Weekend Entertainment | An Arts Fest and a Comics Convention

The Summer Festival of the Arts is a milepost of summer in the Mahoning Valley.

The event – which returns this weekend at Wean Park in downtown Youngstown – is a low-key but high-art affair in the city’s grassy urban core.

On another level, the festival is the halftime of summer, heralding the start of the hottest stretch.

Admission to the family-friendly event is free. To learn more, click HERE.

After the festival wraps up for the day Saturday, head over to neighboring Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre for the Wine and Jazz Festival.

The concert will feature Alexander Zonjic, James Lloyd and Jessy J. To learn more, click HERE.

After a three-year hiatus, the Youngstown Comic Con returns this weekend, and in a new location: the events center at the Canfield Fairgrounds.

The convention features dozens of comic book makers and sellers, plus a few other vendors.

On hand to greet fans of the genre will be some celebrities of the comics – and wrestling – world.

Jim Steranko, a groundbreaking comic artist, writer, filmmaker and novelist, gets top billing, along with actor Daniel Logan, who appeared in “Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones.”

To learn more, click HERE.

There’s lots of other events going on around the area this weekend.

Blues great Tab Benoit returns Friday for an 8 p.m. concert at the Robins Theatre in Warren.

Kenny G will play the same theater the following night, and Get the Led Out (Led Zeppelin tribute) will be there Sunday. Click HERE.

At The Amp in Youngstown, Larry Elefante will take the stage after work Friday for another Party on the Lawn series show (free).

Journey and Pink Floyd tribute bands will do their thing Saturday at the Warren Community Amphitheatre (E5C4P3) and Eastwood Field in Niles (Signs of Life).

For information on these shows and everything else going on this weekend, check out The List.

Pictured at top: Folks stroll through Wean Park at last year’s Summer Festival of the Arts.

Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.