Hayley Williams sets tattoo pop-up shops around her solo tour dates

Hayley Williams has announced a run of tattoo pop-up events built around her forthcoming solo tour, with flash designs appearing at studios across the United States and single locations in Toronto, Berlin and Bangor in Wales through September and October. The tour itself does not reach Canada on this cycle, which makes the Toronto pop-up the only date north of the border attached to it.

The designs read as her own iconography rather than generic flash: a snake, the planet Saturn, a woman holding a swan, a star and more besides. Advance booking is required at every shop, which is a practical necessity when a single artist's audience is being pointed at a room with two chairs in it.

Forty percent of the proceeds go to the Ally Coalition. According to her official account, the figure was chosen to match another: roughly 40 percent of young people experiencing homelessness identify as 2SLGBTQIA+. Tying the donation share to the statistic gives the number a reason rather than leaving it as a round figure picked for the press release.

The list runs to 37 studios. Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, New Orleans, Ann Arbor, Albany, three separate shops in New York, Charlotte, Durham, Fargo, two in Cincinnati, Bend, Pittsburgh, Charleston, Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Memphis, Salt Lake City, Tacoma and Washington are all on it. Toronto's is at So Far So Good Tattoo Studio on Dundas Street West.

It is an unusual piece of tour infrastructure. Merchandise usually travels with the show; this sends fans to independent businesses in their own cities on days when nobody is playing, and leaves them with something permanent. The pop-ups are filed under rock and pop, and the dates they orbit sit on the tour guide. Williams has had a loud few weeks either side of the announcement, including taking on Ceiling for Turnstile's Never Enough: Versions and turning up on Remi Wolf's single Twiggy coverage cycle.