[piano intro] - Next on "North Carolina Weekend," join us as we take you to events and destinations that are new to the state.

We'll celebrate Viking fun in Oxford, listen to live music at The Rooster in Gastonia, and visit a new brewery in Washington.

Coming up next.

- [Announcer] Funding for "North Carolina Weekend" is provided in part by VisitNC, dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history, and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains across the Piedmont to 300 miles of barrier island beaches, you're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

[bright cheerful music] [bright cheerful music continues] [bright cheerful music continues] [bright music concludes] - Welcome to "North Carolina Weekend," everyone.

I'm Deborah Holt Noel.

And this week we are highlighting places and events that are new to our state.

In Oxford, a backyard celebration has turned into a statewide sensation.

At the Viking Experience, you will find exciting battles, elaborate costumes, and engaging performances.

And as producer Sadie Maddock discovered, this festival is really unique in the way the organizers really invite you into the action.

[tense drumming music] - [Presenter] There will be one who enters the world swinging and screaming and so shall it be when she leaves it.

With fire in her hair and sparks from her harp, a new queen will rise above the rest.

- [Sadie] Welcome to Drekheim Village, [drum music continues] home of the Viking Experience.

[person sings in foreign language] [fighters chanting] - [Presenter] From no man greater, no one so bold will stop her from this rise.

- The clan is strong because the clan takes care of one another.

- [Sadie] During the week, she's a registered nurse, but today she's Yaro.

- We have conquered and called this place Drekheim, Home of the Dragons.

- [Sadie] Queen Hannah the Red is one half of the mother-daughter duo that makes this festival happen.

The other half is Angela.

- She is the mother of six of her own children, but has earned the moniker All Mother, because she just makes people feel like so included.

We wanted people to be able to come in and interact and touch and enjoy and even be a part of this story, like they felt like they were stepping outside of their world and into our world.

- And sit by the fire and feel like they're one of the villagers as opposed to just watching a show.

They go and see the queen and they get her blessing.

[lively instrumental music] - [Sadie] Over the course of two weekends, thousands of people walk through these gates near Oxford, North Carolina.

This year marks the first event on their new property.

- [Hannah] There's this like carved beautiful gate.

When they come in, I want them to see the vendors, and make it feel like it's a bazaar, and I want them to see like beautiful things in their mind, just kind of full of the color of it.

- [Sadie] At the Crafty Celts, you'll spot jewelry featured on the show "Vikings."

- They came to us and bought some bracelets and then this one ended up being a major piece in the show, almost become its own character.

There's a commercial where these bloody hands would be handing the bracelet towards the screen and I'd see it in restaurants, so it was very hard not to stand up and scream, "That was mine!"

[lively Celtic music] - [Sadie] Also a hit, animals of all sorts.

[lively Celtic music continues] Hannah and Angela's clan sets up camp at Drekheim Village, but they invite clans from all over to create encampments.

- So Fenrir's Den is a group of very close friends.

Everyone in camp is an artisan of some sort.

So there's woodworkers and bone carvers and musicians.

And collectively we bring all of our skills together to create this really immersive environment.

[tense music] [performer yells] - All hail.

- [All] The lord!

[tense music continues] [armor rustling] - I look, act and feel like an 11th century crusader.

[weapons thudding] You'll notice that we're fighting and throwing blows, very hard blows.

The carapace of armor is something that's unreal.

Right now I have chain mail and I've got quilted [indistinct] with the knee cops.

The only thing missing is the dust, sand and dirt, and the blood and the smells.

[gentle flute music] - [Sadie] Whether you wanna fight, shop, dress up, or just take it all in, one thing is clear.

At this festival, everyone has what it takes to be a Viking.

- A lot of people say, "Well I couldn't act in character," and it's actually where all of us were children, you know, and they all have that child in us still.

[flute music continues] And sometimes you have to let that child out.

And so this is an environment where that child can kind of play again, and you can dress up and be somebody else for a weekend.

