Good tattoos aren’t cheap and cheap tattoos aren’t good.
- Unknown
To start with I will have to say, after we attended the show I found out that 'Tattoo Tea Party' was also on the same day in Manchester. Rumors are that 'Manchester Tattoo Show' changed the dates on purpose, not sure why but, if this true I am a tad disappointed. It's a bit lame to make unnecessary competition and also I'm gutted I was unable to attend both!
Update - Please see end of article regarding the above rumor.
Update - Please see end of article regarding the above rumor.
So back to Manchester Tattoo Show. Well we all know I love a bargain. The other half is really into his tattoo's, he loves them so I knew this would be something he'd enjoy. Thankfully I was able to save myself some pennies! Both Groupon and Wowcher had offers on the tickets. Groupon was selling for £12 and Wowcher selling for £10 (Direct through the tattoo show website they were £18 advanced and £20 on the door). So obviously that made my decision easy, I opted for the £10 Wowcher tickets, saving myself £16! Very happy girly already! :D
Okay you don't really care about my savings do you? Haha Ah well, I needed to get that out there.
We attended just for the Saturday, me being a bossy, control freak, I insisted we had to be there early so we could get our wristbands and enjoy as much of it as we could. We got to the show for 11am, it did start at 11:30am but I'm telling you this simply because there was still a big queue so if you decide to go next year I recommend you get there early!
Wristbands on and our day began. We were welcomed by lovely staff and two freaky looking tall guys haha. (See picture below)
Now I don't have any tattoos but I can appreciate great artwork and at the end of the day that's what it is. When you walked in, there was just booth after booth of tattoo artists, a lot booked up already and a lot still having available slots. Majority had their work out on the tables, photo albums of past tattoo's they had done. To be honest they were amazing! Such talented artists. Couldn't fault their work. I was in my element looking through all of their photos.
A lot of the artist's were also selling framed drawings they had created as well as doing tattoo's.
One thing I didn't expect was the other types of stalls, I know this sounds a tad stereotypical but I didn't really expect a person covered in tattoo's to be selling beautiful cupcakes with glitter on top! Also there were clothing stalls, sweet stalls, and even one selling his own hot sauces! It was great. I had a brilliant time wandering around.
In this article I'm guessing pictures speak louder than words. ;)
Alex and I had a wander around as soon as we went in, having a look at various artists work. Alex had come hoping to get another tattoo. You had a lot that would do a variety of different art work and then some who specialized in certain types of tattoo's. I noticed one did just girly type tattoos, another appeared to do mainly portraits and another did the classic 'biker' type tattoos. All were fantastic! Alex was on the hunt for a script artist and guess what?! We found one of those too!
Pedro Mendonca was his name, Alex knew as soon as he saw his booth, this was the guy. It was him and his wife on the stall, and they were both so lovely and friendly. I personally think that makes a huge difference! I mean if someone is coming at you with a needle you at least want it to be a friendly person!
He decided on his lucky number, twenty-one. That was it, he booked himself in for 1pm and I was officially ditched! :( Okay I'm being dramatic, I was more than happy to wander off on my own. (Below pictures of Alex getting his tattoo done.)
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Now I won't bore you with the rest of my day as I know you aren't interested. You just want to know what to expect if you go yourself and maybe anything that needs improving. So I will keep it brief.
While he was having his tattoo done I went looking at other artist's work, got chatting to a few and they were super nice! I always get a tad shy and I was worried showing up with zero tattoos, they might think I'm a wannabe, but I was wrong. Everyone was friendly, chatty and more than happy to answer any questions I had.
Don't tell my family but I might even be tempted to get one myself next year! Sshh.
Once I'd finished gas bagging aka chatting, I found the tarot card reading booth! Unfortunately I didn't catch the guy's name. There was a queue but it was free! Well it could be if you wanted, the man doing the readings was only asking for donations to charity! How lovely is that? The queue was big and if I'm being honest I was sat in the queue for 2 hours!
Now I can't knock him for me being in a 2 hour queue, as he was giving detailed readings so didn't rush them, hence it taking so long for the line to go down. Only thing I would say is maybe next year either go straight away, an attempt to avoid the queue or maybe if he did bookings instead it would give people chance to book in and then go for a wander around all the booths before coming back.
Once I did get into have my reading Alex had returned from his tattoo and was able to cut the queue and come with me. Total rebel!
The man giving the readings had purple hair and a purple beard, a real character haha but he was lovely. Turned out he bought his crystals for a shop local to me so we chatted a little about that.
Thankfully he didn't have any bad news for me in my reading, I'm not going to die or anything. Well if I am he didn't mention it! It turned out to be all good, stability, change in career, dream and ambitions coming into place and a gift from a female role model. Oh he also said I'll be invited to a big celebration. Let's see if any of this comes into place.
Over all I had a great time, was well worth it. There were also a lot of acts on the main stage performing but as I am a rubbish reporter, I missed them and didn't get photos! Just too many things to see and do in just 1 day. Maybe I should have gone for day 2.
Only things I would say, they might want to add maybe a few more things for the kids. I know you wouldn't think a tattoo show would have many children but it did. They did have face painting but maybe even souvenirs or a drawing station for them. Something to make them feel a little more involved.
Conclusion, I was impressed and will be back next year!
Photo of Alex's finished tattoo is below but if interested I have added the link to the artist's instragram.
Oh, one last thing! They didn't sell fridge magnets! :'( This was a real negative thing for me, I love fridge magnets but that's for another post!
Photos and text by moi!
Update - I didn't want to change my original article, feel like it's me covering things up so I will instead just like to add this note. Regarding the rumor of 'Manchester Tattoo Show' changing their date to purposely cause competition with 'Tattoo Tea Party', apparently Manchester Tattoo Show had this date for 10 years before Tattoo Tea Party came into place, they changed to August for 3 years but realized it wasn't best for the crowd. After fore filling their 3 year contract, they moved it back to the original date they had for 10 years. Please see this link for full explanation.
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