Photos by Shelby Dereszynski.
Growing up in a family of gearheads, the iconic Ink-N-Iron Festival had been a father-daughter summer staple that I looked forward to long before I fully immersed myself in tattoo culture. In 2015, Ink-N-Iron wrapped up its final weekend on the Queen Mary and announced its permanent relocation to Nashville, Tennessee, leaving saddened Southern Californians (specifically me) to find other, less conveniently-located conventions to fill the void that only a ship full of buzzing coil machines could leave behind.
At the beginning of 2017, I was finally fortunate enough to find myself with a tattoo apprenticeship of my own. I eagerly looked over the World Tattoo Events website in January to mark every upcoming convention within a two-hour radius down in my planner. Unfortunately, as the year rolled by, I noticed that one by one each convention was either declared “TBD,” or outright canceled.
Lucky for me, I scrolled past some amazing news on my Instagram feed near the end of June. Alex Kuo, a machine builder and tattoo artist from Avalon Tattoo in San Diego, announced that his machine company AK Irons would be an official sponsor of the first annual LA Tattoo Convention.
August 18th marked the first time in 14 years that the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center would house a tattoo convention, according to event coordinator Frank Tran. A tattoo artist at Eighth Element Tattoo in Fountain Valley, Tran saw an opportunity to bring a new kind of tattoo convention to Long Beach by keeping it artist-sponsored, and by keeping the focus on the art itself. While lamenting that “unfortunately, there can be a lot of politics involved in these events,” that can prevent talented artists from receiving adequate recognition for their work, Tran seemed optimistic about the turnout and the sense of community this weekend.
“We all want the community to expand and grow in a better light, and our goal is to bring (tattoo events) back to Long Beach,” Tran said. “It’s very laid-back here and we want to give more people this opportunity.”
In addition to machine builders (AK Irons, FK Irons), and suppliers (Nuclear Tattoo Supply, Rinse Cup, and Kingpin), over 200 artists came out to support the event. While many of the booths were occupied by local artists from LA and Orange County (and even LB’s very own Port City Tattoo), some traveled from San Diego, Arizona, and even as far as Germany to help be part of the success of the convention.
“What do you guys think? Should we try to get into the Queen Mary next year?” Tran joked as a few people in the crowd clapped and giggled. As it stands right now, plans are in the works to hold a three-day event at the convention center by this time next year.
“We hope we can make this big enough in the sense that more artists are coming here just for the sake of artistry in tattooing,” Tran said. “More art, less bullshit. At the end of the day that’s what it’s all about.”