- Oh, I've never done that before.

Let me just give it a chance, like do something different and experience something you haven't done before.

- [Deborah] The Viking Experience NC sets up camp at 1045 Walnut Grove Road in Oxford.

Their big festival happens over the course of two weekends in March.

To learn more, head to thevikingexperiencenc.com.

They say, when it comes to memorable travel experiences, it's not about where you're going, but who you're going with.

So we eagerly joined People First Tourism in Wake County to make some new memories.

[bus engine hums] - I devoted 10 years to diagnose the goods and the bads of tourism.

And as I was trying to do that, I felt that more and more I was just explaining the illness but not proposing a cure.

How can local people make money and speak through their engagement in tourism?

People First Tourism is a research and practice movement that focuses on local tourism, micro entrepreneurship.

People seek authenticity.

That's I think what you get when you are in a People First Tourism experience.

- I want other people to be able to experience what's fantastic about where I live and you know, to really get a sense of who we are out here in Zebulon.

We produce artisanal honey gathered from our hives across the state and we love to bring people out to the farm to experience what we do and taste the honey that we've gathered.

[gentle music continues] - I've never actually seen beekeeping up close, you know, close enough to see inside of a hive.

They make incredible products and they do us the favor of helping bees stay alive.

I'd absolutely recommend people coming out here and supporting them, supporting small business and supporting the honey bees.

Most important part.

- If everyone were to just believe that their tiny choices matter, then big things happen.

[train chugging] - I am your host for the night.

I am Krystal Da Muse.

We are gonna have fun.

Are you ready to have fun?

You gonna have fun?

[all cheering] Let me hear you say, alright.

- [All] Alright.

- That was real good.

That was real good.

[upbeat music] Put your hands together for the acts tonight.

[audience cheering and clapping] - You can never fix what is broken if you just keep giving it fresh coats of paint.

[audience oohs and snaps] - This event is called Culture at the Mic.

Where artistry, culture and community collide.

- I feel like the culture's always changing and in order to be current with the culture, you need to hear the voices of the people that are here.

- Every set's different, every show is different.

It's about you relaxing, having a good time, and most importantly connecting with other people.

- A lot of times we look at artists in the commodity sense.

What can they do for me?

Right?

But this platform is more of a homage to the artists.

What can we do for you?

- Hey y'all.

[all applauding] - [Audience] Hey!

- I like the audience.

The people that come, they love art just for the sake of art.

They're not judgmental, they're free.

They participate.

I think my goal for my music is a form of expression.

Just to be seen, be heard.

[upbeat music fades] [gentle string music] ♪ I remember when ♪ ♪ I remember I remember when I lost my mind ♪ [crowd cheering] ♪ There was something so special about at that place ♪ ♪ Even your emotions had an echo ♪ ♪ And so much space ♪ - [Audience Member] That was good, sis!

[all clapping and cheering] - I feel compelled to talk about things that are vulnerable and puts me in a state of humility because people like to know that they not alone.

The people I wronged got to watch, they are still watching.

Talk about humiliation, how loud it can get, how it turns the light on when you're trying to sleep, how it declines forgetting.

Talk about me.

Knowing that people are impacted by my performance and knowing that people are changed and healed and you know, free, set free in a way through my poetry.

That's what keeps me going and that's what keeps me excited about, you know, writing poetry and going to perform it because I know that somebody is gonna leave changed and impacted by what I'm doing.

- [Dr. Duarte] We're doing this to support the artist, to support the farmer, to allow the tourist to have these magnificent connection with all of those local people.

The experience is about the connection between the people.

- [Deborah] People First Tourism operates in and around Raleigh and they offer all sorts of events throughout the week.

To check out their calendar and book a spot for one of their experiences, head to peoplefirsttourism.com.

Another place that's new to our state is a charming bookstore in the little town of Mount Holly.

Alison Sheridan was getting her masters degree in publishing in Ireland when she met her future husband, Matthew.

