IMATS London 2017

So last weekend I went to IMATS in London. For those of you who don't know, IMATS is the International Makeup Artist Trade Show. It's held in a few different cities around the world and on the weekend it came to London. I went to the show 2 years ago and had a fab time. I really wanted to go again so got myself a ticket.

You can buy one day tickets for Saturday and Sunday or you can get the two days for a reduced price. I didn't want to go on the Sunday too, so I got a ticket just for Saturday. If you buy early you can get tickets for a reduced rate, I was really late buying mine so I paid around £50.

The event was held at Olympia which is just a short tube ride away from Earls Court. I got to the event around 9am and saw a queue to get in. The line wasn't as bad as it looked and it did move rather quick.

At IMATS you can find many well known brands such as MAC and Urban Decay. The great thing about IMATS is you can find professional brands such as Make Up Forever, Ben Nye and Kryolan as well as many more. The event caters to all areas of the makeup industry from beauty, to film and special effects. Many of the brands offer a discount too and be prepared to do a lot of damage.

I spent a lot of time checking out all of the different things for sale. As well as shopping there were many demos to watch too. I was really interested in seeing the design team from Alien Covenant. I love all of the Alien movies and have seen the latest one last week in the cinema. Hearing the design team talk about how they created the aliens in the movie was amazing. They were also happy to answer any questions from the audience too.

Walking around can make you hungry so it was time to get something to eat. There were a few places to grab something, one of them being Pizza Express. I was quite hungry so I got myself some pizza for lunch. 

Next was round two of shopping where I got even more things to add to my makeup collection. I love brushes and needed to get some new ones. I did see these brush sets with all different colored hairs. The white and pink ones did look nice, but I always find they only look good for five minutes. Whilst they may look awesome, when they stain they look dirty. And when brushes stain the color never comes out, no matter how well you clean them.

You can also meet many people at this event too. I got to meet Zukreat from Artist Of Makeup Cosmetics. She was very friendly and was happy to help with any products.

I was really glad I got to the event not long after it opened as it was a lot quieter to walk around. By around lunchtime it did get busier and it was hard to look at some brands because of the amount of people there. Last time I went to IMATS the queue at NYX was just mad, so on the weekend I was expecting a long wait. This time there wasn't even a short line to get there, just walked straight in.

The only brand I saw that had a ridiculously long wait was Kat Von D. The line went back quite a bit and did look like it would take ages to get to the front. I wasn't buying anything from Kat Von D as there was loads of other things I wanted instead, so I wasn't bothered about not queuing up.

I had a great time at IMATS and bought quite a bit, which I am looking forward to using. It was just as great as when I went two years ago.

If you haven't been to IMATS before I really recommend it. it's a must for any makeup artist or makeup fan.