I've gotten used to a lot of changes in the tattoo industry; its acceptance into the mainstream, it's popularity with people of all persuasions, TV shows and more magazines than you can shake a stick at. I've accepted that with more people being into tattoos there are more people tattooing, sometimes down the street from me and sometimes by people that don't seem to care about more than being able to tell people that they're a tattoo artist. Whatever. I've said before that it doesn't help to be bitter about the changes. We can't go backwards, we can only live in the present. Yet I still hate seeing disrespect and it's frustrating to see people step in on other peoples accomplishments.

Every year we go to the Milan and London conventions put on by our friends at Tattoo Life . 2012 will be the 17th annual Milan Tattoo Convention and the 8th annual London Convention. These are two of the best run conventions in the world. They are well attended and an honor to be a part of.

So then I get an email for a new London show being put on by Stuart Mears the editor of Skin Deep Magazine.

The Great British Tattoo Show  is being billed as "A brand new show with a brand new vibe.....world-class artists.... blah blah blah.... yet another first for the UK tattoo industry.....blah blah blah..." As tattooing has gotten more popular more people have looked towards our industry to make a quick dollar. People who have no concern or love of tattooing only look for ways to exploit the tattoo industry and the success that's been created by others before them. After the first London Tattoo convention this person organized "Tattoo Jam" a show one month before the London show less than 100 miles away. He then went on to set up "Tattoo Freeze" another UK show a week before the Brighton convention.  I guess this could all be written off as coincedence and fair play in business but to make this drama even more interesting there is a webpage devoted to this guys business practices of not paying his vendors, bankrupt companies and an overall  contempt for the rest of the tattoo world.

Not only does this affect the people who run the original London show it also impacts all of the artists working at that show.  I am pretty sure that there are some other European cities that could be well served by a new convention venue but they see the success of the London Convention and would rather try to get a piece of that. Conventions will suffer the more saturated the calendar is with them. More conventions equalls less attendance all around for everyone, especially when the shows are organized to deliberately disrupt the attendance of another. There is a constant dilution going on because it's easier to move in on something that's already in place rather than forging your own creation. This is a deliberatley destructive attutude to our tattoo community and we will all suffer from it.   I'm tired of people who don't care about anything outside of themselves. As artists these are the people we should not lend our names to. 

It's important to be aware of who we support. I know that the show will probably go on. But I for one am not going to be a part of it. 

Correction: An earlier version of this post stated that Stuart mears has not one tattoo. Mister Mears states that he in fact has tattoos.