Not showing up for your appointment in the tattoo/piercing industries. All the frown faces.

'No calls. No shows'. Its a phrase that makes every tattoo/piercing studio cringe. Here's why:

When we book an appointment, we are blocking off a portion of that day for that client to get work done. When artists are not tattooing/piercing there is no money coming in and no one is getting paid. When someone doesn't give a timely heads up or simply does not show up at all, they are wasting the artists time and there usually isn't enough time to find someone to fill that time slot on such short notice. To add to that, they are also causing other clients to have to wait longer for their appointment, for no good reason. If that person that never showed up had never made their appointment in the first place, the next person would be in sooner. Not showing up causes a lot more issues than you'd imagine. It can easily (and likely) ruin an artists day.

The artist also spends time before the appointment drawing the design. Editing the design. This can happen multiple times on one design until the artist is confident they have a design that will make the client happy. That's typically at least a few hours of drawing... now for nothing.

Example:
Client books a 5 hour session of a bumblebee playing a harmonica while surfing in the ocean. Their time blocked is from 12pm until 5pm. The artist draws the design. Doesn't like the first draft. Re-draws the design. Doesn't think the second design will fit for the placement on the body. Artist draws it again for the third time. Likes how it turns out, for the most part. Artist then goes back in to edit the harmonica and the waves. Now the artist is super excited to show the client the design and get that rad bumblebee playing that rad harmonica on that client. A lot of drawing and preparation has already gone into this tattoo. Its not even the appointment date yet. 12:00 on the appointment date shows up. No client. 12:10 on the clock. No client. 12:30. No client. The client doesn't show up. Now the artist has no income coming in for a minimum of 5 of their 8 hour work day. That's a huge financial blow. And even when that client doesn't show up, the artist still has bills to pay. The studio still needs to pay the bills to keep the doors open. The studio and artist are then left with a small window of time to attempt getting someone else in on extremely short notice. A lot of time gets wasted and a lot of tattoo time goes out the window, while trying to get someone to fill that spot on the day of.

Understanding deposits:
Almost all studios will require a deposit. The deposit is there to make people committed to their appointment/time slot. Our deposit starts at 50.00 for most tattoos. This deposit is there so the client has "something on the line." Imagine no deposit being in place. The potential clients appointment date shows up and they decide, "Eh, I'm tired. I'm not going." Now imagine the 50.00 deposit in place. "Eh, I'm tired. But I did commit that 50.00 deposit and I would rather not waste that money. I'll go get that rad harmonica playing bumblebee." 

When someone still doesn't show even with a deposit in place, the artist and studio will at least still makes a little bit of money. But that "little bit" isn't enough to pay bills and make up for the full time that was blocked off for the tattoo.

Please keep all this in mind. We want to tattoo you. We want to pierce you. WE LOOK FORWARD TO IT. But if you're not serious about it, please just wait until you are serious about it. We all have bills to pay. We are all trying to make a living. 

Tyler Hamline