Who Won at US Tattoo Conventions: Spring 2026 Results

Verified contest winners from the Seaside Tattoo Show, New England Tattoo Expo and Louisville Tattoo Festival, with links to every winning artist.

Tattoo convention contest results are surprisingly hard to find. Shows announce winners on stage, post a few congratulations on Instagram, and move on to selling booths for next year. There is usually no results page anywhere. So we tracked every US show in our conventions directory that ran this spring: fifteen of them. Five published results you can actually verify, and they are all below, with a link to the original announcement behind every single win: either the organizer's own post or the winning artist's. Nothing here is estimated or secondhand. The other ten ran their contests and never published the winners, and we name them too, because that is half the story.

Salt Lake City Tattoo Expo: Salt Lake City, UT (March 6-8, 2026)

The Salt Lake City Tattoo Expo published no official winners list for 2026. The one verifiable result is Best Large Color Tattoo on Saturday, won by @avagracetattoos and documented by tattoo media rather than by the show.

Results from the Salt Lake City Tattoo Expo at the Salt Palace surfaced through tattoo media rather than the organizer: photographer-run account @tattooyearbook filmed the contest entries.

More category reels from the same weekend, including small color, portraits and Tattoo of the Day, live on @tattooyearbook's feed, though most do not name the artists in text.

Evergreen Tattoo Invitational: Eugene, OR (March 20-22, 2026)

Evergreen was the only spring 2026 show to publish a complete results set: 37 placements across three days. Nick Baxter of Art Realm Tattoo took Best of Show, on top of Saturday's Best of Day.

The Evergreen Tattoo Invitational did what almost nobody in this industry does: published its complete results, as three recap carousels on the organizer's Instagram covering every category from Friday to Sunday. Thirty-seven placements, all public.

The top awards:

Category first places:

Full second and third places are in the organizer's carousels: Friday, Saturday and Sunday with Best of Show. Two names worth noting: Jade Rabbit placed four times across the weekend (Traditional 1st, Large Color 2nd, Best Sleeve 2nd, Small Color 3rd), and Tony Ritter took three placements in black and grey categories.

Sunday winners and Best of Show

Louisville Tattoo Festival: Louisville, KY (March 27-29, 2026)

Louisville published only its three Tattoo of the Day winners, one per day, with baseball bats as trophies. Every category placement below surfaced because the winning artist posted it, not because the festival did.

The Louisville Tattoo Festival handed out baseball bats as Tattoo of the Day trophies, in a very Louisville touch. The festival itself posted three daily winners; several category placements below were shared by the winning artists on their own pages, which is exactly how most convention results surface.

Posted by the festival:

Friday's Tattoo of the Day announcement

Shared by the artists themselves:

New England Tattoo Expo: Mohegan Sun, CT (April 17-19, 2026)

Best of Show at the 6th annual New England Tattoo Expo went to a collaboration between @sidink_100 and @dukeoftats. With 600+ artists at Mohegan Sun, it is one of the largest contest fields on the East Coast.

Best of Show at the 6th annual New England Tattoo Expo went to a collaboration: @sidink_100 and @dukeoftats shared the top award for a piece on their client Falyn. With 600+ artists at Mohegan Sun, this is one of the largest competition fields on the East Coast.

The Best of Show piece

The expo published winners as individual congratulation posts over the following weeks. The verified list:

Third-place finishes in Friday color went to @danamorsetattoos with @ritehooktattoo and @andylargetattoo; the full congratulation thread lives on the expo's Instagram.

Seaside Tattoo Show: Ventura, CA (June 5-7, 2026)

Ben Loredo took Best of Show at the 8th annual Seaside Tattoo Show and placed second in color portrait the same weekend. Most of Seaside's 20+ categories were announced only on stage and in Stories.

Closing out the season, the top award at the 8th annual Seaside Tattoo Show went to Ben Loredo: the show's own Instagram credited Best of Show to @tattoosbybenloredo, and he placed second in color portrait the same weekend.