When she decided to move to North Carolina, she took a name from her husband's Irish roots and along with their Labrador, Seamus, opened a popular bookstore called Cleary's.

[bright string music] - I am Alison Sheridan and we're in Mount Holly, North Carolina.

And I am the owner of Cleary's Bookstore.

- And I'm Matt Sheridan and I am her other half, I'm here to help.

- He's our unpaid COO.

[bright string music continues] The community of readers that I've found in the Greater Charlotte area has just been wonderful to discover.

We had visited Mount Holly, that I went and toured all of the bookstores that I could find and locate.

I kind of was getting a sense that we didn't have a strong community of readers.

And since opening the bookstore, that has just been proven so demonstrably false.

So we're on Main Street, Mount Holly.

We fell in love with it, kind of.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

And this is Black Sheep Coffee.

This is our favorite coffee shop that we go to.

- Seamus.

- Seamus loves Michelle.

You wanna go say hi to Michelle and get a treat?

Yes?

Good boy.

- Good boy.

Remember just two.

- Just two.

- Good boy.

Come here.

- I love Mount Holly because it is a quirky, eclectic town when you really tuck into it and get to know the people that embody the community.

You have a large swath of people from different backgrounds and everybody loves this town and everybody loves the community.

I also, especially like that a lot of the business owners on Main Street are women, young millennial women.

Mount Holly's kind of scrappy too.

And I really like everybody's spirit around the city.

[bright string music continues] - I worked on the branding and the graphics and merch for her store.

We of course had to include Seamus, the store dog.

When Alison started, she was handwriting, I think she might still be on all the bags.

And so it became sort of a thing on social media.

And so we decided to do a tote bag as well.

[bright string music] - I went back to Ireland for about two weeks and somebody apparently got bored and ended up deciding that she wanted to run a business to own her own bookstore.

And within the space of two weeks, had a full business plan ready to go.

And by the time I got back here, it was pretty much all goals.

Like, yep, we're going seeing places, we've got an idea of where we want to be, it's gonna work.

And I'm dreading next time I have to leave.

- Which is the summer, but I already started another business this year.

So you don't have to, yeah.

- You did, so you can't start a third one.

- You don't have to worry about that.

- No.

- The whole store is about the joy of reading and about the readers who enjoy Cleary's.

As you'll see from our book clubs, we're just a group of like yappers who love to talk about books.

It's a little chaotic, some might argue a little cultish, but we just try to have as much fun as we can with reading.

- I came here pretty soon after it opened.

It was pretty cool, I didn't know Cleary's was coming here and I was walking down the street one day and just saw it.

Alison told me about the book club.

So I've been here since the first one.

She has a bunch of different themed ones, so it's different genres every week.

Like mystery, thriller, historical fiction, sci-fi.

And so you can come to as many or as few as you want, which I come to all of them because I'm obsessed.

- I couldn't be prouder, honestly.

- Thanks.

I really just want it to feel cozy.

I mean, we've got the creaky floors, we've got the exposed brick.

We put it in a Hogwarts ceiling 'cause I'm a millennial nerd.

We don't take ourselves too seriously.

So it's really kind of about finding what is going to make you want to crack that book.

- Cleary's Bookstore is at 105 North Main Street in Mount Holly.

They're open Tuesday through Sunday.

And to shop online or find out more about their book clubs, check out clearysbookstore.com.

North Carolina is no stranger to good music and good music is no stranger to Michael Carpenter.

So much so, he created a venue in Gastonia that would showcase the abundant live musical talent there.

Let's join Theresa Litsky on her visit to The Rooster.

[upbeat rock music] [rock music continues] - Our core of what we do is entertainment.

We exist to provide opportunities for artists locally and regionally to get up here and share what they have to give.

- We've got so many talented singer-songwriters in the area, bands included, and for a long time they didn't have a place to play.

- [Theresa] Not until Gastonia native Michael Carpenter started thinking about opening a live music venue there in 2019.

