At the Sydney tattoo convention, the city’s historic town hall fills with the buzz of tattoo machines, the comforting aroma of hospital-grade sanitiser and the timeless tunes of Linkin Park.
The convention’s founder and managing director of Thirteen Feet Tattoo studios, Katie Bailey, says it wasn’t easy to secure the 137-year-old venue. When she pitched it to the City of Sydney for their first event four years ago: “at first they were nervous about it, they had people everywhere checking in on us, but after that first event, they thought it was amazing. Tattooing and town hall just go together.”