The Best of Show announcement

Most of Seaside's 20+ categories were announced only at the nightly ceremonies and in Stories, so this is the publicly verifiable slice, not the full sheet.

Ten spring shows ran their contests and never published the winners

Ten of the fifteen US shows we tracked judged contests and then published nothing verifiable, including every stop on the Villain Arts circuit. If you won at one of these, your own post is the only public record.

This is the other half of the season, and it is worth naming, because if you won at one of these shows, your own announcement post is the only public record that exists.

March: the Motor City Tattoo Expo in Detroit (March 6-8, its 30th year), the Fresno Tattoo Expo (March 6-8, its first free-admission edition at Table Mountain Casino), the Hampton Roads Tattoo Expo in Virginia (March 6-8), and the Chicago Tattoo Arts Festival (March 20-22), where Speakeasy Custom Tattoo reported multiple award wins by its artists without naming the categories.

April: the Seven Feathers Tattoo Expo in Oregon (April 17-19, healed categories judged nightly, no winners page in any year of its history) and the Tahoe Tattoo Show (April 24-26, ~160 curated artists, zero winner posts).

April and May, the Villain Arts circuit: Baltimore (April 24-26), Kansas City (May 1-3), Cincinnati (May 8-10) and St. Louis (May 22-24). Villain Arts runs contests at every stop and, as a matter of consistent practice, publishes results for none of them.

Guest spots and state tattoo licensing

Licensing is what ends these trips early: a tattoo license is issued state by state, generally does not transfer, and the guest permit most states run has to name your host studio.

Pitch a host six to ten weeks out, since chairs are booked months ahead, and put booth rent or split, deposits and touch-ups in writing before you travel.

State licensing, checked August 2026. Fees and limits change, so confirm with the state before filing. Florida requires a guest tattoo artist registration from any artist credentialed outside the state: up to 14 consecutive days, $35 plus possible county fees, and a bloodborne pathogen and communicable disease course passed at 70% or better (Florida Department of Health).

Virginia's guest tattooer license runs 14 days, cannot be renewed, and an out-of-state resident may obtain five per calendar year. It needs board-approved health education plus a sponsor signature from the parlor's responsible management (Virginia board regulations).

Both applications name the host, which is the trap: the paperwork depends on a confirmed host, so the order is host first, permit second, flights third. Virginia's ceiling also makes permits a budgeted resource for anyone touring, which fits four to eight well-chosen shows and trips a year: more burns you out, fewer loses momentum. Call the state health department, then the county, before anything nonrefundable.

What these results tell working artists

Four patterns hold across the season: collaborations take the top awards, multi-category entries multiply placements, daily awards stay winnable without a headline booth, and a win nobody posts is worth nothing.

Four patterns stand out once you put a whole season side by side.

Collabs win big. Best of Show at New England was a two-artist piece, Saturday's top color award there was a collab, and Louisville's Friday Tattoo of the Day was a collab. Large showpiece tattoos done in one convention weekend favor two sets of hands, and judges reward the scale.

Enter more than one category. Jade Rabbit placed four times at Evergreen in four different categories; Tony Ritter took three black and grey placements the same weekend; Nick Baxter doubled Best of Day into Best of Show. One strong piece can compete in a daily award and a category simultaneously, and the artists who plan their convention pieces around that walk away with multiple trophies.

Daily awards are winnable for non-headliners. Tattoo of the Day and Best of Day categories reset every day and are judged on what walked in that day. Artists without headline booths took several of the wins above.

A win is a marketing asset only if you use it, and most organizers will not do it for you. Ten of fifteen shows this spring published nothing, so the winners who benefit are the ones who post the piece with the show tag, the category and the year, pin it, and add it to their website and Google Business Profile. A verifiable award is one of the few trust signals a client can check in ten seconds. You can find upcoming shows with dates and ticket info in our US conventions directory.

