Weekend Plans: Fox 50 Family Fest, festivals, cardboard challenge, Pinocchio

We have another beautiful fall weekend ahead of us! Here’s your weekend family fun! As always, check WRAL.com’s Out & About section and our Halloween and Fall Fun Guide, which includes the region’s pumpkin patches, for more activities. And Friday is the first Friday of the month, which means it's First Friday in downtown Raleigh. Be sure to check our First Friday Family Fun guide if you go.

Go Ask Mom is gearing up for a fun weekend participating in the Fox 50 Family Fest at both Raleigh’s Pullen Park and Durham’s American Tobacco Campus. It’s from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, at Pullen Park, and noon to 3 p.m., Sunday, at American Tobacco. Read my earlier post for details. We hope to see you there!

The 28th International Festival of Raleigh, featuring music, dance, art and more from around the world, runs Friday to Sunday at the Raleigh Convention Center. This is a big event with lots of opportunities to learn about other cultures. The event includes Sophia’s Corner for kids with face painting, storytelling, games and other activities. Tickets are between $5 and $8 depending on your age and what day you go. Kids 6 and under are free.

On Sunday, Chapel Hill’s Festifall Arts Festival will run noon to 6 p.m. along West Franklin Street in downtown Chapel Hill. The free festival, now in its 41st year, offers an artist’s market, hands-on activities, music and more. At the Ackland Art Museum’s Art on the Move pop up exhibit, visitors will be encouraged to create their own moving sculptures on their bikes, wagons or carts. The N.C. Symphony’s Instrument Zoo will be on hand. So will a tie dye bus, face painting, spin art and a graffiti art demonstration. New this year: The Chapel Hill Public Library will bring its Digital Bookmobile. Find it outside the Orange County Visitors Center. The one-of-a-kind traveling exhibit is a high-tech update of the old school bookmobile.

The Museum of Life and Science’s Global Cardboard Challenge continues through Saturday. The week- long challenge invites museum goers to build their own custom additions to what’s being called a Colossal Cardboard Imagination Machine. It all wraps up with a reveal of the final room-size cardboard creation to view and add on to on Saturday. It's free with admission to the museum, which is $14 for adults and $10 for kids ages 3 to 12.

The Mallarme Chamber Players will present Pinocchio, a family concert, at 12:30 p.m., Saturday, at Kirby Horton Hall at Duke Gardens in Durham. The 45-minute concert is best for kids ages 5 to 12 and their families. Actor Paul Paliyenko will read a narration, with some Italian thrown in, of the story. The quartet will play 11 short movements with the musicians using their instruments to add the meows of cats, the groans of whales and the eerie harmonics of monsters, says a description. Get there early for an instrument zoo from High Strung Violins and Guitars. Tickets are $5 for kid ages 12 and under and $10 for everybody else.

Cirque Italia will present what's called an "aquatic spectacular" with shows Thursday through Sunday in Raleigh. The show moves from city to city with a customized traveling tent and a water stage that holds more than 35,000 gallons of water. It features all sorts of aerial acts, hand balancing, contortionists and other circus acts. It takes place in the International Foods Plaza on Olympia Drive in Raleigh. I don't know much beyond this, but it sounds fascinating. Tickets are between $9 and $35. 

We have three consignment sales this week in Raleigh, Chapel Hill and Smithfield.

Scooby-Doo makes a stop at Northgate Mall in Durham on Sunday. And Northgate’s theater will offer $1 screenings of favorite Scooby-Doo cartoons both Saturday and Sunday. Read my earlier post for more information.

If you’re a lover of all things marching band or have a kid who is aspiring to play in one someday, head over to the Heart of Carolina Marching Band Invitational at Wakefield High School in Raleigh on Saturday. It starts at 4:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 for ages 10 and up; $5 for ages 5 to 9 and seniors age 65 and up; and free for kids age four and under.

Garner Firemen’s Day is 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday, on Main Street in Garner. You’ll find games for kids, a parade at 2 p.m., a live burn demonstration at 3 p.m. and other small-town fun.

One of my favorite events of the year is Heritage Day at Historic Oak View County Park off Poole Road in Raleigh. It’s like an old country fair with live music, animals, agriculture displays, crafts, a quilt auction and more. it’s free and a lot of fun. Heritage Day is 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday.

The Triangle Independent School Consortium will hold admission fairs featuring private schools from the region on Saturday and Sunday. Read my earlier post for details.

Money Magazine recently named Apex the ninth best place to live in the United States and the best place in North Carolina. They’re celebrating with Party in the Peak from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday, at the Apex Town Campus, 73 Hunter St. There will be inflatables, games, free ice cream, music and lots of food trucks.

The Movement Project, an effort to pull together the arts community in Wake County to support nonprofits and charities, is planning a big show this Saturday to support The A21 Campaign against human trafficking. Showtimes are 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. at the Garner Performing Arts Center. The event aims to bring a light to this cause in a family-friendly way and educate the community about the problem. For much more about the group and the show, check the website.