Quiet Waters Park in Deerfield Beach turns Brazilian on Saturday, October 17, when the Annual Brazilian Festival returns for its 18th edition. Gates open at 2 p.m. and the music runs until 10, with the samba and pagode group Negritude Júnior on the bill, a parade, and a twist nobody would guess: a brass band from West Boca Raton High School marching New Orleans style alongside the samba dancers.

A carnival from two directions

Each year the festival picks a theme, and this year's is New Orleans carnival meeting a Brazilian parade. According to the festival's event page, the Vanguard Brass student orchestra from West Boca Raton High School will play inside that parade atmosphere, which puts a group of Palm Beach County teenagers in the middle of one of Broward's biggest Brazilian parties of the year. Second line horns and a samba drum section are cousins, really: both are street music built for a crowd that moves, and hearing them in the same park is the sort of pairing that only happens at a festival like this.

The headliner is Gabby B, a Brazilian American artist performing songs from her Funklandia project, built on Brazilian funk, a genre that has been climbing fast in Brazil. For many in the crowd, though, the name that sells the ticket will be Negritude Júnior, a samba and pagode group with gold and platinum albums and decades of hits behind it. Seeing them on a stage off Powerline Road, without a flight to Brazil, is the draw.

What the day looks like

The festival pitches itself as a full day in Brazil, and the official South Florida page lays out the pieces: samba dancers, capoeira, kids rides, about 100 exhibitors and food vendors serving Brazilian cooking. The ticket listing adds a carnival parade, cultural exhibits, artisan crafts and a kids zone with family activities. The music on the program covers a lot of ground too, from samba, forró and pagode to reggae, country and pop.

Come hungry. The food comes from Broward vendors, so the afternoon doubles as a tasting tour of the Brazilian kitchens already cooking in the county, the kind of places you may have driven past for years without stopping.

Tickets and getting in

Kids under 12 get in free. Advance general admission is listed at $20 plus a small service fee on the festival's ticket page, and general admission at the gate is listed at $29. The VIP tier, a covered area beside the stage with lounge seating, high tops and its own bar, shows as sold out. Buying ahead saves nine dollars per adult, which adds up for a family.

Quiet Waters Park is a Broward County regional park at 401 S. Powerline Road on the west side of Deerfield Beach. It is a big, green park built around its lakes, which gives the festival room to spread out: stages, vendor rows and a kids area without the crush of a downtown street fair. Pack sunscreen for the afternoon and expect the evening, when the bigger acts play, to be the busiest stretch.

Why Deerfield Beach

The festival has been running since 2012, and earlier editions went by the Brazilian Festival of Pompano Beach before the event landed at Quiet Waters. Its organizers point out on their Why Broward page that the county has some of the highest concentrations of Brazilian residents anywhere in the United States, something anyone who shops, eats or works in north Broward already knows. The festival is the one day a year that community throws the doors open to everybody else.

The event now travels, with editions in Tampa in April and California in August this year, but Broward is the home show and the one with the deepest roots.

Go if

Go if you have Brazilian friends and have never quite understood why they talk about pagode the way they do. Go if you have kids who would happily spend an afternoon watching capoeira and then a band of high schoolers trading licks with samba drummers. Go if you just want a long Saturday outdoors in a good park with good food. For a lot of Deerfield Beach neighbors, this is the weekend when the culture next door is on full display, and an adult ticket costs less than dinner out.