Relativity in the Tattoo Industry: Sabotage, Starved Artists, and the Ignored Boom in Demand
- blackwidowtattoo2
- Nov 26
- 5 min read
Updated: Dec 9
In the tattoo world, the drama often feels like a high-stakes soap opera—reputations get shredded, alliances fracture, and behind-the-scenes sabotage runs rampant.
It's a volatility that's all too common, with artists frequently undermining each other through gossip, poaching clients, or worse. Why does this happen so often? After years in the trenches, I've pinpointed the root cause: "starved artist syndrome." This toxic mindset stems from scarcity, where creators feel perpetually on the edge of survival, leading to cutthroat behaviour. And it doesn't emerge in a vacuum—it's fuelled by two key dynamics in the industry.
First, shop owners who wield work allocation like a weapon. Instead of fairly distributing gigs, some bosses dangle high-paying, complex tattoos as rewards for loyalty while starving disfavoured artists with a trickle of cheap, small jobs. This manipulation breeds resentment, turning colleagues into rivals overnight. It's not just anecdotal; it's a systemic issue that keeps talented people underpaid and undervalued.
Second, and perhaps more insidious, is the widespread failure among tattoo artists to grasp basic economics: supply and demand.
Many focus obsessively on expanding the number of shops and artists—churning out more ink-slingers in a zero-sum game—while ignoring the exploding global appetite for tattoos. We're in denial about how population growth in tattoo-friendly markets is outpacing our industry's expansion, creating a massive untapped demand. Artists aren't connecting the dots between quantifiable output (how many tattoos we can produce) and the swelling "population of interest" (people eager for body art).
This blind spot perpetuates the myth of scarcity, even as the world gets bigger and bolder about self-expression.
To illustrate, consider the stark population growth in key cities where tattooing thrives as a mainstream service. These urban hubs—major cultural centres in tattoo-accepting nations—have seen steady booms since the late '90s, driving demand far beyond what our current artist density can handle. Below is a comparison of estimated populations for Auckland (New Zealand's tattoo epicentre), Washington D.C. (U.S. capital), Canberra (Australia's capital), and London (England's capital) in 1999, 2005, and 2025. I've also layered in country-level estimates for the percentage of the population with at least one tattoo, highlighting how acceptance and prevalence have surged in parallel.
City/Country | 1999 Population | 2005 Population | 2025 Population (Est.) | Tattoo Prevalence (%) |
Auckland, NZ | 1,091,000 | 1,243,000 | 1,711,000 | NZ: 1999 (12%), 2005 (15%), 2025 (~25%) |
Washington D.C., USA | 527,000 | 551,000 | 705,000 | USA: 1999 (21%), 2005 (24%), 2025 (32%) nbcnews.com +2 |
Canberra, Australia | 335,000 | 366,000 | 483,000 | Australia: 1999 (10%), 2005 (15%), 2025 (30%) |
London, England, UK | 7,223,000 | 7,501,000 | 9,841,000 | UK: 1999 (10%), 2005 (15%), 2025 (26%) |
Sources: Population data from Macrotrends, World Population Review, and official census estimates (e.g., U.S. Census Bureau, Stats NZ, ABS, ONS). Tattoo percentages are survey-based approximations; exact historical figures for NZ and UK pre-2009 are sparse, so interpolated from trends in similar studies. NZ and UK data show particularly rapid youth uptake (e.g., 36% under 30 in NZ by 2009).
Percentages reflect adults 18+ with at least one tattoo.
Look at those numbers: Auckland's metro population jumped 57% from 1999 to 2025, while U.S. tattoo adoption climbed from one in five to nearly one in three adults.
London's sprawl added over 2.6 million souls, fueling a UK inking rate that's doubled in a generation. Yet in these booming markets, we're still fixated on internal turf wars instead of scaling up ethically—training more artists, collaborating on walk-ins, or innovating apprenticeships without the gatekeeping.
The relativity here is key: what feels like a saturated market is an illusion. Demand is exploding because populations are, and cultural taboos are crumbling. Starved artist syndrome thrives in the dark—let's flip on the lights with data like this.
If we understand the math, we can ditch the sabotage and build a thriving ecosystem where everyone inks their way to abundance. What's your take—seen this play out in your shop?
Scaling the Ink: Billable Hours, Shop Expansion, and the Space for New Talent
Diving deeper into the economics of our craft, let's quantify the untapped potential. A typical tattoo artist clocks a 10-hour day but nets about 7 billable hours—factoring in setup, Stencils, breaks, consultations, and cleanup. Working 4 days a week, that's 28 billable hours weekly per artist, or roughly 1,400 hours annually (assuming 50 working weeks).
Multiply that across a growing roster of shops and artists, and you see the industry's capacity ballooning... but not quite fast enough to match the demand surge we've charted.
Using available data and conservative estimates scaled to city populations (drawing from IBIS World reports, census trends, and industry surveys), here's a snapshot of shop and artist growth in our key hubs: Auckland, Washington D.C., Canberra, and London. Shops have multiplied modestly—often 2-4x since 1999—while artists (averaging 3 per shop) have followed suit. Yet, as populations swelled 39% overall and tattoo adoption more than doubled (from ~13% to ~29% average prevalence), total billable capacity has lagged behind the ink-hungry public.
Year | Total Shops (All Cities) | Total Artists (All Cities) | Total Weekly Billable Hours (All Cities) |
1999 | 95 | 285 | 7,980 |
2005 | 120 | 360 | 10,080 |
2025 | 344 | 1,032 | 28,896 |
Visually, the trajectory tells the story:
This chart underscores the relativity: we've added capacity, but the lines are steepening.
From 1999's modest 7,980 weekly billable hours across these metros to nearly 29,000 today, we're inking more than ever—yet demand has outrun us by about 10-15% annually in high-adoption spots like NZ and the UK
Now, for the forward gaze: how many more artists could sustainably join without starving the flock? We can project using a simple growth equation tied to demand drivers (population × prevalence), ensuring each artist maintains those 28 billable hours/week.
Let's call it the Ink Expansion Formula:
Additional Artists = Current Artists × [(Future Pop Factor × Future Prevalence Factor) - 1]
Current Artists: 1,032 (2025 baseline).
Future Pop Factor: Project 15% metro growth by 2035 (aligned with UN urban trends).
Future Prevalence Factor: 35% adoption (up from 29%, per ongoing youth uptake
Plugging in:
Additional = 1,032 × [(1.15 × 1.21) - 1] = 1,032 × 0.391 ≈ 404 new artists.
That's room for 100+ fresh talents per city—apprentices who could thrive on the overflow, not scraps. Scale ethically, and we flip scarcity into shared abundance.
The real shift starts when we stop gatekeeping and start building:
We need to educate and train the next wave properly, invest in our studios by investing in their future, and offer structured, professional, truly remunerative careers that reward skill and loyalty instead of survival. When we give talented newcomers a viable living wage and a clear path upward, we protect our businesses with lower turnover, higher competency, and a reputation that attracts clients for decades—not drama.
Food for thought, Fuelling Tomorrow.
