Atmosphere of Tattoo Conventions
Conventions are always pretty congenial and relaxed during the sessions that are open only to registrants. Welcome receptions usually allow time for a lot of socializing, where friends can catch up on old news and share their new tattoos with others. Quite a few people take their cameras along, snapping shots of tattoos and people. This period is also the time to see the real serious tattoo enthusiasts and artists, since these are the ones who usually register for the entire convention. This means that you are likely to see people with very serious pieces of custom work on their bodies.
Atmosphere of Tattoo Conventions 2
The exhibit floor, when it is still closed to the public (usually on Fridays during a four-day convention) is not too crowded. If you want to get some work done from an artist who has rented a booth, Fridays are a good time to get it done. This would be a good opportunity to visit various booths and actually talk to people.
Atmosphere of Tattoo Conventions 3
Once the weekend hits and the doors are opened to the public, the atmosphere will change greatly. You will see a lot of “gawkers” and various curiosity seekers, who may or may not have any tattoos (or if they do, they might be some mediocre flash). The convention floor takes on somewhat of a carnival environment.
Atmosphere of Tattoo Conventions 4
Attendance seems to depend largely on where the convention is being held. No tattoo convention is so large as to take up a city’s major convention center, most conventions occur in hotel ballrooms. Thus if the hotel is in a rural section of town, or the convention is not appropriately advertised, you will not get a very high local turnout. On the other hand, well-advertised events will be so popular that they will have to limit the number of bodies in the room.
Atmosphere of Tattoo Conventions 5
Note that the National Tattoo Association has a policy (which some regard as archaic) that bans facial and visible body piercings (outside of the ears) because it believes that these promote the side-show-freak atmosphere, which is not conducive to the mainstreaming of tattooing.
While I will not condone the purposeful breaking of any policy, I can state that I have seen enough various body piercings at NTA conventions that it seems if you keep it low key they will not bother you. With the current popularity of body piercing, I would like to counter that some pierces (eyebrows, navel, and nipple) have entered into the mainstream, and are now actually used in advertisements. I don’t know why NTA still maintains this policy, when many tattooists have their own in house piercers and the tattooists themselves often sport body pierces themselves.
