Monday, May 19, 2008

NY Tattoo Convention

After attending the monster event that was the NY Comic Convention a couple weeks ago (go here for my "official" review), the NY Tattoo Convention that took place at Roseland Ballroom this past weekend was really disappointing. For one thing, the venue was too small. I expected it to be extremely crowded (as all conventions inevitably are), but there was barely any walking space between the aisles to even begin with! In addition, Roseland being a traditional concert hall, the stage is in the same room as the "hall" where the booths were set up. So you not only had booths crammed into too little space, but you also had a massive crowd of people milling around the stage area, which afforded even less space for walking around.

The second floor was just as bad. It's not a whole floor--just a balcony that wraps around three quarters of the room with (again) little walking space between the booths and the railing.

As for the vendors, I was impressed by the distances some of the tattoo artists travelled to be here. There were a number of tattooers from Europe and even a couple from Japan and Taiwan. But I was disappointed that there weren't more vendors selling stuff. I expected there to be art, books, jewelry, clothes... But there were only a handful of booths selling more than tee-shirts. I did end up buying one print by someone named Michael Brown, but he wasn't at the booth, there was no business card, and his name is not on the list of vendors on the Con's website; and with a name like that, I doubt I'll ever find any information on the guy.

I'm not in the market for a new tattoo right now, so I actually got pretty bored after only being there a couple hours. I had planned on making a day out of it, but with nothing new to look at and not even any music or bands to listen to (you'd think that a concert hall would take advantage of its own facilities, but I guess not...), I headed out pretty quickly. I didn't even take any pictures. Even if I had found people whose tattoos I really liked, there just wasn't enough space to photograph them well without dragging them to a more open area (like the bar! Hmm... maybe that wouldn't have been such a bad idea after all...).

Well, at least admission only cost $18 and a I got a few free stickers and a matchbook out of it.

Oh yeah! And on the subway ride there, this guy took my picture for a Japanese fashion website! Oh no! But I just went to the site and it's all in Japanese! I can't even find my own photo! Awww... Well if anyone out there can read Japanese, let me know if you find me on www.apparel-web.com/trend/cafeglobe.com/fashion/streetsnapny/usa