- We found ourselves on these long drives home all the time from shows, and we started talking about how cool it would be to have a place locally that we could go and see live music.

- [Theresa] Three years later, he opened The Rooster, named after a song by one of his favorite bands.

But definitely not limited to any musical style.

- Yeah, we do a little bit of everything.

We've had jazz shows, bluegrass shows, heavy metal, hard rock.

- You know, singer songwriter, original acoustic music to r&b, to hip hop, to metal.

- All the sub genres in between.

There's so much, it's amazing.

- Hi, USA.

My name's Jade Moore, welcome to Open Mic- - Performances start weekly on Wednesday with free admission at open mic.

- The goal was always to kind of use open mic as a place for people to kind of collaborate and get the word out about their stuff.

[guitar music] [people chattering] - The open mic is important to me because that's where I got my confidence to start actually performing publicly.

♪ You really thought that you ♪ I mean, I have a 40 hour a week job.

I'm an accountant.

- [Theresa] Those are the types of surprise performances guests can enjoy, no matter their age because The Rooster is an all ages venue.

- Most clubs that do live music are 21 and up.

And the reason for that is because insurance is extremely expensive.

And a perfect example is Eliza Ray, he's going up now.

He was 15 years old the first time he come in here and played an open mic.

He's opened for multiple shows here.

He's had his own shows here and he wouldn't get these opportunities at most places.

And then on the weekends we do our concerts and most tickets are between 10 and 20 bucks.

Occasionally we'll have a bigger national acts and those tickets can go 30, 50, 60 bucks depending on the act.

Now, occasionally when the weather's warmer, we do host festivals, we permit the parking lot out back.

It's a municipal lot, so there's a whole lot of red tape with that.

- [Theresa] That's not a problem, because for Michael, it's all about the music.

- You know, this is one of the only venues in the area where the musicians get 100% of the door.

They're not taking a cut, you know, they're here for you.

It's what Michael makes behind the bar.

- [Theresa] Where you'll find spirits of all kinds with plenty of local craft beer, including one named in honor of the venue, an Irish red style ale called Rooster Red.

- So this is actually a collaboration with us in Cavendish Brewery, and it is delicious.

It's everyone's favorite.

They can't keep it in stock.

The first batch was gone in the first weekend.

[people clapping and cheering] - [Theresa] ] But it's the vibe at The Rooster that patrons young and old alike are drawn to, a comfortable, safe place to gather and revel in the thing they love most.

The ability to listen to great live music.

- I guess first and foremost, my hope is that people find community, you feel welcome, you feel wanted, you feel appreciated.

That goes from every guest to every performer.

- Because it is one of the very few music venues that actually feels like home.

- It's always fun to see a room full of people smiling and dancing and having a good time.

That's really why I do this.

- Let's go Rooster!

[rock music continues] - You'll find The Rooster at 334 West Maine Avenue in Gastonia, and they're open for all sorts of events and shows throughout the week.

Give them a call at [704] 616-0291, or head to theroostergastonia.com to get tickets.

When best friends Bubba Summerlin and Tim Jackson retired from their demanding jobs, they quickly grew restless, and when they looked around their hometown of Washington, they realized it needed something too.

And so was born Two Rivers Alehouse, a brewery with a friendly vibe, great food, and of course, craft beer.

[bright upbeat music] - Number one, friendly people, the waterfront, you know, it's a boating community and just the downtown businesses, everybody is so super nice.

When we opened, we got gift baskets from other businesses here on Main Street.

You know, welcome us to the family, basically.

- You know, everybody speaks to you, you know, when you're walking down the street and just friendly folks.

- You know, if you want to fish or go crabbing or do some boating and some water activities.

It's just a really cool town.

It's just fun.

[upbeat music continues] - Tim and I met, we were probably 11, 12 years old.

We grew up in a small town and we've been friends ever since.

And we kept watching the downtown area and we wanted to be a part of this development.

