HENRIETTA, N.Y. — Friday is day one of three for the Roc City Tattoo Expo in Henrietta. For the past 15 years, the convention has brought in top-tier tattooing talent from all around the country — and oftentimes, the world — to show off their work.

Dylan Tate is an artist with the expo’s founder, Love Hate Tattoo. He said nearly 250 artists are filling over 80 booths this year at the Hilton Doubletree hotel. All weekend, artists will be taking walk-ins, offering flash tattoos, and fulfilling appointments some clients made months in advance. 

“It’s a crazy experience for people that normally don’t get a ton of tattoos or anything like that,” local artist Ben Woraara said. “Because you just get flooded with amazing artists, amazing tattoos.”

Some, like Worarra and his shop Cosmic Reaper Tattoo, are local to the area. Others, like Todd Porter, traveled hundreds of miles to be here. 

“It’s good to see people we haven’t seen for a while,” Porter said. “See guys you haven’t seen in a while — it’s cool.”

“This [expo] in particular is just so sick,” Worarra said. “Tons of heavy hitters here, tons of friends, amazing tattooers, it seems like a reunion every year, you know?”

Jim Flagg came out to the expo for an appointment he’d booked. Flagg is from Rochester, and after he saw Sebastian Fernandez’s work on Instagram, he knew he wanted a piece. 

Fernandez came in from Brazil, and gave Flagg a tattoo of a black panther on his calf. 

“This isn’t very bad at all,” Flagg said while getting the tattoo. “I had my ribs done and that’s way worse. This is child’s play.”

Tate said that since Love Hate started the expo 15 years ago, organizers have only seen more and more people stop in. But the demographics of those people hasn’t really changed much. 

“The type of people that collect, the number of people that collect and get tattoos — there’s no demographic,” he said. “it’s just people. We take care of everybody […] anybody from 18 to 80.”

The expo will run 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. It will end Sunday at 11 p.m. To learn more about the expo and to buy tickets, click here.