The start of 2025 has been incredible for Ghost! Launching our brand-new website and Ghost Black cartridge range is exciting to say the least but sponsoring the Tattoo & Merchandise Popup Tour across the UK for two big bands is certainly one hell of a bonus!
Metalcore veterans Trivium and Bullet for my Valentine teamed up for The Poisoned Ascendancy Tour throughout January and February. Both bands played their respective 2005 albums, Ascendancy and The Poison in full to mark their 20th anniversaries. Tickets went on sale exactly a year prior to the shows and they sold very quickly so clearly this tour was going to be a huge!
And what better way to add to the experience by opening pop-up tattoo studios! Throughout the tour, each city the band played in had a Tattoo & Merchandise Popup Store located near the venue, so fans had their chance to get the ultimate piece of permanent merchandise! Various flash designs were hand made by the tattoo artists involving subject matter stemming from the band’s album lyrics and artwork.
In the lead up to the tour Claudio Traina, [Owner of London based Tattoo Studio, Sixty Ink and organizer of the Tattoo Popup Tour] reached out to us to be the official needle cartridge provider for the tour. Some of our team here at Ghost favour the heavier side of music and we all loved the idea of helping with this project, so it was easy to convince us to get involved! No sooner as the idea was proposed to us, we were boxing up Ghost Pink, Hex and Nano cartridges requested by the artists!
The first day of the tour was held in Cardiff, Bullet’s hometown. Despite the torrential Welsh rain, fans flocked to Frontier Tattoo Studio to grab those permanent memories for their favourite albums and pick up exclusive merchandise – which was only available at the pop-up stores. During the afternoon of this opening day, a few lucky fans were pleasantly shocked to see Bullet’s lead singer Matthew Tuck and his mother, get matching ‘The Poison’ leg tattoos! A very touching moment of course plus a treat for fans who patiently waited for their turn in the chair too!
As the week continued, pre-made bookings sold out leaving fans with the only option to hope for walk-up availability with one of the artists. We attended the penultimate event at The Flapper in Birmingham to record and support the team. And there was also enough time to get a couple of tattoos done ourselves before heading in to the sold out show at the Utilita Arena!
At the end of this fantastic tour, 5 cities were conquered across 7 days and the artists had inked over 320 fans. We documented as much as we could at selected pop-up locations which you can check out on our socials! https://www.instagram.com/ghostcartridges/
A huge shoutout goes to Claudio and his team from Sixty Ink, (Adam, Sara and Liam), who put in 7+ hours of tattooing each day. We had the pleasure of seeing Claudio and his team working and here are some words from the man himself;
“This is our tattoo tour with Bullet and Trivium, so many people came. We did some flash for the band; classic logos, designs inspired by the most famous songs or the albums. I'm a failed musician; I call myself a failed musician. Music was my No. 1 passion of mine and because I couldn't be a musician, my second passion was tattooing. I built this idea of connecting music and tattoos - literally connecting the band to the fans - because music is LIFE - it's memories, it’s hope, it's everything! [The tattoo] is in the skin forever, it means so much. I think this is the first time ever [that] a band has decided to do something like this on tour. It's been a fun experience, and I cannot wait to do more and more.”
Additional shoutouts go out to each of the housing studios and their artists, who stepped up and offered their services and premises to make these incredible days happen!
Frontier Tattoo, Cardiff
Empire Ink, Glasgow
The Old Volt, Manchester
Golden Goose, Birmingham
Sixty Ink, London
Further special thanks go out from us to the following
Owner of Sixty Ink, Claudio – organizing an incredible week & making it all possible!
Raw Power Management – key in communications throughout the process
Starr Tattoo Supplies – stocking the studios with the best tattoo supplies!
The Flapper, Birmingham – hosting the pop-up in central Birmingham
Hard Rock Café, Manchester – making space for the merch pop-up in Manchester
There is certainly a lot more in the tank from us at Ghost Cartridges when it comes to these events and popup stores. We’ve seen the impact that we can make by supporting these incredible projects and we have big plans moving forward, so keep up to date by following our socials and joining our newsletter.
