Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord is trading race cars for food trucks this weekend as Foodieland sets up shop, promising more than 250 vendors, global flavors and a lineup of only-at-a-festival novelties like Korean corn dogs and sushi pizza. The event runs Friday through Sunday, and organizers are billing it as the nation's largest multicultural food festival.
What's Rolling Into Concord
The festival is scheduled for Sept. 18-20, 2026, at Charlotte Motor Speedway, located at 5555 Concord Parkway South, according to the event's own Charlotte city page. Foodieland is bringing in more than 250 vendors, per Explore Cabarrus, which describes the event as uniting local talent, small businesses and global flavors under one roof — or, in this case, one speedway infield. Queen City News reported that the speedway will feature shops, food vendors and games alongside the cuisine, and that the menu includes buckets of lumpia, bone marrow, giant baby bottles of lemonade, and the aforementioned Korean corn dogs and sushi pizza, according to Queen City News.
Explore Cabarrus also notes that Foodieland is known as the nation's largest food festival, though that description comes from the event listing itself rather than an independent count. Whatever the superlative, the scale is real: tickets for the Charlotte stop are available through the festival's website, while parking at the speedway costs $10 per vehicle, cash or credit, and kids age 5 and under get in free.
Rules of the Road for Attendees
Before heading to Concord, a few logistics are worth knowing. Only service animals are allowed inside, according to Foodieland's Charlotte FAQ, and bikes, skateboards, scooters and roller blades are all prohibited. Tickets for the Charlotte stop are available through the festival's website, the Explore Cabarrus listing notes.
Foodieland isn't a one-city phenomenon — the same touring festival maintains dedicated pages for stops in Houston and San Diego. A Cow Palace listing shows the tour made a stop in the Bay Area from May 22–24.
What Past Attendees Have Said
Reviews of Foodieland stops in other cities have been mixed. A prior attendee at a Sacramento-area event, posting on Reddit, said cooler weather made that particular festival more enjoyable than others, adding, “It definitely helped that it wasn't during hotter weather.” That same reviewer reported that lines were manageable for the first hour to hour and a half after opening but got long around 3 p.m., ultimately rating the overall experience 3.5 out of 5 and calling it “worth it as a one and done.”
Other Sacramento-area commenters described a rougher experience, with long lines, no shade and high heat — one wrote that “the heat made me sick so I had to go home” after temperatures hit 93 degrees, per posts on Reddit's r/Sacramento. Prices drew complaints too, with one commenter noting loaded fries ran $20 and a drink took 30 minutes to arrive at $25 for what they called a small baby bottle. Those accounts describe a different city's event and shouldn't be read as direct reports from Charlotte, but they offer a sense of what past Foodieland crowds have experienced elsewhere.
For Charlotte-area visitors this weekend, the forecast called for mid-90s temperatures and mainly afternoon showers and thunderstorms. On Facebook, a member of the FoodiesOfNashville group posed a common newcomer question ahead of a different Foodieland stop, asking whether there are tables to sit at and whether food and drinks are purchased individually or included as samples — a reminder that logistics questions tend to follow this festival from city to city.
