A month-by-month calendar of what moves tattoo demand across five US regions - tax refunds, holidays, conventions and weather - with a named source on every claim. Built on 92 active US conventions and public federal data.
What demand does month by month across five US regions. Every claim on the live page carries the source it came from.
Refunds have not arrived; holiday debt already has.
Conventions this month: Philadelphia Tattoo Arts Convention (Philadelphia, PA); Star of Texas Tattoo Art Revival (Austin, TX); San Diego Tattoo Arts Festival (San Diego, CA); Maine Tattoo Arts Festival (Portland, ME); Oahu Tattoo Expo (Honolulu, HI).
Quiet until the 17th, then the year's biggest wave.
Conventions this month: Santa Rosa Tattoos & Blues (Santa Rosa, CA); Cleveland Tattoo Arts Festival (Cleveland, OH); Jacksonville Tattoo Arts Festival (Jacksonville, FL).
Peak refund money meets the densest convention calendar.
Conventions this month: Evergreen Tattoo Invitational (Eugene, OR); Motor City Tattoo Expo (Detroit, MI); Salt Lake City Tattoo Expo (Salt Lake City, UT); Chicago Tattoo Arts Festival (Rosemont, IL); Atlanta Tattoo Arts Convention (Atlanta, GA); Tucson Tattoo Expo (Tucson, AZ), and 6 more in the catalogue.
Money still circulating, the chair books cleanest.
Conventions this month: New England Tattoo Expo (Uncasville, CT); Tahoe Tattoo Show (Stateline, NV); Baltimore Tattoo Arts Festival (Baltimore, MD); Raleigh Tattoo Arts Festival (Raleigh, NC); Memphis Tattoo Festival (Memphis, TN); Elm Street Tattoo & Music Fest (Dallas, TX), and 6 more in the catalogue.
Industry employment reaches its yearly maximum.
Conventions this month: NY Empire State Tattoo Expo (New York, NY); Cincinnati Tattoo Arts Festival (Cincinnati, OH); Kansas City Tattoo Arts Festival (Kansas City, MO); St. Louis Tattoo Arts Festival (St. Louis, MO); Palm Springs Tattoo Arts Festival (Palm Springs, CA); True North Art and Tattoo Expo (Juneau, AK), and 1 more in the catalogue.
Interest climbs, but the client has a trip booked.
Conventions this month: Sinners Tattoo Expo (Dallas, TX); Denver Tattoo Arts Festival (Denver, CO); Louisville Tattoo Festival (Louisville, KY); Indy Tattoo Expo (Danville, IN); Oklahoma City Tattoo Arts Festival (Oklahoma City, OK); Capitol City Classic Tattoo Convention (Sacramento, CA), and 2 more in the catalogue.
Peak attention, minimum client availability.
Conventions this month: Pacific Ink & Art Expo (Honolulu, HI); New Mexico Tattoo Fiesta (Albuquerque, NM); Houston Tattoo Arts Festival (Houston, TX); Long Beach Tattoo Arts Festival (Long Beach, CA); Portland Tattoo Arts Festival (Portland, OR); Twin Cities Tattoo Festival (St. Paul, MN), and 4 more in the catalogue.
School bills, and coastal risk from mid-month.
Conventions this month: Hell City Tattoo Festival (Phoenix, AZ) (Phoenix, AZ); Seattle Tattoo Expo (Seattle, WA); Nashville Tattoo Arts Festival (Nashville, TN); Virginia Beach Tattoo Festival (Virginia Beach, VA); Jacksonville Tattoo Convention (St. Augustine, FL); Colorado Springs Tattoo Arts Festival (Colorado Springs, CO), and 6 more in the catalogue.
Conventions take the weekends, search interest turns down.
Conventions this month: Golden State Tattoo Expo (Pasadena, CA); Boston Tattoo Convention (Boston, MA); Orlando Tattoo Show (Kissimmee, FL); Meadowlands Tattoo Arts Festival (Secaucus, NJ); Asheville Tattoo Arts Festival (Asheville, NC); Savannah Tattoo Arts Festival (Savannah, GA), and 3 more in the catalogue.
