What in Hel’s Fury is going on at Brewhalla?
April 18th, 2024
Something exciting is brewing between Amarok Tattoo Studio and Drekker Brewing Company
By Sabrina Hornung
It’s no secret that Drekker Brewing Company and Athena Funk, proprietor of Amarok Tattoo Studio, have collaborated on events before such as Fooler’s Ball and DrekkerFest. But they’ve had an even bigger idea brewing for some time. Though it was put on hold due to COVID, and paused with the opening of Brewhalla — good things — we dare say wicked good things come to those who wait by way of Hel’s Fury Tattoo Fest.
“We first connected with Athena through our friend and label artist, Punchgut,” said Drekker co-founder Jesse Feigum. “He recommended her to do the artwork for a Women’s Day beer we made, and then not too long after that we invited Athena and Amarok to come and do flash tattoos at DrekkerFest in 2019. It was a huge success and they’ve been a staple of our big events ever since.”
“We’re always amazed at the number of people who get tattooed at these events, and the Amarok crew are total pros,” he said. “They obviously do an amazing job on the tattoos, but they’re super organized and handle the overwhelming number of people looking to get tattoos really well. They work really hard and get to everyone they can, but the waiting list is always longer than there’s time for at the event.”
Hel’s Fury Tattoo Fest is a collaboration between Amarok Tattoo Studio and Drekker Brewing Company, bringing 70-80 artists from across the country to Brewhalla in Fargo. For an event of this scale with this many artists, one couldn’t help but ask, how did they manage to get the word out? Where does one even start?
“We started with a base of, you know, Amarok’s guest artists, closest friends and each artist had a dream artist that they wanted on the list, like someone well known,” said Amarok proprietor Athena Funk.
Athena has been in the tattoo industry since 2000, working in studios, doing conventions and opening Amarok Tattoo in downtown Fargo in 2016. Needless to say she’s well connected to the community. And so are her artists and guest artists.
Once the guest list was put together, 100 invitations were sent out in mysterious black boxes. Inside the box was a black stout bottle, complete with a custom Drekker label and instructions to break said bottle to access the message inside. The message inside was an invitation to the festival and a handwritten note from Athena — but the catch was, recipients were to film it to generate a buzz on social media.
Folks got creative (and genuinely overjoyed) with their mystery package and found new and interesting ways to smash it. One video involves one of the recipients dressing up like a cat and knocking the bottle off their table. A number of these videos are posted on the Hel’s Fury Instagram account, @helsfury.
The theme and namesake of the festival coincide with Brewhalla’s nod to Norse mythology and was inspired by Hel, the Nordic…
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