EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — A new El Paso convention is bringing together fans of K-pop, anime and books all into one large community.
Although it’s an odd trio that focuses on niche audiences, Pop City Con is bringing what is trending to the Sun City.
The convention will be held from Saturday, Aug. 8, through Sunday, Aug. 10, at the Radisson Hotel with various vendors, live performances, a drag show, a panel with voice actors from the anime “Heaven’s Official Blessing”, and workshops.
A majority of the live performances will feature local and regional dance groups performing to K-pop songs.
Below is the itinerary for the convention.
The panel includes the following voice actors and some of their roles in anime:
- Sara Ragsdale
- Young Dabi in “My Hero Academia,” Riko Saikawa in “Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid,” and Saya Endo in “Dagashi Kashi”
- Aaron Campbell
- Majin Duu in “Dragon Ball: DAIMA,” Perospero and Napoleon in “One Piece,” and Jingo Raichi in “Blue Lock”
- Branden Loera
- Itsuki Wakatsuki in “Blue Lock,” Kazekage in “One Piece,” and Cheslock in “Black Butler”
- Ricco Fajardo
- Yoichi Isagi in “Blue Lock,” Mirio Togata in “My Hero Academia,” and Nozel Silva in “Black Clover”
- James Cheek
- San Lang/Hua Cheng in “Heaven’s Official Blessing”
Pop City was created and established by four women: Tabitha Rivera-Portillo, Norma Amador, Bianca Primero and Tami Primero.
“We’ve been to a lot of conventions and do a lot of vendor events. We were just talking about ‘oh, well this one (convention) did a great thing here we really liked, but this part wasn’t so great.’ And we were kind of brainstorming all of the different pros and cons of all the conventions that we had been to. It was just by random thought that Tami said, ‘I wish we could do one (a convention) and put all the good things together.’ And it literally turned into this (PopCity).” Rivera-Portillo said.
While this is the first year of Pop City, this is also the first time these ladies have ever put on an event at this scale.
One of the aspects that the founders wanted to establish in their convention was a sense of community.
“At one of the conventions we had attended, we really liked the community they had built. It was really just the community that we wanted to see and bring forth into ours, as well as the fun aspect of it. You could feel the positive energy from everything,” Rivera-Portillo said.
Additionally, the Pop City founders also wanted vendors to enjoy the event just as much as guests do.
“The energy for a lot of the vendors isn’t very strong because there’s so much stress and they don’t get the same experiences as the attendees. So that was one thing we wanted to change also with our convention. They are also a part of our community and they get a chance to go and meet all the voice actors and special guests and go shop the different booths because we’re going to take care of them as well,” Tami Primero said.
The founders also added that 12 local artist created the badges for Pop City, and will be a continuing tradition.
The Pop City ladies said this first year taught them a lot about conventions, improving communication and how to overcome difficult hurdles.
Originally, Pop City was going to be hosted at the El Paso Convention Center. Since losing the venue, the founders said they had to revamp, which led to the ladies loving the new venue at the Radisson Hotel.
“So definitely because of some of those hurdles, we’ve had to backtrack and say, ‘Okay, let’s revamp everything.’ I thought our biggest hurdle was losing our original venue. Originally, we were going to be at the Convention Center and we had to scale it down a little bit. But, this (the Radisson Hotel) is actually better, it’s a little bit more intimate,” Amador said.
Pop City’s mascot, playfully named Poppy, was created by one of the founders, Bianca Primero.
“When we decided to have a cute mascot, we were thinking ‘what kind of fits the vibe of anime and K-pop and books?’ So the original plan was a tiger, a cherry blossom tiger. And truthfully, I couldn’t draw a tiger to save my life. I don’t know why I was struggling, so somehow it turned into a cherry closson raccoon. We did research on different meanings behind animals and we really loved the meaning of the raccoon, new beginnings and a lot of creativity,” Bianca Primero said.
Bianca Primero even jokes that the tiger-like ferocity still lingers in Poppy.
The Pop City founders hope that when guests come to their convention, they feel the excitement, warmth and hard work the ladies have done to put this event together.
“For more, it’s going to be seeing people come in and being excited, walking around. I want to hear the feedback about it. I’m really looking forward to them (guests) coming in and seeing that we’ve decorated and want to feel the warmth that they can feel what we’re trying to give them and know its different,” Tami Primero said.
“I want to see people, different things blend. Just kind of see how one fandom can bring them into a bunch of different one,” Rivera-Portillo said.
The Pop City founders are already looking ahead to next year’s con and even expanding to cities outside of El Paso.
“We want to make this a yearly thing. We are already talking about taking it to Phoenix as well. We want to make it a little bit of a traveling thing, but we do want to do a yearly one in El Paso, and then just keep growing and getting bigger and better every year,” Rivera-Portillo said.
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