ROSES, skulls and angel wings were out in abundance as people travelled from across the globe for the ninth annual Brighton Tattoo Convention.

Artists from around the world joined talented Sussex tattooists for the final day of the weekend event, which included a display of classic American cars in the lobby and dozens of stalls selling alternative fashion and jewellery as well as working tattooists upstairs.

Former Brightonian Lauryn Embleton, 23, said: “Here things are always more chilled, more friendly. There’s more of a social aspect and the fact that we’re only taking one customer shows that and shows how we can be.”

Lauryn works for The Lacemakers in Hackney Wick, whose stall saw the finishing stages of a fifteen-stage, three-person collaboration being applied to one customer’s back.

The centre welcome a broad mix of ages and styles.

There were men in tweed jackets and waistcoat whose hands were whorled and covered in green inked designs and shaven-headed men with tattos covering every inch of their faces.

Hair colours ranged from dark red to neon turquoise via all points of the rainbow in between.

Robert Crowe - “Crow” to his friends - normally works half a world away in Spokane, Washington, in a tattoo shop recently featured on American television.

He said that the Brighton fair, like most worldwide, has become more accessible in recent years.

“He said: “The community is becoming more of a melting pot.

“There have been more hipsters infiltrating the business, especially since all these TV shows. Suddenly everyone thinks they’re a tattoo artist.

“Overall that means the business is becoming softer, which I think is good in a way because it makes it more accessible, but for some of us old school guys it means the real artists can be harder to find.”

Daryl Watson, 23, came down from Dundee for the convention and said it was of more discerning standard than other British tattoo conventions.

He said: “The atmosphere is amazing here, but the quality of artists is incredible. You can really tell the organisers have been selective.

“Plus everyone working is really nice and really friendly, there’s none of the politics you can get at some fairs.”