A lively roots-music festival on Fayetteville Street in downtown Raleigh, with a string band onstage, a diverse evening crowd, food vendors, and city lights.

Raleigh Wide Open is here, and downtown is ready to make some noise. The free festival runs **October 1–3**, bringing more than three dozen acts to four stages along Fayetteville Street.

This year’s lineup leans into Americana while making room for bluegrass, folk, country, rock, R&B, gospel, and international influences. Expect sets from artists including Shinyribs, Jim Lauderdale, the Fairfield Four, Alice Gerrard, Carolina Cutups, and Icelandic acoustic group Brek.

The weekend begins with Thursday’s kickoff celebration at NC State’s Centennial Campus from 6 to 9:30 p.m. Friday’s Fayetteville Street festival runs from 3 to 11 p.m.; Saturday follows from noon to 11 p.m., so there is plenty of time to build a downtown music crawl around your favorite acts.

It is not only for serious music fans. The Family Fun Zone returns for younger attendees, and Friday morning’s Field Trip Festival will welcome more than 300 students from area schools. Bring a friend, arrive curious, and enjoy one of Raleigh’s biggest free weekends of the fall.

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A hospitality manager uses an unbranded smart walkie-talkie in a modern hotel lobby while frontline colleagues communicate nearby, with a Raleigh innovation workspace in the background.

Raleigh’s startup community has another big win to celebrate. **Relay**, a local company that makes internet-connected communication tools for frontline workers, has raised **$36 million** in a new funding round.

Relay’s device looks a bit like a next-generation walkie-talkie, but it goes well beyond the old-school version. The tools help managers communicate with teams remotely and can provide real-time location information, language translation, and safety alerts for workers who need immediate help.

The technology is already being used in hospitality, health care, education, and manufacturing. Relay says the new funding will help it add about **100 workers** over the next year, a welcome sign for Raleigh’s growing technology and jobs ecosystem.

The company now has about 300 employees and recently moved from the Advance Auto Parts tower in North Hills to space near Lenovo Center after outgrowing its previous office. Keep an eye on this one: Relay is a clear example of a Raleigh-grown company building tools with reach far beyond the Triangle.

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A Raleigh driver beside a parked car in a sunny neighborhood holds a smartphone with a blank digital display while removing old registration-sticker residue from an unmarked rear license plate.

If you are looking at your license plate this week and wondering whether something is different, you are right. As of **October 1**, North Carolina’s Division of Motor Vehicles has moved to an all-electronic vehicle-registration system, ending the requirement for registration stickers and printed vehicle-registration cards.

The important part has not changed: drivers still need to renew on time and pay the required registration fees and vehicle property taxes. Once that is done, the registration remains valid even though a new sticker and paper card will no longer arrive in the mail.

You also do not need to keep a physical registration card in the car. Law enforcement officers can already verify registration and inspection status electronically in real time, which is one reason the state says physical documents are now largely redundant.

NCDMV recommends removing old stickers on or after October 1. The renewal process itself stays the same, with online, in-person, mail, and self-service-kiosk options still available. Consider it one less item to keep track of in the glove box.

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Raleigh Weather

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