BANGOR, Maine — Would you get a tattoo if it meant you'd have free storage space for a year?
Maine Space, a Bangor-based storage company, asked that question on Facebook as part of a new and unique promotion.
“We like to do things that are fun in the community that also kind of create a buzz," Sean Hinkley of Maine Space said. The buzz pun was not intended.
Not only would the contest winner get the free storage space, but also a lock, and the use of a moving truck.
Hinkley reached out to Kiel Slayton who owns Raven's Thorn Tattooing Studio in Bangor to see if he would be interested in the promotion.
“I said yeah, I’d love to work with you, I’d love to see what we can accomplish here and see what kind of buzz we can generate throughout the community," Slayton said. That buzz pun might have been intended.
Many people responded to Maine Space's post on Facebook including the winner, Carson Walton of Old Town.
Luckily, Saturday wasn't Walton's first-day getting ink. He had nine tattoos before this new one.
“I’ll do pretty much anything and everything to support a local business especially in these hard times," he said.
Not only is he helping support local businesses by becoming a walking advertisement, but he's also helping out his parents. Walton said his family is in the process of moving and the free storage space will help reduce that travel cost.
"I want to help pay them back a little bit, if that means take one expense off their shoulder you know, that means the world to me that I can help them that much," Walton said.
He said he waited all week for the 45-minute long tattoo.
“We’re basically taking it from their logo, from a vector file and turning that into a stencil, we apply the stencil through a process, and we tattoo it," Slayton said.
Slayton was happy to help out a local business especially during this pandemic. The tattoo studio used to host 'Tiny Tattoo Tuesdays' in partnership with the Ordinary Addicts Taking a Stance (OATS) non-profit before COVID-19 came to Maine.
Customers were encouraged to bring non-perishable food items to the studio that Slayton and OATS would help distribute throughout the community.
Walton was happy with the result and will now have to treat the tattoo, let the ink settle, and then he can start utilizing that well-earned storage space.