Halloween produces revenue in a falling market.
Conventions this month: Tommy's Tattoo Convention (Uncasville, CT); Longhorn State Tattoo Expo (Dallas, TX); Richmond Tattoo & Arts Convention (Richmond, VA); New Orleans Tattoo Arts Convention (New Orleans, LA); DC Tattoo Expo (Washington, DC); Milwaukee Tattoo Arts Festival (Milwaukee, WI), and 3 more in the catalogue.
Worst demand of the year, priciest ads.
Conventions this month: Hell City Tattoo Festival (Columbus, OH) (Columbus, OH); The Allstars Tattoo Convention (Miami, FL); Tampa Tattoo Arts Convention (Tampa, FL); San Antonio Tattoo Arts Festival (San Antonio, TX); Inkin The Coast (Biloxi, MS).
Zero conventions; household money is aimed at others.
No US tattoo conventions run this month.
A national calendar is wrong for a Sun Belt artist. Florida and Arizona peak in December while Maine peaks in June, so the same month is the best and the worst of the year depending on where the chair is.
Midwest is at high, month 4 of 12 for that region, while Southeast is at soft, month 8 of 12 for its own. The two halves of the country do not share a calendar.
Canada has its own calendar at https://neds.marketing/tools/canada-tattoo-season-calendar, built on Statistics Canada employment rather than on the IRS and BLS series behind this one. It is a separate page because it rests on one quantitative series where this page rests on three.
ME, NH, VT, MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, PA. Peaks in June, bottoms in January. Maine swings 9.7 points, the widest of any state checked. Order computed from Maine alone, 1 of the 9 states here (BLS QCEW 812199, 2022-2024).
DE, MD, DC, VA, WV, NC, SC, GA, FL, KY, TN, AL, MS, AR, LA. The year runs backwards: November and December are the peak, June is weak. Order computed from Florida and Georgia, 2 of the 15 states here.
OH, IN, IL, MI, WI, MN, IA, MO, ND, SD, NE, KS. The flattest year of the five. Minnesota holds inside a 3.4 point range. Order computed from Minnesota alone, 1 of the 12 states here.
TX, OK, NM, AZ. Like the Southeast: Texas tops out in November, Arizona in December, summer sags. Order computed from Texas and Arizona, 2 of the 4 states here.
CO, WY, MT, ID, UT, NV, CA, OR, WA, AK, HI. No state series for any of these 11 states is in the corpus, so the national curve is shown, not a measurement.
Every claim on this page carries a named source that opens. They are not equal and the page does not pretend they are. The strongest tier is federal and official statistics: the IRS filing season and refund releases, BLS QCEW payroll under NAICS 812199, the US Census Bureau business trends survey, NOAA on the Atlantic hurricane season, the New York Fed, the New York State Comptroller, the Texas Department of State Health Services and the federal holiday calendar from OPM. Above that sits one peer-reviewed series, JMIR Dermatology on fourteen years of US search interest. Then research bodies with a stated method and sample: the JPMorgan Chase Institute, the National Retail Federation, Pew Research, the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index.
Nothing on this page rests on an advertising vendor quoting its own aggregate, on a single studio page, or on one reporter quoting one shop owner. Thirteen claims that did were removed rather than relabelled.
The curve itself is narrower still: federal payroll data and the peer-reviewed search series, nothing else.
No public monthly booking data exists for US tattoo studios. The curve rests on three proxies: search interest (peer-reviewed JMIR, Google Trends, 14 years, month ranks only), employment (BLS QCEW, NAICS 812199), money (IRS, JPMorgan Chase Institute, NY Fed, NRF). Code 812199 also covers tanning, spas, piercing and permanent makeup, where tattooing is a minority. Payroll is sticky, 1099 artists never show in it. Demand series ends October 15, 2022. The curve shows the order of the months, not a measured amplitude.
December carries 0 US conventions. 92 active US conventions are tracked in total, and the full catalogue lives at https://neds.marketing/conventions.
Which manufacturers sponsor artists, which pay through an affiliate link, and which only open up through a distributor. Four tiers, re-checked monthly, with the read date on every card: https://neds.marketing/sponsors.