Hollywood Blvd Halloween Flash Tattoo, 11 am Before Crowds

Old Tradition Tattoo, at 6548 Hollywood Blvd on the Walk of Fame, opens at 11 am on Saturday, October 31, and stays open until 11 pm, so a Halloween flash tattoo can come before the costume crowds take over the boulevard. Every tattoo here starts at a $150 shop minimum per person, and the walls are covered in flash to pick from. Founder Chris Suicide opened the studio in 2015 after years fronting punk and ska bands.

Chris Suicide, listed as Chris Sanchez on the shop's booking page, told Voyage LA in 2017 that he came to Los Angeles from Mexico City to chase his dreams. Before he ever held a machine he was the lead singer of the psychobilly band The Triggers and the Spanish-language ska-core band Chencha Berrinches. He still plays with Chencha Berrinches, and his staff bio says tattooing gives him the same rush as being on stage.

His tattoo life began in 2008 with an apprenticeship at Tinta Rebelde Hollywood, which he finished in 2010. Five years later he opened Old Tradition Tattoo on the same boulevard. In that 2017 interview he named American Traditional as his specialty and described the room as uniquely decorated and full of art. The shop motto on the homepage is short and personal: love, family and respect. The crew today is Chris, Frosty, Joel, Sam, Tyler and Elroy.

The homepage promises flash all over the walls to pick from, plus disposable sterile supplies and hypoallergenic, vegan-friendly ink. The FAQ adds an honest twist: the shop treats every piece as bespoke, and custom drawing costs slightly more than straight flash. In practice the wall works as a menu of bold American Traditional starting points, and the artist redraws your pick to fit the spot. Skulls, daggers and panthers sit comfortably in that old-school vocabulary.

Prices come straight from the online booking menu. A very small or simple tattoo, smaller than a business card and under an hour, costs $150, which is also the minimum. A palm-sized one-shot piece of up to two hours starts at $200, and longer work is billed at $150-$200 per hour depending on the artist. Mid-sized sessions of two to four hours start at $300, and six-hour blocks start at $800 and are reserved for sleeves, backpieces and returning clients.

A quick call is the move on Halloween weekend, because the crew is six artists deep and one phone call tells you whose chair is open before you leave home. If you would rather lock a time, the Book Now button opens an online scheduler where you pick Chris, Frosty, Joel, Sam or Josh, choose a size tier, and pay a deposit before the slot is held.

The intake form spells out the rules. You must be 18 or older and show valid photo ID every time you get tattooed. Deposits are nonrefundable, cannot move to another artist or another person, and come off the price at your final session. Cancelling with under 48 hours of notice, rescheduling more than twice, arriving more than 30 minutes late without warning, or showing up unfit to be tattooed all forfeit the deposit.

Halloween 2026 falls on a Saturday, and the shop's regular schedule covers it: Monday to Saturday, 11 am to 11 pm, and Sunday, 11 am to 9 pm. The strongest window is the 11 am opening on Saturday, before costume traffic builds outside. A small one-shot design runs up to two hours, so an opening-hour start leaves the afternoon free. If you book that Saturday slot, remember the 48-hour rule means your cancellation deadline is 11 am on Thursday, October 29.

If the phone says every artist is booked, take the Friday, October 30 evening instead, when the doors stay open until 11 pm. For a same-day plan B, walk west along the boulevard to Highland Tattoo, a shop that opened in 1988 and, per the Hollywood Partnership directory, keeps flash and art books on hand to help walk-ins choose. If both shops are full, the Sunday, November 1 opening at 11 am is the next clean shot, and the wall flash will still be waiting.

Two kinds of customer show up in the reviews. One is the collector who returns again and again, like the Google Local Guide on the homepage who calls it a must for art collectors and says every tattoo in their photos was done by Chris. The other is the walk-in Yelp reviewers describe, who pops in off the boulevard without a plan and gets matched with an artist for an American traditional piece.

The staff bios explain why both groups stay. Frosty says the job is about learning different walks of life through clients and keeps a line about smiling while you still have teeth. Elroy writes that he is a husband, father and grandfather, and loves that his artwork attends every special moment in a client's life. Joel admits that when he is not tattooing he is looking for parking, which is the most Hollywood bio line on the site.

Do not stop at a Halloween party on the way to your appointment. The deposit terms say arriving unfit to be tattooed forfeits the money, and the FAQ singles out aspirin as a problem because it thins the blood, adds bleeding and slows healing. The same FAQ advises against numbing cream, which lasts thirty to forty-five minutes and puffs up the skin. Come sober and fed, get tattooed first, then put the costume on.

Hollywood Toys & Costumes sits a short walk west, close enough to finish an outfit with wigs, makeup and collectibles while your stencil is drawn. Keep walking toward Highland and you reach Larry Edmunds Bookshop, a longtime source of movie and theater books, film posters, lobby cards and photos, which suits a fresh horror-movie tattoo. Both are on the same south-side stretch of the boulevard, so the whole loop stays within a few minutes on foot.

The shop sits on the south side of the boulevard, inside the Walk of Fame stretch that runs between Gower Street and La Brea Avenue. The Metro B Line stops at Hollywood/Highland, a short walk west, and at Hollywood/Vine to the east, which beats circling for a space on Halloween weekend. Deposits for booked slots are paid through the online scheduler, and the shop sells its own tees for $30 if you want a souvenir.

Aftercare instructions are specific. If you leave with second skin, keep it on for three to five days and peel it off in the shower under running water. Then wash gently with antibacterial soap and use a thin layer of unscented lotion, such as Lubriderm or Aquaphor. Skip pools, beaches, saunas and long sun exposure while it heals, which matters if Halloween weekend leads straight into a beach trip.