be held at four locations across the region. Attendees will be able to sample fair-food favorites for free with any advance purchase of N.C. State Fair tickets. Food truck vendors will be serving tasty crowd favorites such as deep-fried Oreos, chicken and waffle tacos and Krispy Kreme burgers. Menu items will vary by location. Attendees will also be able to purchase food separately. “This is a great way to raise awareness for the N.C. State Fair…

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Welcome, hockey fans! It’s the NHL All-Star weekend in Raleigh

Raleigh’s come a long way since the Raleigh IceCaps played “ice hockey” in Dorton Arena. This weekend the city plays host to the the NHL All-Star festivities. Our neighbor, the RBC Center, will host the games and downtown Raleigh is where all the off-ice activities will take place. We hear that our old friend, Lord Stanley’s Cup will be back in town and we hope to say hi. (Nope, we’re not afraid to name-drop!) You see, we got up-close-and-personal with Lord Stanley after the Hurricanes won the coveted trophy in 2006. On opening day in 2006, the Stanley Cup made…

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Take a world tour at the fairgrounds

The fall is a busy time for all of us who work at the State Fair. While others get to take time off and go enjoy the autumn leaf season in the mountains, we typically don’t get a chance to take time off and get out of town. I’m not complaining because I really do love my job. However, by the end of October, I am ready for a vacation. I admit that I have spent considerable time daydreaming about what I’m going to do with with my time off. I spend most of that time dreaming about far-off, exotic…

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Got to Be NC Festival headlines a jam-packed weekend at the Fairgrounds

Fairgrounds visitors will have plenty of activities to choose from as the third-annual Got to Be NC Festival kicks off a full weeekend of events. The festival runs Friday, May 21, to Sunday, May 23, and will include hundreds of food and commercial vendors, agricultural exhibits, carnival rides and much more. Following is the jam-packed schedule of activities at the Got to Be NC Festival: Amran Shriners N.C. Seafood Fish Fry, Friday, beside the Expo Center The Shriners will serve N.C. mountain trout, catfish and shrimp from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Cost is $10 per plate. The event is…

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Nov. 12 Triangle Social Media Club meeting to feature N.C. State Fair

Throughout the year, we strive to bring our followers on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr and YouTube and readers here on the Deep Fried Blog the type of behind-the-scenes content that they can’t find anywhere else. Hopefully, you were able to improve your 2009 Fair experience through some or all of these channels. (If not, let us know! We would love to hear your feedback.) On our end, we enjoyed tracking down the most interesting stories and people at the Fair for the blog and connecting with fairgoers on our social networking sites. Since the Fair, we’ve been compiling information to…

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Sampling Woody’s new buffalo chicken rangoons

We here in the Press Office take our duties very seriously. Between helping the media, organizing the opening ceremony and various press conferences, writing blog posts and news releases and more, we make sure to try out the newest food creations on the fairgrounds and share them with you. We’ve already tasted deep-fried Ho Hos and chocolate-covered bacon, and yesterday we stopped by Woody’s City Market food stand to try out the new buffalo chicken rangoons. These bite-sized, deep-fried dumplings (similar to the crab rangoons available in many Chinese restaurants) are filled with Woody’s famous buffalo chicken and medium sauce….

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Walk-up ticket locations open today through Oct. 15

View N.C. State Fair walk-up ticket sales locations in a larger map Walk-up ticket sales locations open today, with eight places in Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Wilson and Burlington now selling admission tickets and ride sheets: Triangle Town Center in Raleigh State Farmers Market in Raleigh Gate 9 at the State Fairgrounds in Raleigh N.C. Museum of History in downtown Raleigh University Mall in Chapel Hill Northgate Mall in Durham Burlington Square Mall in Burlington Wilson Mall in Wilson All locations accept cash, Visa and Mastercard, and will be open through Thursday, Oct. 15. Each location has its own business…

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It’s a bird, it’s a plane…

…it’s a N.C. State Fair billboard! With only (gasp!) 48 days before the gates open for the 142nd annual N.C. State Fair, our advertising is slowly being unveiled. The online campaign started in early August when advance ticket sales began to promote our early bird special through Aug. 30.  [You can join in on the online promotion by getting your own web banners here.] This week, we started hearing rumors that the billboards were up, which is about a week ahead of schedule. So today at lunch, I ventured up Capital Boulevard in Raleigh to see for myself if the…

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Social Media Breakfast recap

We had a great time at this morning’s Raleigh Social Media Breakfast. It’s always nice to put faces to names, avatars and commenters, and we were really excited to share information about the Fair. We met in the Jim Graham restaurant on the State Fairgrounds at 7:45 a.m. to discuss how social media (Facebook, blogs, Twitter and beyond) are changing the way people get their news, communicate and do business. We presented information on the different successes and challenges we had with this new type of media, and here are some the key points we presented on our experience: Our…

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