Inked NYC is the Manhattan-based tattoo studio and gallery established by Inked Magazine, the world’s top publication for music, fashion, art, sports, and everything else connected to the lifestyle of the tattooed. Inked also runs the Empire State Tattoo Expo, one of the largest tattoo conventions in the world.
We recently spoke with Trischa Evangelista, general manager at Inked. Trischa has worked in the industry since 2004 and has been with Inked for nearly six years. As GM, she does “a little bit of everything” to ensure that the shop runs smoothly and makes as much money as possible.
“There are always bumps in the road,” she said. “I make sure those bumps don’t become barriers.”
Trischa talked about the challenges of growing the business during quarantine, as well as Inked’s celebrity clients, popular tattoo styles right now and how Inked decides if a tattoo artist is the right fit for their studio.
Photo by Alena Wedderburn, @alenatattoos
V: The Inked brand is very well known. There’s Inked Magazine, and the TV show from several years ago. Why open a tattoo shop?
T: Yeah, Inked Magazine has been around forever. It is the lifestyle magazine for this industry. They encompass everything related to tattoo culture in their productions.
So, the name had worldwide recognition, and for a long time the next step was to open a tattoo studio. Inked had guest tattoo artists do promotional work a lot in their other offices. That was popular, so opening a studio just made sense. We initially opened a spot in 2018. We sold that and moved into our current location at 150 W. 22nd St, in 2020—two months before the COVID quarantine hit.
V: How did you manage to survive through quarantine?
T: We anticipated it early on, within our first month of opening. Back then, COVID was a whisper, a dirty secret no one wanted to consider. When I got COVID in mid-February, we realized how bad it was going to get. Of course, we expected quarantine to last two weeks, not three months, but we had to go with it.
We didn’t lose a lot of business because people really didn’t know the studio existed yet. We never really freaked out about it. Instead, we used those three months to expand and build the shop out to be better than how we started. We began with six tattooing stations and currently have 34. We added a second floor (we now have three). Any downtime we got, we used.
So, quarantine wasn’t the best thing, but it wasn’t the worst either.
V: That was about the time Inked started using Vagaro?
T: We adopted Vagaro in March of 2020, during quarantine. I did a demo, took a few webinars on how to use it, and we were off. Straight away, it made rescheduling super easy. Those push notifications our artists got were lifesaving. The COVID liability waiver was especially big when we first opened.
The appointment notes feature is great. It lets us keep detailed notes on who booked a tattoo and when; the design concept, size, color and where it’s going, how long it’ll take to complete and how much it was quoted for. You can see the full client history for each artist. It’s a nice, easy breakdown.
All of it is just very user-friendly. Dummy-proof, really.
V: Were other tattoo parlor software platforms not as efficient as Vagaro's?
T: No. Most of the software created specifically for tattoo shops is horrible. In 2018, we went through 20 different software demos, and we didn't like any of them. These were confusing, slow and would often break down.
They didn’t have calendars you could book into. They didn’t generate reports, so, I couldn’t track seasonal trends. We couldn’t include tax in a transaction automatically, or send out a weekly marketing email.
The competitors’ software was just so limiting. Thats not beneficial to our artists, staff or clients.
V: Speaking of artists, the artists at Inked NYC are some of the industry’s best. H**ow competitive is it to get a chair there?**
T: Basically, if your work is really good, we’ll make it happen. Right now, we have 17 full-time resident artists on the payroll, whom we take care of and book everything for. We also have over 300 different guest artists cycling through, about 5–20 guests on any given day.
We expanded to the 2nd floor so we wouldn’t have to turn away the best artists. If everything clicks and we know they’ll make a lot of money, then we’ll work with them on a full-time basis.
That said, we have a name and a brand to represent. If someone doesn’t price their work fairly and isn’t good to their clients, it won’t work out. We’ve lucked out so far. Our artists are among the best at what they do and their work shows it.
V: Inked NYC hosts well-known residents and guest artists from around the world. How does that work?
T: Our artists fall into three categories: Resident artists, who are full time and always here; resident guest artists, who come monthly or bimonthly; and guest artists, who come from all over the world, stay for a few months, go home and often come back. You could say that tattoo artists are nomadic people.
We give guest artists all the supplies they need, and they handle their own inquiries, bookings and payments. We always make sure we have room for them for however long they’ll be here, and we treat their clients the same as we treat ours. Many of our guest artists’ clients, who come specifically for them, also become regular clients of ours.
V: The work showcased on Inked's website and Instagram is incredibly detailed. How long does it take to complete and what’s the general price range?
T: Large-scale work is very common here and the majority of our artists do all-day pieces, 8–10 hours. With the level of detail involved, some pieces can take 14–15 hours. A tattoo that costs $10k isn’t out of the norm. Some of our artists have a $3k/day rate. The average artist’s range is $2,200–$3,500/day.
Our artists aren’t obligated to say yes to everything. If they don’t want to do another lion, dragon or phoenix tattoo, they don’t have to. Sometimes, we have to tell prospective clients that none of our artists are the right person for what they want. We aren’t out to steal people’s money; we just want to see good tattoos. If an artist isn’t into a certain design, the tattoo isn’t going to be good.
Still, we are constantly on the hunt for artists who can do the simpler, smaller things.
V: What are some popular body art styles right now?
T: I’d say that fine line realism is big right now. So are realistic microportraits, especially of pets. We see a lot of large-scale black and gray realism and hyper-color realism (think a full-on color portrait of a celebrity or athlete).
Color realism, period, is probably the hardest style to master because you must really understand the color wheel and its different shades, as well as which colors work best with different skin tones. An artist’s personal technique must match up, as well. Color is hard. Tattoo artists who master it deserve every award they win.
V: How long does it take to get an appointment at Inked?
T: It depends on the artist because each one has a different specialty. Some are booked out for the month, others until September, and some have their books closed because they have too many appointments.
We don’t really do drop-ins, though we wish we could. We tried, but everyone ended up booked solid all the time.
V: Who are some of Inked NYC's celebrity clients? Can they be difficult to deal with?
The first one who comes to mind is Tim Howard, the former goalkeeper for Manchester United and the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team. He’s a studio analyst for NBCSN now. He comes in all the time. He filmed part of his documentary here. The rapper and TV host, Nick Cannon, also comes to us a lot.
We recently had Mary Mouser and Tanner Buchanan, lead actors from the Netflix series, Cobra Kai, and City Morgue, the hip-hop duo. There’s a lengthy list of NFL players and prominent Tik-Tokers.
The famous people we get are always very respectful. None of them are obnoxious. We rarely get obnoxious people. The worst people are the ones who come in for a 20-minute tattoo and complain about our policies surrounding guests or masks, or something like that.
V: What’s the future for Inked NYC and the brand as a whole? Other locations? A bigger location in NYC?
T: All the above. We’re looking at other locations and maybe adding another floor. We’ll probably open abroad, eventually. We’ll probably have more flash events, like the record release promotion we did with Sony in 2020, for Ozzy Osbourne’s latest album.
We also want to start holding educational seminars here. We have access to the greatest artists from all over the world and want to use that to give people the knowledge to improve.
We're here to support anyone who works for it, want to see everyone improve and give people the tools to succeed. Our artists look up to each other and aren't afraid to ask one another for help or guidance. They learn from each other and that’s the way it should be.
So, the possibilities are endless. We’ll take it as it comes.
