The Columbia Festival of the Arts will open its annual summer festival of music, dance, food and art on June 10 with the debut of “Silk Road Stories,” a festival featuring Asian-inspired art and performances.

This year's summer session will also feature the premiere of the Columbia Film Festival, a new component for the festival. The two-day film schedule features artists and films from all over the world, and will also include the Maryland Student Film Festival Shorts.

“We thought summertime would be a good time to try” the film festival, said Robert Neal Marshall, marketing and communications director for CFA.

“Film festivals are popular all over. People really like them,” Marshall said, noting that last year's Sundance Short Film festival attracted film lovers of all ages. The Sundance Film Festival Shorts on Tour will come to the festival June 12.

Since 1987, Columbia Festival of the Arts has hosted a summer session that traditionally began with a free opening weekend on the Lakefront.

For reasons that included venue availability, growth of the event and parking issues, a new location was needed this year.

“We had the opportunity to go to Merriweather and put it at Symphony Woods,” Marshall said. “It will be the same thing as at the Lakefront but ... with new flavors.”

The family-friendly event will take place in the middle of the festival, June 18-19, and is dubbed the “Weekend in the Woods Festival.”

The free event will feature live music, kids' entertainment, craft vendors and strolling performers.

“It used to be a kickoff festival and there were two weeks of ticketed events,” Marshall said. “This year, it is a middle event. You can eat food and have a good time.”

Finding sites to host Columbia Festival of the Arts events can be a challenge, Marshall said.

“We don't have our own venue. We do rely on some of the great community centers,” he said. “It costs to rent space. We are very dependent on availability of venues.”

Since 2014, CFA has worked with four smaller festivals instead of its traditional single 16-day festival in the summer.

This year, the winter festival, “Beyond the Blues,” saw great success, while its spring festival, “Viva La Vida,” was not quite as strong.

“The spring festival went very well, but overall attendance was down,” Marshall said. “Spring has a lot more going on with spring breaks and family travels. It still did very, very well.”

Plans are underway to restructure again.

“We are thinking of having one really nice event each month,” Marshall said. “We are kind of changing ... our structure.”

By hosting events throughout the year instead of around a certain time and with a certain theme, the Columbia Festival of the Arts might be able to attract a wider audience through different programs, he said.

“Dealing with themes restricts or limits us,” Marshall said. “We always make an effort to entertain and reach out to diverse audiences.”

The success of “Post Secrets,” a production that was not part of the winter festival but a special event held between festivals in March, was a “learning curve,” Marshall said.

“ ‘Post Secrets' was amazing,” he said. “ It literally brought in all these people who have never heard of CFA.”

As further part of its evolution, Columbia Festival of the Arts has also formed a partnership with the Howard County public school system.

“We want to build those future audiences,” Nicodemus said. “We want to get our kids enjoying ... what we are doing.”

Ticket sales are doing well for the summer festival, Marshall said, especially for “Mystic India: The World Tour Bollywood Spectacular,” scheduled for June 18, and for a performance by the Koresh Dance Company on June 17; the company will also offer a dance workshop on June 17.

This year's summer festival will open on June 10 with “Stoop Storytelling.”

Other events scheduled throughout the summer festival include a free lecture with Ronen Koresh, an artist from Israel, and a lecture by novelist Nadia Hashimi on June 26.

“We're hoping for great attendance,” Nicodemus said. “The events we are presenting are stellar.”