Hampton Roads Tattoo Arts Festival

Published on Monday, March 7, 2016 by Katherine

13 Comments ↓

Last week I asked my daughter if she wanted to go to the Hampton Roads Tattoo Arts Festival. I had never been but heard good things about it. I am not one to go to public events, but a tattoo show? At least it wouldn’t be boring!

My daughter was messaging a friend the morning we were going. Her friend wrote, “I’m drinking a mug of hot chocolate and watching Spongebob.” My daughter followed with, “I am getting ready to go to a tattoo festival.” Her friend’s reply? “There are two types of people in this world….”

I can’t do any better than that. And so I give you…. The tattoo festival.

When we walked in to the building, the first thing we noticed was the buzz of many tattoo guns.

I think this is called a bamboo style tattoo.  Watching this artist use such an old technique was fascinating.  I do have to say, it looked painful… but the only person I saw openly crying was one who was getting a standard tattoo on his ribs.

There were a few booths that had taxidermy items turned in to art.  I also saw a few monkey parts in jars.  My daughter and I, being animal people, found this sad.

I wish I had seen some of these tattoos once they were finished.

Evil dolls.  We saw many.  They are the stuff of my daughter’s nightmares… but I think they are cool!

I really like the concentration that shows on this artist’s face.

Red 5 Tattoo is where I got my ankle tattoo.  They had a booth at the show.

I have never seen pro wrestling in “real life.”  I don’t know if these gentlemen were considered “amateur” pro wrestlers or simply wrestlers.  What I CAN tell you is they were completely entertaining.  You don’t think this stuff is fake, do you?

This is my favorite picture, because I was SO totally busted and didn’t realize it until I got home to look at the photos.  It makes this picture even better!