The London Tattoo Convention

The London Tattoo Convention

Stretching across three tropically sun saturated days on the last weekend of September, the London tattoo convention was an event that was simmering with promise even before the main doors opened…The time is half eleven, the morning of the first Friday. Trade staff, tattooists, neon coloured show girls and press criss-crossed and side-stepped around and between one another at the back-entrance to the building, trading stories and cigarettes while the queue to the main entrance grew so long, winding down the pavement and around the corner, that the exclusive insiders inevitably gained an audience from the patient, ink loving public.

The London Tattoo Convention

Just across the street, a small local corner market experienced a sudden surge in their numbers of tattooed clientele, stocking up for a day spent in the expanses of the Tobacco docks. People notice one another, notice each other’s respective decorations, nod, collect their change, speculate on the long line the nice weather, and what lies ahead.

The London Tattoo Convention

The feeling of camaraderie you’ll only ever get at conventions like these has started. This is the fifth year of the London Con, and it's second now inTattooer the hugely impressive polished glass and stone framed expanses of number 50, Porters walk.

The London Tattoo Convention

We suspect that before long the words “Tobacco Dock” will become irrevocably intermingled with the word “tattooing.” You wait and see. This is an event that seems to exponentially explode in importance, popularity and attraction year on year; each annual renewal bringing more and more names revered and gloried in the tattoo industry.

The London Tattoo Convention

Among the names you’d catch from this year: Bugs, the Filip Leu (et famille), Kamil, Horiyoshi the third, Robert Hernandez and a whole host more. Besides these established names there were hundreds more top class artists to inspire new fevers of adoration and ideas for the next tattoo

The London Tattoo Convention

you couldn’t patrol the ink arenas upstairs without finding a person or five so brilliant you couldn’t believe you hadn’t heard of them yet.