‘That was the best’: Sacramento artists and fans flock to SacAnime’s 20th anniversary weekend
No, you weren’t hallucinating that giant Pikachu making its way through downtown Sacramento this weekend.
That costumed fan was one of more than 20,000 attendees of SacAnime, a 20-year-running convention celebrating all things anime, fandom and nerd culture.
The three-day show was an opportunity for fans to connect both with one another and with the creatives behind their favorite shows and video games. About half of the attendees showed up in character cosplay to varying degrees of commitment. At any given time within the two blocks between the Sheraton Grand Hotel and the Memorial Auditorium, you could spot three Luffys from One Piece, a couple Narutos and at least one Sailor Moon, of course.
Like Sacramento itself, the convention has experienced significant change and growth in the past two decades. Alexander Arevalos, SacAnime longtime communications director, said that the event has seen a three-fold increase in attendance from a decade ago when the show first expanded to the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center.
“The 20th anniversary offers a kind of reflection point on where we’re at now,” he said. “It gives the staff a moment to go, ‘this is what we’ve accomplished’ … but the job satisfaction comes from seeing the attendees having fun.”
Arevalos, a lifelong anime fan himself, said that he credits the convention’s growth to prioritizing the fan experience and diversifying the types of events it offers. Panels and meet-and-greets with anime voice actors have long been key aspects of the show, but securing additional space at the Memorial Auditorium allowed them to offer more experiences, like a gaming hall, a K-pop dance workshop and live musical performances.
Local vendors enjoy con as artists and fans
The other main draw of the event is the Artists Alley, a room featuring 150 vendors selling any anime fan could ever want — steel replicas of famous swords, custom Pokemon terrariums, fan art and comics — along with plushies and funko pops as far as the eye could see.
Beyond the plastic, several Northern California artists attended the con both as fans and as vendors to sell their wares.
Mixed media artist Christian Davila of Chico has found that their 3-D printed bird sculptures fashioned with feathers made from the pages of Harry Potter novels sell more successfully at conventions than at artisan fairs. They said that their work is appealing to the many English teachers and librarians who attend fandom conventions.
A couple of booths down, organizers of the Queer Sacramento Authors Collective marketed dozens of science fiction and fantasy novels written by local queer authors. It is their second time at Sac Anime, but QSAC founder J. Scott Coatsworth said that they have felt welcomed by the community, especially given that so many attendees are gay or transgender.
Chris Johnson, a Placerville resident and artist behind the Bearded Brush and Blade, likes that SacAnime gives him a chance to share his Norse-inspired fan art of beloved anime and fantasy characters. The weekend event also gives him a chance to meet the people behind the characters he has idolized for most of his life.
On Sunday morning, Johnson met Christopher Sabat, the voice actor for “Dragon Ball” franchise Vegeta. In a spontaneous move, Johnson decided to gift Sabat a 4-foot-tall painting of Vegeta that served as the centerpiece of his booth. In return, Sabat gave Johnson a signed print reading, in part, ”I got the painting!”
Johnson called the exchange the highlight of all of the cons he’s done.
“That was the best,” he said. “Of course, I planned on selling it, but Melissa, who is in charge of the Artists’ Alley, she was telling me that it’s a spur-of-the-moment experience, which is true. I’ve been trying to meet him for all of these years.”
More than exchanging memorabilia with a longtime hero, Johnson said that he was happy to participate in an event that spreads positivity.
“It’s important to be a part of something that makes people happy,” he said.
