National (NTA) Convention 2000

San Antonio - April 27-30, 2000. The streets and hotels were during the whole weekend, both for the Fiesta Celebration, and of course, for the National Tattoo Convention. We arrived Friday morning around 2 a.m. and the Adam's Mark Hotel was still buzzing with tattoo artists and fans that had been there for the welcoming events on Thursday. Full of beer and joy, the lobby was full of the sounds of fully tattooed people talking and laughing. I knew that we had walked into a world of color and the weekend was going to be an exciting one.

I got a little sleep but was more than ready to get up and start the day on Friday. I was traveling with my best friend and artist, Lagena Davis, and her husband Tony. Friday was dedicated solely to the tattoo contests, and since I had planned to enter one of Lagena's tattoos in the contest, we headed upstairs to register and enter. I had never entered a contest before, so this was all new to me. The contest categories included Best Tattooed Female, Best Unique Tattoo, Most Realistic Tattoo, Best Back Piece, Best Large Tattoo, Best Tattooed Male, Best Nostaligic Tattoo, Best Black & Grey Tattoo, and Best Sleeve. I entered my piece in Best Unique, and in that category alone there were over 60 contestants. It took so long to get through the line to enter my piece, and then stand in another line to have photos taken, I was unfortunately not able to get any pictures of the contest. Don't worry though! I got some great pictures of some very unique tattoos while there!

Friday night, there was a banquet for those that had registered and bought tickets for the event. The banquet meal was very good (professionally catered), but even more important was the comradery of everyone there. There was even a birthday girl in the house, and how many people can say they had over 500 people singing Happy Birthday to them at once? After the banquet, raffle tickets were sold to benefit National's "Hardship Fund", which is reserved to help members of National who experience financial distress due to illness and/or natural disaster. It was announced that half of the money raised would go to the Hardship Fund, and the other half would go to one lucky winner of the raffle drawing. Over $8,000 was collected that night, and the lucky winners of the $4000 prize were, needless to say, very excited! Also, over 100 other items were also given out to more raffle ticket winners. During the sale of the raffle tickets, beautiful items donated by tattoo artists were also put up for auction. This money goes back into the National fund to help support holding events such as the conventions.

Saturday all the tattoo artists with booths opened up shop and were available for tattooing. This was open to the public, and because the Fiesta was going on we had a wide variety of people walking in to see what the "buzz" was all about. I spent a lot of time just going from booth to booth, saying hello, and collecting business cards, stickers, pens and flyers. I also picked up a few T-shirts from my own personal favorite studios as well as the "official" National Convention 2000 T-shirt. There was so much to see and so many people to meet, I regret that I just didn't have time to do it all!

Saturday night, we went and watched one of the parades that were going on as part of the Fiesta Celebration. It was a lot like Mardi Gras - 3 days of solid parades (on the streets and also on the river), lots of great food, loud music, and everyone decorated with beads and flowers.

Sunday was another day open to the public and lots of tattooing going on. More people filtered in from the streets and I spent some more time snapping pictures. Later that day, I got another tattoo from Lagena that we had been working on together all weekend. Tired and happy, we packed up our things that afternoon and headed home. It was a FANTASTIC weekend!

Now! ONTO THE PICTURES!