Lucky Supply Heads West: New Mexico Tattoo Fiesta 2026
This past summer Lucky Supply headed to Albuquerque for the 2026 New Mexico Tattoo Fiesta, held July 10–12 at the Albuquerque Convention Center. Put on by New Mexico natives Por Vida Tattoo Supply, the show brought together tattooers, builders, collectors, and some of the biggest names in the industry for a weekend that felt more like an extended family gathering than a typical convention.
For this trip, we kept our booth focused on what we make in-house: tattoo machines, power supplies, machine-building and tuning tools, plus some Lucky apparel and swag. We also represented Lucky’s Tattoo Museum with prints of vintage flash from our collection displayed behind the booth, bringing a little piece of tattoo history with us to Albuquerque.
The show stayed steadily busy all weekend, but the atmosphere never felt overwhelming. The entertainment was lively without being too loud, and instead of pulling people away from the tattoo area, performers often moved through the convention floor. It kept the energy up while still letting the tattooing remain the focus.
One of the best parts of the weekend was getting to spend time with artists and builders we have known by name for years. Eric Inksmith of Inksmith & Rogers, Brian Everett from Route 66 tattoo, the Trufant brothers, and Wendy Belzel of Belzel Books were among the many familiar faces at the Fiesta.
Por Vida also hosted a black-tie gala before the show, complete with dinner and everyone dressed to the nines. For us, the gala was especially memorable. After spending almost 3 decades in the tattoo community we have gotten to know countless artists from across the country through phone orders and conversations. The event gave us the chance to finally meet many of those familiar names face-to-face.
New Friends and Old-School Tattooing
One of the people who quickly became part of the Lucky crew that weekend was Xerxes, a young tattooer from Cheeky Monkey. He was excited about what Lucky Supply is doing to preserve traditional tattooing and spent a good part of the weekend hanging out with us, talking machines, history, and tattooing.
He even got tattooed by Greg King from a sheet of Bob Wicks flash and later loaned us his hand-crank coil winder for our machine-building seminar. The slower speed of the hand crank made it much easier for beginners to see how coil winding works without turning the wire into a rat’s nest. By the time the weekend was over, we definitely felt like we had made a friend for life.
Taking the Workbench on the Road
The Tattoo Fiesta ended Sunday, but our trip continued through Monday, July 13, when we headed to Por Vida Tattoo Supply for Lucky Supply’s first machine-building seminar ever held outside our own shop.
Tattoo artist and machine builder Greg King served as the primary instructor, while Aurora handled the administrative side and helped wherever needed. Eight participants joined us for a hands-on day focused on traditional coil machine construction, tuning, history, and maintenance.
Each attendee chose between building a genuine Rollomatic Liner or Sailor Jerry Bulldog Shader. Lucky Supply holds the trademarks for both frame styles, helping preserve the lineage and history connected to Mike Malone and Sailor Jerry Collins.
The class covered the history of tattoo machines, spring alignment, tuning, troubleshooting, maintenance, and how machine setup affects performance. To make sure everyone had enough time to finish their machine, we brought pre-wound coils for the main builds. Each participant still had the chance to wind a coil themselves and turn it into a coil keychain to take home.
By the end of the seminar, all eight attendees left with a working tattoo machine they had assembled themselves. Two of the machines even ran true right out of the kit without needing to be shimmed, which made for a couple of very excited builders.
For our first seminar on the road, it could not have gone much better.
A Place Built Around Tattoo Culture
Por Vida was also an experience all its own. Their Albuquerque location combines a tattoo shop, tattoo supply company, barbershop, sneaker store, and café under one roof. White marble floors, artwork from floor to ceiling, and even a vintage Volkswagen Beetle in the lobby give the space a polished but unmistakably personal feel.
The shop also includes a beautiful memorial to their late owner, Bane, which made it clear how important history, community, and the people who helped build that community are to Por Vida.
Outside of the show and seminar, New Mexico gave us a few fun culinary experiences too. We were introduced to Hatch green Chile, which seemed to find its way onto just about everything, and we discovered New Mexico-style beef jerky, cut thin and crispy almost like a chip.
More Than Just Another Convention
Looking back, the best part of the New Mexico Tattoo Fiesta was the people.
It was meeting artists we had spoken with for years, making new friends, and seeing eight people sit down at a workbench as strangers and leave as friends, having together learned how a traditional coil tattoo machine really works!
As more of the tattoo industry moves toward pre-assembled and disposable equipment, opportunities to learn traditional machine building and tuning are becoming harder to find. Lucky Supply believes that knowledge is worth preserving.
A huge thank you to Por Vida Tattoo Supply, the New Mexico Tattoo Fiesta, everyone who stopped by the Lucky booth, and all eight participants who joined us for the seminar.
We have a feeling this won’t be the last time we take the workbench on the road.
Special thanks goes out to the Por Vida Crew especially Nacho, Oven and Helm. For putting on one heck of a great show as well as for their hospitality in letting us host the seminar at their shop.
In addition we would also like to thank our seminar attendees for sharing their Monday with us. @creas99 @Bekxtattoo @mykertattoo @Hunter.haver @aldo_gallegos @nachingona @jo_porvida @Solasjansentattoo
