Tour Europe,

tattooing everywhere you go.

Four principles behind a successful tattoo tour.

P.S. Doing great tattoos is just what people expect from a tattooer, so I won't be focusing on that technical and visual side of our work.

The places you decide to visit can make or break your tour. You shouldn't ask “Where do I want to go?” but rather “Where do I have the most chance to succeed, and why?”

Some places have people more suited to your work; others don't. Some have more tattooers competing for the same clients; some have fewer. In some you'll be able to charge more — if you're willing to put in the effort and the money — while in others you'll charge less, but with less effort and money required.

These are just some of the variables you need to consider when deciding. And it's different for everybody. A city that's a gold mine for you can leave another empty-handed.

The places you actually want to visit can come later, paid for by a successful tattoo tour and enjoyed as a happy tourist — not a broke tattooer counting pennies for a half-assed breakfast.

Every single industry runs on a sort of ebb and flow: cycles of things going really well, then well, then not so good, then bad, then climbing back up again. Our industry is no different.

For instance, a lot of people want to get a tattoo in summer or right before it, because that's when they go out more, have fun, meet people, and get to show off their new ink. But they don't get as many tattoos after periods of heavy spending — like the weeks that follow the Christmas and New Year's season — since people usually buy tattoos when there's money lying around (and not a lot of bills and gifts to pay for).

It's much easier to have success when that success is, at least in part, a natural consequence of being in harmony with the cycles inherent to our industry. So learn the cycles and ride the flow. Trying to sell Santa plushies mid-February will only give you a lot of unnecessary headache.

Gone are the days when you could just post a pretty picture on Instagram announcing your tour and sit back, waiting for the clients who would invariably come.

Putting in substantial effort to promote yourself is indispensable nowadays, especially when it comes to tattooing in new places. There are a few ways to do that, but my favorite one lets us reach tons of potential clients we wouldn't reach otherwise, in a really short period of time. It's called running ads.

Unfortunately, some tattooers have had bad experiences with ads (and with the people telling us how good they are at running them). One thing is for sure: running ads doesn't immediately guarantee success. They're just one piece of a bigger, more complex puzzle.

But I can say with conviction that my tours wouldn't have been as successful if it weren't for the ads and the great crew who've run them for me since the beginning.

So, ads may not guarantee success, but doing nothing to book your spots guarantees you'll have none — which leads us right to the final principle.

We all perform different roles in life: the role of a son with our parents, of a parent with our kids, of a friend with our friends, of a tattooer at work, and so on and so forth.

I like to imagine these roles as hats we are constantly taking on and off to live each situation the best possible way.

In a new place, where you don't know anyone and no one knows you, it does wonders to take off the “I'm a rockstar, people should be lining up and begging to get tattooed by me” hat and put on the “I'm a tattooer who wants to get the most out of this tour, so I'll do my very best plus extra to get enough people to want a tattoo from me to the point that they actually book” hat.

Two vastly different hats. Two vastly different tours.

Those are the four principles of success. I follow them — and a few others — religiously on every tour I do.

Now, a question:

Would you like to embark on a tattoo tour across Europe in the next two months?

How many clients, for how many days, in which cities, in what order, charging how much, starting and ending on which dates: the team that organizes all my trips handles every detail and hands you an end-to-end plan built to make your tour so worthwhile that before it's done, you'll already be thinking about the next one.

Then they do all the marketing and sales work to find and turn strangers into clients until all spots are filled.

Your only job will literally be to do what you know and love: tattoo.

Everything else is on them. Even covering your lodging, transportation, and ads, if needed.

It's not charity. The people who build these tours have done this every day for four years — they're so good at what they do that they can foot the entire bill, knowing that, in the end, everyone comes out ahead.

At first, I had my doubts. Today, my only doubt is when I'll be back on the road. I've done five tours already, and I'll keep doing them until the day I'm no longer a tattooer.

But don't just take my word for it. We'll show you exactly how it works.

Leave your details and we'll be in touch.

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