We get a ton, and I mean a TON of calls about walk-ins. The term ‘walk-in’ means different things to different people, however, and we’d like to take some time to clear some things up here.

To tattoo shops the world over, ‘walk-in’ doesn’t mean that you can walk in and get tattooed immediately. It means you can get tattooed sometime THAT DAY. A walk-in may need to schedule an appointment for several hours after the time they come in. So it looks like this: A prospective client comes into the shop with a tattoo idea that can be drawn and tattooed that day, usually something small, and if the artist has time that day a walk-in appt in scheduled. That client will usually leave the shop for a time and either catch a quick movie, grab a bite to eat, maybe just go walk around the malls for a couple of hours, then return to get their tattoo once that artist has finished what they are working on and gotten their tattoo ready.

Another scenario is one where the artist can knock out a super-tiny, quick piece out without much preparation time at all. In this scenario, if the artist isn’t already working on another client, the walk-in may be able to get tattooed immediately. This usually only happens at Lighthouse Tattoo in the event of a last-minute cancellation or if the client is willing to be tattooed by an apprentice.

Disclaimer for stupid people: If you call Lighthouse Tattoo and ask if we have time to do a walk-in, the answer will always be ‘yes’. This is because there is no possible way of knowing whether or not we will have the time to do a piece when we don’t have concrete answers to a lot of questions about the tattoo: size, color or black and grey, style of tattoo, subject matter, you know, things that require forethought, something that isn’t present with a walk-in tattoo. We have no way of knowing if the prospective client is just ‘window shopping’ or is serious, we don’t even know if they’ll show up! We also don’t know if all of our scheduled appointments will show up either, sometimes people can’t make it and we have extra time on our hands. Sometimes we get done early or an artist may be willing to stay late to fit someone in. Many times, if the client is nice and they want something small that doesn’t require prep work, they can get tattooed at the end of the night if they’re willing to leave a deposit and come back later that evening.

All of that being said, we want people to understand that it’s called a ‘Walk-In’ not a ‘Call-In’ for a reason. Tattoo shops don’t really take calls for walk-ins seriously, as it shows a lack of understanding about the process and a general lack of consideration for tattoo artists and what we do. But if you DO call us about a walk-in, we’ll tell you to come in! Then when you do and still can’t get tattooed because you have no understanding of how this works, you’ll leave pissed off and write us a 1-star review to try and destroy our business because that’s the only power you can wield in the world (behind a keyboard), and we’ll copy that shit into the Knucklehead of the Month or just clown you directly on the review reply itself, all when you could have just thought ahead a little bit and scheduled an appointment or booked something once you came in. You just ruined your best chance to get a great, affordable tattoo for one of the best places around all because you couldn’t plan a little in advance or understand that we can only do one tattoo at a time and there are other people in the world besides yourself that want bodyart? Sheesh. All that frustration so easily avoided.

If you want to get tattooed as a walk-in, please don’t call, please walk in and we’ll do our best to take care of you!