Jared Preslar of Lucky Bamboo Tattoo in Layton, Utah explains why tattoo artists and tattoo studios need and take deposits.
Hello, this is Sean. I am here with Jared of Lucky Bamboo Tattoo. , today I think we could talk about why tattoo studios charge a deposit. Yeah, so I think, , I don’t think, I think this is a topic that a lot of people, a lot of people don’t think about the other side of things, of I think they just see it as like, oh, well, that’s You know, I chart, I don’t know how they see deposits actually, because it’s been very confusing from our perspective, right?
When people are like, well, what do you mean I’m going to lose my deposit? I’m like, what do you think the point of a deposit is? You know what I mean? It’s, it’s, that’s strange to me. Well, especially since we have everything laid out in our, , deposit agreement. It’s very clear what, what happens if you, you know, no show or cancel last minute, whatever.
Or cancel without enough time for us to do something with. . Anyway, off on a tangent, but it’s literally a loss to the, to the artist. So, you know, if you have hours booked that day or, you know, even six hour, like a lot of us have six hour days and somebody books or reschedules, even if it’s a few days away, that’s usually not enough time to fill a slot, a six hour day.
Right. Because typically people are taking time off work to book and. It’s just not easy. I mean, you see, we send out all the, you know, the, we’ll contact people and try to fill the spot and most of them can’t, they just can’t do it, right? They can’t rearrange their life that, that quick. And that’s why we started doing a week.
and even a week, sometimes that’s challenging to, to fill a larger spot , even sometimes a small spot. So anyway, that ends up being a total loss to the artist. That artist doesn’t work that day. All right, so they don’t make money and I guess that’s the side I don’t think people realize they’ll get all pissed about You know losing their deposit when they no show, but there’s no thought about well, the artist isn’t getting paid without that you know what I mean, so It’s unfortunate things happen, but that’s also not our problem, right?
That’s not our fault. That’s the person’s fault That’s the that’s the person’s maybe not their fault, but that’s their life. That’s their responsibility. They’re accountable for it. We’re not , we have a business to run if we just said, Oh yeah, no, no, no, no problem. You’re not losing your deposit. Number one, we wouldn’t be working near as much as we do.
And we would have several cancellations and no shows a week, just like most tattoo artists who don’t hold their clients accountable do. That’s like one of the biggest complaints in the, in from tattoo artist side and studio side is, , cancellations and no shows just like most service based. industries like massage and hair, they have the same problem.
So anyway, it’s to hold somebody accountable and cover somebody’s income that they’re, they’re counting on. And there’s the other side of that. That’s also a loss to the studio, not just the artist, because the artist, you know, there’s a portion of the artist’s income that goes towards the studio. So,, and I think the last , a facet of this is the artists, you know, we charge the artist design fee, which, you know, is the deposit.
And like, let’s say I’m going to draw a sleeve and let’s say it takes me, it takes me an average of, I’d say these days by 20 to 30 hours to design and draw a sleeve. Well before, you know, several years ago, it used to be 40 hours. I’d spend an average of 40 hours a week designing and drawing a sleeve. And that’s, I mean, not a week, but 40 hours on a, on a piece.
But anyway, that’s a, that’s a week’s worth of work for somebody. So to not have a solid commitment from somebody via deposit, , that would be crazy for me to just be working dozens of hours, hoping they show up. , so that’s the other side that people don’t think about is before they even start the tattoo, there’s already many hours of work into it.
, which typically the deposit doesn’t even cover that many hours, right? So, if we’re taking that deposit for that first day of tattooing, let’s say they no show the first day, we’re still at a loss, because we spent more time on drawing than the money we took for deposit. So, anyway, , it’s just a lot more complicated, I think, than people think, and they just want to view it from their perspective, like they’re losing money if they lose their deposit, but they don’t realize that Other people are losing money as well.
Alright, that’s a lot of good information and it’s very informative. Thank you for joining me this morning and we’ll see you on the next one. Yeah, you’re welcome.