Hell on Parade
By Reyan Ali
The Hyatt Regency off High Street is typically a bastion of straight-laced classiness, but this past weekend changed all that, as its adjoining Greater Columbus Convention Center once again became the site for the sixth annual Hell City Tattoo Festival. Thousands of appropriately tattooed and pierced minions descended into “Killumbus” (according to the official program) from surrounding areas and much farther beyond (even as far as Puerto Rico), transforming the Center into an explosively colored three day carnival of body mod possibilities.
The event’s activities were dispersed between the second and third floors of the building. The former level was a comparatively modest appetizer: Four rooms stood in between a few booths of clothing/jewelry merchandise. The first contained the “Sinema” screening room, running films that explored the ideas behind body modification and frequently displayed gasp-worthy explicit images of piercing and scarification. The Fine Art and Scratchboard galleries demonstrated original work of the non-tattoo variety with a great range in quality and approach. The Seminar room provided a bit more of a formalized affair, wherein a limited number of patrons viewed closed door presentations by prominent tattoo artists that touched on a central theme.
The third floor was where the real action was: The exterior space featured tattoo product companies hawking care and design products with the temptation of freebies, three concert poster companies selling gorgeously inventive and deliciously rendered prints and handbills for reasonable prices, CD101 offering passersby a chance to spin a prize wheel that ended up bearing the day’s best giveaways (plenty of concert tickets), and even a “Heck City” area for kids, featuring face-painting, temporary tattoos, and an area to pose with Hell City’s furry Devil mascot.
Upon entering the central ballroom (which appears deceptively small from the outside), one is confronted with a massive sprawl of humanity flowing among a few dozen booths dedicated to tattoo studios from all across the country. Amidst the ubiquitous buzz of tattoo needles at work, strangers contort themselves into all kinds of positions to be tattooed (mostly by appointment only). The only real way to discern each booth from the multitude of others was the photo albums that provided each studio’s prime samples for the curious. Flipping through these books provided much amusement, occasionally yielding some exceptionally bizarre finds such as a Kramer tattoo that only vaguely resembled its intended image, Conan O'Brien dressed up as an alien, and Edward Norton in the Barney-esque garb of the titular character of “Death to Smoochy.”
The opposite end of the ballroom housed two stages. The larger one was used for rotating events like tattoo contests and performances of the musical and carnie persuasion (Saturday night delivered a shirtless fire-eater, the glass-chewing “Zamora the Torture King,” and the malleable and wickedly raunchy “Rubberboy”). Its smaller counterpart stage was reserved for the day’s collaborative live art shows in which five artists would each sketch on a piece of paper for five minutes, then move over to work on the neighboring piece for the next three until the emcee had them stop. A fascinating concept in theory, but time-consuming when there were other distractions available.
What was even better than traversing the booths was the potential for meeting interesting strangers that Hell City provided. Jess of My Tattoo (Alhambra, CA), a 16-year veteran of the industry who specialized in full body Oriental work, was still only on his first appointment of the day a good three hours after the doors had opened on Saturday. Suicide Girls “Messy” and “Sassie,” a pair of sprightly and energetic diplomats of the popular alterna-nude website, were Hell City first timers that eagerly professed their love for the convention. Artist Justin Kamerer, of Louisville, KY-based Angryblue, showed off his mind-blowing concert posters and enthusiastically shared his frustrations with the process of multi-layer screen-printing. However, this to say nothing about the attendees themselves, because being able to see all the fantastic — and less than fantastic — images that people had pricked upon their bodies was where all the bare skin paid off.
More out of place than a patch of untouched epidermis was the congregation of high school female volleyball players that appeared to be sharing the hotel the same time as the convention. A few times every hour, a group of teenage girls and their families would be forced to pass by or wander through the subcultural hordes, usually doing their best not to seem freaked out. Let us just pray that none of their parents peeked inside the Sinema.
Sadly, Hell City will not be returning to Col—er, Killumbus in ’09. The convention alternates locations between here and Phoenix, AZ (which currently lacks a death pun for a name), but if you are willing to wait for the next even year, the modded masses will be back in 2010 to run rampant once more — ideally lacking any volleyball teams.
Originally Published: Issue 649 - May 21, 2008
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