One caution on that last step, because it is where award announcements quietly go wrong. Putting the win on your Google Business Profile means putting it in the description, the posts and the photos, never in the business name. Google's guidelines for representing your business state that your name should reflect your business's real-world name, and that including unnecessary information in your business name isn't permitted, and could result in the suspension of your Business Profile. Renaming a studio to Award-Winning anything risks the listing that feeds every local search, in exchange for a field nobody searches. The award belongs where it is safe and still visible, which is the same discipline that keeps a profile ranking at all: see our notes on how to rank a studio in Google Maps and on local citations and backlinks.

The weekend behind the trophy has a price. A mid-tier US booth runs $800 to $2,500 by tier and city; add travel and lodging for 3 to 4 nights ($600 to $1,500), flash and prints ($200 to $500), shipping ($150 to $300) and food ($200 to $400), and the weekend costs $1,950 to $5,200 before you have inked anyone. The forgotten lines are those last three plus two of your highest-rate studio days. That is two to four confirmed bookings at a normal custom ticket just to break even, and double it to profit; what those tickets run is in our pricing framework. Meanwhile 4 to 6 walk-ups at $300 to $500 gross $1,200 to $3,000, so walk-ups alone almost never make a convention profitable and the revenue has to arrive later as appointments at home.

Price the weekend like an acquisition channel: divide the full cost, not the booth fee, by the people you had a real conversation with, then track how many booked within 90 days. A weekend produces 30 to 100 contacts, so a convention conversation runs $20 to $170, and they decay fast: 2 to 5 book on-site, and the other 25 to 95 go cold unless each gets a DM between Monday and Wednesday referencing what they actually looked at. If a show still costs $150 a contact while paid traffic costs a fraction of that (our measured cost per DM conversation is in our Meta ads benchmarks), budget it as a networking expense, not acquisition. The cheapest way to lift a booth's return is never a nicer booth: it is more conversations and a higher share followed up.

Artists sitting on a convention placement that has not turned into booked months yet can walk us through the studio, and we will take the paid traffic side of it off their hands.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where do tattoo conventions publish contest winners?

Mostly on Instagram, as congratulation posts or Stories from the organizer, and often only partially. Of the fifteen spring 2026 shows we tracked, only five published verifiable results, and none used a results page on their website. Many winners surface only when the artists post their own awards.

Who won Best of Show at the Evergreen Tattoo Invitational 2026?

Nick Baxter of Art Realm Tattoo took Best of Show in Eugene, and also won Saturday's Best of Day. Evergreen published its complete 37-placement results as three Instagram carousels, which makes it the most transparent show of the spring season.

Who won Best of Show at the New England Tattoo Expo 2026?

A collaboration piece by @sidink_100 and @dukeoftats took Best of Show at the 6th annual expo at Mohegan Sun, announced by the expo on Instagram.

Who won Best of Show at the Seaside Tattoo Show 2026?

Ben Loredo (@tattoosbybenloredo) won Best of Show at the 8th annual Seaside Tattoo Show in Ventura, announced by the show. He also placed second in the color portrait category the same weekend.

Do all conventions announce their winners publicly?

No, most do not. Ten of the fifteen spring 2026 shows we tracked published nothing verifiable: the entire Villain Arts circuit (Chicago, Baltimore, Kansas City, Cincinnati, St. Louis), plus Motor City, Fresno, Hampton Roads, Seven Feathers and Tahoe. If you won at a show like that, your own announcement post is the only public record, which is one more reason to make it.

How should an artist use a convention win for marketing?

Post the winning piece with the show name, category and year in the caption, pin it to your profile, and add the award to your website and Google Business Profile. Clients considering a large-scale piece routinely check credentials, and a linked, verifiable award converts better than any slogan.

We track US tattoo conventions, dates and results because paid client acquisition works best next to a strong reputation, and awards are part of that reputation.