BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Artists fire up their tattoo guns and prepare their ink.

“That energy in a building with all these artists who may or may not know each other, it’s something special,” said tattoo artist Zach Lloyd.

Zach Lloyd has been a tattoo artist for almost six years now and he traveled all the way from North Carolina to participate in the Green State Tattoo Convention.

He’s been to many events like this. But he came to Vermont to expand his reach and learn from other tattoo artists.

“It just exposes people to different styles of art. Or different cultures of tattooing. Like you see with people coming from California, it’s a very different style than what we have on the East Coast,” Lloyd said.

The congress was a three-day event with 60 tattoo artists from all over the country.

There was also live music and a tattoo contest.

The event attracted over a thousand people and attendees expressed their excitement to meet some of their favorite artists from elsewhere.

“A lot of the artists are really talented and they book up quickly, so this is a great way to get art that you can’t necessarily book during the year,” Lexy Larive explains.

“It offers a variety of different tattoo artists in one space, so you can see who tattoos what genre and book an appointment with them,” said Angela Mccluskey.

BT The Green State Tattoo Convention is not the first of its kind here in Vermont. Last year, the city of St. Albans also hosted a convention called the Rail City Tattoo Convention.

Created by 100 candles tattoo shop owners Jodi and Jhon Rodriguez

But tattoo artists from Imperial Collective, the organizers of the Green State Tattoo Convention, say this is the first national tattoo convention in the state.

“It was just a lot of hard work. We had to hire lawyers. We had to work very closely with the state to make this happen, since Vermont doesn’t have any existing laws regarding tattoo events of this size,” said Alma Sears of Green State Tattoo Conventions.

“Not many people can travel or meet other people or tattoo artists. That’s what we do. Bring that tattoo artist to you,” said Jaime Bomba of Imperial Collective.

Copyright 2024 WCAX. All rights reserved.