And so we didn't want to open a type of business that was already here.

So we decided on a brewery.

- We started going around the different craft brewers and we tasted different beers and kind of felt like this is something that we do enjoy.

And then we just decided to pull the trigger and here we are.

- Well, in 2021, everything was shut down with COVID and Washington had the whole Main Street area here shut down.

They were doing a new street-scape.

And so when they opened up the street-scape, it was about the same time that all the bars and restaurants were allowed back to full capacity.

And we opened about 30 days after that.

And so from that time forward, people have just come and come and come and they're like, "We're so thankful y'all opened when you did.

There was nothing like this in Washington."

And Washington is on a rise.

It's just so many people moving here from across the state.

- It's a great vibe.

You know, they did a great job renovating it.

- We put the floors in ourself.

The light fixtures came from a remodeled building in DC.

We are very similar to the lights on the White House.

We got a clock hanging on the wall.

That's a 1890s Lenzkirch, along with the collection of antique steins.

[lively music] We are the only brewery here in Washington that brews here on site.

- Obviously with our name being Alehouse, you know, with some ales, you know, red ales, brown ales, blonde ales, then some IPAs.

- Oh, the Castle Island IPA, it's a pineapple made with citrus.

It's been one of our most popular beers since Tim brewed it probably six months ago.

And it's just a hit.

- So today I've got the Melon on Main.

It's a watermelon puree.

It's just a white refreshing, it's a wheat beer, you know, it just really helps you just enjoy the day.

- I've got one in my mind that I want to create, and get Tim to brew for me.

But we'll see.

I may have to pay for the ingredients because in case it's not great, so we'll see.

- We sell our craft beers for $4.95 and we have people coming in across the state from other breweries that's visiting Washington saying, "Y'all need to raise your prices."

But we feel like $4.95 is a good price for customers.

And it works for us.

It works for them.

- Look, if you're looking at a microbrew and you want to pay under eight bucks, I mean it's like $4.95, you can't beat it.

[upbeat music continues] - [Bubba] We do six different slushies at a time.

We have six different machines that vary in flavors.

We make 'em from wine, from Prosecco, Seltzer.

So it's a varied flavor profile in our slushes as well.

- And the food's amazing.

I mean, we just finished a flatbread pizza and the pretzel basket.

- We do charcuterie board.

You get a choice of meats and cheeses, you know, your mustards, your jams, crackers, nuts, things like that.

We do a crabby pretzel, which is pretzel sticks with the crab dip that we use on top of it, we do what we call big dippers, which is a bread bowl filled with any one of our six dips that you can put in it from, you know, lobster to a buffalo dip.

- The pretzels, ginormous.

- We've had people that's come in and say, "Hey, I'm gonna get a beer."

We got reservations at a restaurant and they eat an appetizer here and they stay.

They say, "We're cool.

We can't go eat anywhere else."

♪ Oh oh oh oh ♪ - We have a good crowd of locals, of loyal customers who love coming in here.

And then we get people from out of town that are coming in to stay in an Airbnb for the weekend.

And we've had people come in saying, "Hey, we've seen articles about you guys.

We've seen y'all featured places, and we come to town to check out Two Rivers."

- [Deborah] Two Rivers Alehouse is at 186 West Main Street in Washington and they're open Wednesday through Sunday.

Get in touch by calling [252] 339-5245 or check out their menu at tworiversalehouse.com.

Well, that's it for tonight's show.

We hope that you have been inspired to visit some of these places that are new to our state.

And remember, if you've missed anything in tonight's show, you can always watch us again online at pbsnc.org and you can find all of our stories on our YouTube channel.

Have a great North Carolina weekend, everyone.

Goodnight.

[lively music continues] [lively music continues] [lively music concludes] - [Announcer] Funding for North Carolina Weekend is provided in part by Visit NC, dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history, and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains across the Piedmont to 300 miles of Barrier Island beaches, you're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

[piano outro]