Wednesday 26 November 2025
TAPE 2025 was supposed to be something new for the scene. Not a convention, not a public event, but a get-together built exclusively for tattoo professionals. A breather in our packed schedules, with the promise of deeper conversations away from machine noise and live-tattoo stress. On paper, the idea sounded great. In practice, the experience left a more mixed impression.
A Pro Format Built for Real Exchange
The show was put together by Devilish and ITC, two well-established names in the industry. At the entrance, they asked for a SIRET number — though the check seemed fairly theoretical. The goal was clear: get tattooers in a room together. No visitors, no clients, just pros and adjacent trades. That changes everything, because at a traditional convention you're glued to your booth, focused on work, and never really get the time to sit down and think about your craft with peers.
Here, it was the opposite. We got to have long conversations with artists, associations, brands, suppliers. The "off" exchanges were easily the best part of the day. Those are the conversations that made the event worthwhile. When you finally get to talk process, burnout, inspiration, technique, organization, even ethics with other tattooers, you feel genuinely fed.
Masterclasses Were Mostly Underwhelming
The conference content was the other big promise of TAPE. Unfortunately, that's where it fell short. A lot of the talks were surface-level, close to a beginner workshop or a Domestika course. Useful if you're just starting out, but not what you'd expect from something positioned as a professional event.
A pattern kept repeating: a lightweight masterclass, followed by a pitch to buy a private training program. "Twenty percent off if you sign up for my four-day coaching." That approach quickly starts feeling like a sales showcase rather than a genuine sharing of experience. A few talks saved the day — Sam Parle Tattoo's was clear, structured, a bit more generous with substance. But even then, if you've got years of practice under your belt, you won't learn much.
The main issue seems to be the target audience. They tell you it's for tattooers — which means all levels. Yet a lot of content was aimed at absolute beginners. When you already handle color, shading, gradients, saturation issues, warm/cool balance, a thirty-minute intro to color realism isn't going to cut it.
The final feeling: an interesting format that isn't quite there yet. The intention is solid, the execution too uneven.
The Poster Controversy and AI Usage
This one stirred things up: the show's poster was AI-generated, featuring a Marilyn Monroe with old-school tattoos. Looks okay from a distance. Up close, it's janky. And it raises questions. This is a pro event in an artistic field carried by people who draw every day. When major players like ITC or Devilish choose an AI image instead of working with an illustrator or graphic designer, it sends a weird signal.
AI isn't the problem per se. It's a useful tool for brainstorming, finding a vibe, breaking through a composition block. But it can't replace the final work. An official poster needs real intention, a human eye, a style. Handing the final output to a generative model cheapens the image of an entire industry — especially when you could do so much better visually.
Other events have fallen into the same trap, and the result is often the same unfinished automated look. The Gamin à 10 doigts Mario Kart contest is a good example: an unretouched AI poster, wonky, completely out of step with the quality of their space and brand. This points to a broader drift: AI becoming an easy shortcut, sometimes used in place of actual artistic intent.
Using AI the Right Way in a Creative Process
On the flip side, some brands show how to integrate AI intelligently. Tern, for instance, uses AI to generate quick mockups, explore visual directions, test compositions. A research step, nothing more. Then they shoot for real, work the lighting, compose their images, and bring in a graphic designer to finalize the poster. The tool serves the process without replacing it.
In tattooing, it's the same deal. AI can help visualize an idea that's hard to put on paper, or imagine a pose, a movement. But it doesn't replace the hand, the grain, the paper, the sensitivity. Tablets already changed how we prep our projects — they never replaced drawing.
The danger is that AI is accessible and fast, which pushes some people to churn out mediocre visuals for projects that deserve better.
Ethics, Stolen Art, and the Risks for Shops
The show also brought up a much more serious issue: outright theft of designs from independent illustrators. One example stuck with everyone: a Brazilian artist wanting to come as a guest, reposted by the shop, until a French creator flagged that all her designs had been copied identically. Not inspired. Not reinterpreted. Duplicated.
After checking, it was true. The tattooer had tattooed those visuals, stencils to prove it. The kind of thing that puts a shop in a tough spot without even realizing it. The wronged artist was threatening legal action. They had to manage it, apologize, explain, fix things.
The worst part came after: the artist in question insisted on coming anyway, saying she could "lie" if needed to avoid drama. Behavior completely incompatible with the ethics any shop wants to stand for. The kind of experience that reminds you diligence and verification aren't optional anymore — especially with how easy AI makes it to copy work.
Wrapping Up
TAPE 2025 had all the ingredients to become an essential event for tattooers. And despite its limits, there were real highlights — especially the peer-to-peer conversations. What's left is to push the masterclass content further, own a coherent artistic direction, and stand by solid values in a craft already shaken by AI and plagiarism issues.
This type of event could become a valuable resource for the profession. It just needs to be more demanding, more rigorous, and more aligned with what artists actually expect.
