The Maidstone Tattoo Extravaganza kicks off this weekend to celebrate the weird and wonderful world of body modification.

Over the Easter bank holiday, thousands of tattoo artists and enthusiasts will descend on the Kent Showground at Detling to share their passion for body art.

“It’s about 1,000 people a day that turn up,” says festival organiser Fraser Williams. “I get there at 6am on Thursday and I don’t leave until Monday night around 11pm. I sleep onsite on a camp bed. But then the public turns up at 9am and goes ‘wow’, and that’s the best bit.”

The convention began in 2017 when Fraser and his wife Sam, who owned their own tattoo studio in Maidstone until the pandemic forced them to shut up shop, got tired of travelling to exhibitions away from home.

“[Sam] used to go to tattoo conventions and she said, ‘How hard do you think it’ll be to do one?’ and I said, ‘I dont think it’ll be that hard’ - stupidly!” laughs the 49-year-old. “We thought, Maidstone’s a massive town and there’s a massive Kent Event Centre at the top there so let’s have a go at it. And it worked. It went really well, we raised a bit of money for charity, all the artists were happy and so we said we’d do another one, and we just kept doing it every year.”

While this year is the smallest festival so far - previous years have seen almost 150 artists set up booths over the weekend while this year is just short of 80 - that hasn’t put off the convention’s regular tattooists.

“I’ve supported the show since it first started,” says Alex Crook, who has his own tattoo studio in Sittingbourne. “I’m one of the most booked up artists in the area with normally around a year waiting list, so I’ve always supported them.”

Alex, who specialises in realism and portrait tattoos, sees the convention as an opportunity to showcase his work and drum up word-of-mouth buzz.

“I did a pin-up girl, like a Gil Elvgren portrait of a pin-up girl on the bonnet of a car about three or four years ago now, and there was a point when I looked around and there were about probably 20 or 30 people standing there,” recalls Alex. “Everyone’s very supportive of one another. A lot of artists are quite happy to stop what they’re doing and chat to people as they pass.

“In the past, someone who was getting tattooed at the booth next to me watching me work booked a few day sessions with me, so your exposure is brilliant at those sorts of places.”

“It’s always a great weekend and atmosphere, and we absolutely love seeing familiar faces,” agrees Molly Cleland, who will be attending the convention with Clockwork Ink, a tattoo studio in Faversham. “The organisers are really friendly and make sure it all runs smoothly for the artists.”

The exhibition has been absent for the past two years, but is making its return over the Easter bank holiday this year - despite plenty of financial struggles for Fraser and Sam.

“The company that we use for our tattoo booths went bankrupt, so we lost £4,500,” explains Fraser as he discusses the logistics of hosting such a big event. “We’re having to reuse the tickets we had for 2020 because if we threw them away we’d be throwing away £500. The staging company is in administration, that was £2,500 for them. We were speaking to some of the bands we asked to come two years ago and they’ve now quadrupled their price so we can’t afford to put bands on.”

Despite being out of pocket this year, the organisers are determined to keep the convention an independent affair.

“We have no sponsorship, it’s completely independent which is a big deal for us. We don’t do it for profit. Demelza House gets donations, the Royal British Legion has a stand for free and they raise money, the fire brigade were there two years ago and they got £1,000 in donations. We try to help local businesses, basically, which is what it’s about.”

So, after all the obstacles that have presented themselves over the past two years, what can visitors actually expect to see over the three-day event?

“This year I’m doing a Michael Jackson portrait, I’m doing a chest piece and I’m doing some more work on my sister’s back piece, which has taken me over 115 hours so far,” says Alex. “It’s fruit, flowers, a lady, candles - she gave me free reign of her back and said design what you want.”

It turns out Alex is no stranger to creating impressive pieces, as his career has been full of high-pressure designs.

“If a parent is unfortunate enough to lose a kid, and you have to do the kid’s portrait on a forearm, there’s no higher pressure,” says the 38-year-old tattooist. “I also tattooed nipple tattoos for breast cancer victims in 2019. I found out someone was quoted £600 for two nipples and I thought, that’s awful. These people were purely profiteering off of someone’s misfortune. So I said, ‘I’m doing it for free for the rest of the year’ and that post went viral.

“We set a cap of one a week for the rest of the year, and I did over 100 in that time. On a weekly basis, that was transformational.”

But when it comes to Alex’s favourite piece, that comes back to tattooing one of his personal heroes.

“One of my favourite ones is a Freddie Mercury portrait singing into a microphone. I’m a massive Freddie Mercury fan.”

“So many of the tattoos we get asked to do nowadays are varied and custom, so may appear unusual to other people,” adds Molly. “I guess it's just personal preference. Colour is something that challenges me - I did a colour realism nature piece a year or so ago that really made me push myself, but has now become one of my favourite tattoos.”

Fraser, who has overseen every moment of the convention since it started five years ago, has seen some incredible work pass through its doors.

“There was a guy who was in a car crash and he did a Ferrari portrait on his leg, and it looked like the Ferrari was actually on his leg. It was unreal,” Fraser says, reminiscing about some of the most memorable moments from past years. “At the studio, people would come in with a name and they’d want it covered with a rose because it always worked. Now, you can have Disney tattoos, Batman and Robin tattoos - there’s such a variety of what you can do now.

“It’s no longer just the Average Joe tattooing, it’s people that have spent years working out how to do what they do. You look at some of the work and it’s like, wow. It’s very impressive.”

With more than 200 different artists appearing at the convention since 2017, Fraser says it’s hard to pinpoint too many in particular - but he does have a few who have stood out to him.

“We had Dan Osbourne a couple of years ago doing some awesome work. Tales of Inkspiration’s Terry Brown did an amazing back piece. Kamila Daisy, who works over in Rainham, does absolutely awesome linework and dot work. Ben Griffiths did an elephant a while ago from Black River Tattoo [in Rainham] - that’s probably one of the best studios locally, other than Alex Crook.

“You see the silly ones too, like the camel on the toe, or you’ve got the finger with the moustache.”

If you’re thinking of signing yourself up for some of these amazing pieces of art, you might want to save up some pennies first, as Alex reminds us that these bespoke designs don’t come cheap.

“If something’s going to take over five hours, we tend to charge the day rate for that which is £580,” he says. “A sleeve can be five to six day sessions at that price, so you could go up to £2,500 or £3,000.”

So you might need to budget carefully before deciding to get one of these tattoos. But, whether you’re ready to get inked or not, Fraser hopes people come along to the convention and have a great time regardless.

“I have an immense sense of pride,” admits the hopeful organiser. "People come here and there’s no animosity. There’s no hassle. It’s very chilled, relaxed and everyone enjoys it. I’m so passionate about it.

"Now we’re here, it’s brilliant - I can't wait!”

The Maidstone Tattoo Extravaganza takes place from Saturday, 16 April to Easter Monday from 9am to 5pm. Tickets start from £13 online, or £10 on the day. Book online here or call 07984 916 932 for more details.