Saturday at the Brew City Tattoo Convention
Sunday, October 5th, 2008The Brew City Tattoo Convention was in full swing this weekend. Inked Talk takes a look at Milwaukee’s only annual tattoo convention
The Good:
There was a lot of great body art on display. From the artists’ samples to the ubiquitous flash books to the ink being done at the convention to the attendees, tattoos were literally everywhere. Japanese traditional tattoo aficionados were treated to the work of North Star Tattoo of New York City. Sailor Jerry fans just had to delight as it seemed that about every other booth was hawking Sailor Jerry flash or Sailor Jerry inspired work. Body jewelry booths, though far fewer in number than the tattoo booths, presented an amazing range of jewelry not typically found in the average body piercing shop.
There was more to do than shop and gawk at the ink. Performance artists ranging from burlesque to suspension and music put on shows throughout the day and tattoo artists gave seminars on technique, for a fee. Tattoo contests were open to all, with enough categories to ensure that everyone who wanted to could display their ink for the judges.
The Bad:
With all of the good, there were some negatives as well. The most glaring problem was the space in the main hall, particularly during the tattoo contests. The artists and vendors were set up in the main room of the convention, which is also where the tattoo contests were being judged. This caused a huge amount of congestion at one side of the room which made it difficult for people who weren’t interested in the judging to move around and look at the artists’ work. The sheer amount of people watching the tattoo contests combined with the room arrangement made it difficult for most people present to see the tattoos that were being judged, so sadly unless you were a judge or were lucky enough to be right near the judging area, you missed a lot of the contest. Due to the number of people wanting to participate in and view the contests, they would have been better held in a separate room instead of clogging up the already busy main hall.
The Weird
Granted, weird should be expected at a tattoo convention, but when something stands out as truly weird it merits mention. I need to preface this by saying that I love to see the nude female form nearly as much as most red-blooded men do, and my mention of this at all has absolutely nothing to do with me being offended. I was far from offended at anything I saw on Saturday. The “tits for t-shirts” contests are fun for everyone involved, and if a woman wants to show off her goodies in exchange for some freebies, good for her and good for those lucky enough to watch. While the convention did an adequate job of making sure that the children present weren’t close to the action for these contests, these contests were probably better kept in an age restricted area of the event to ensure that the convention doesn’t get negative attention from the community that hosts it.
In all, the event was a lot of fun with plenty to do and see. If you couldn’t make it to this year’s convention, you can still see a lot of the great ink by visiting Black Sheep Photography’s photo gallery from the convention. Lynn Allen of Black Sheep was in attendance for the entire convention and got some excellent photos of the whole event.
