By Sara Beth Williams–
Sunrise Mall will be home of an event billed as “Not Your Typical Comic Con” on the weekend of June 24-25. The event is free and family friendly and offers a variety of different vendors, merchandise, and activities to fit all tastes.
The “Weekend Blender” event is organized by Pete Salazar, who said the events began in 2009 at the Sierra Vista Mall in Clovis, California, with a handful of vendors who sold arts and crafts, toys, and collectibles. By 2016, he said the event morphed into a semi-Comic-Con-style event with cosplay characters and celebrities making appearances, as well as more vendors who sell comics and anime merchandise.
Past events in Clovis have incorporated blood drives, cosplay contests, Mandalorian merchandise and special guest appearances. This year, Salazar said Citrus Heights participants can expect tabletop gaming, a video game tournament area, as well as an appearance by special guest Hollywood stuntman Nick Palma, whose IMDB credits include Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II (1991) and III (1993), The Rundown (2003) and John Carter (2012).
“It’s a different type of event, it has a different aura, a different blend, a different vibe,” Salazar said, adding that he didn’t want to abandon those vendors he started with.
Salazar recently organized the same event at West Valley Mall in Tracy in 2022 and early 2023 and has also organized other events including a “BrewCon” in 2018. Salazar also currently runs his own store in the Sierra Vista Mall called The Time Machine, where he sells funko pops, retro toys, comic books, mystery boxes, and more.
Salazar hopes that bringing in free, family friendly entertainment to the mall and its surrounding community will benefit both his vendors and the business in the Sunrise Mall.
“We want the shops to win,” Salazar said.
The Weekend Blender event will run from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday, June 24, with a cosplay contest at 4:30 p.m., and from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday, June 25 with the cosplay contest at 3:30 p.m. The event will be held inside the mall, with admission and parking free. The Sunrise Mall is located at 6041 Sunrise Blvd.