One night each year thousands of people dress up in Santa suits and bar hop all around San Francisco. Wearing a Santa hat isn’t enough either - it has to be a full on Santa suit.
They start at Union Square around noon where there is a toy drive then they bar hop all over. It's a sight to see - every intersection has a dozen Santas waiting to cross - it's incredible! By the night time Polk street / Polk Gulch area is where it's at!
SantaCon:
The loosely-organized yearly celebration of public drunkenness known as SantaCon:
- Held in multiple cities and observed in San Francisco around Union Square as well as in North Beach and the Marina.
- SantaCon invites attendees to dress in Santa or other holiday costumes, bar hop, and generally behave as if the law were for other people.
- SantaCon began in San Francisco in 1994 as a vaguely subversive stunt for the early Burning Man crowd.
- Since then, it's grown massively in size, and now attracts Santa-clad twenty-somethings by the thousands.
- With the added numbers and poorer behavior have come backlash, and plenty of bars ban "Santas" completely.
- You might also bring an un-wrapped gift for the SantaCon toy drive, to be collected at Union Square.
https://sf.eater.com/maps/santacon-santa-con-2017-where-to-what-bars-sf
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Union+Square,+San+Francisco
Santacon is normally the second Saturday of December but better google it
It was less a celebration of Christmas and more of a statement on the greed and consumerism surrounding the holiday.
Santarchy:
The idea for the event came from an article in Mother Jones, a popular American magazine, which detailed the antics of a theater group in Copenhagen in 1974 where a theater group dressed up as Santas and gave away merchandise from the shelves of a department store. Needless to say, the activist group was arrested, but it helped spark a nationwide obsession with the whole "dressing up as Santa and going on a city-wide pub crawl" thing. The debut San Francisco event, appropriately called Santarchy, was a lot different than the current one and wasn't actually intended to become an annual event and certainly was not expected to attract as many people as it does every year.
After the first event in 1994, the SantaCon Fever began to spread, launching in Portland in 1996, Seattle in 1997 and both New York and Los Angeles in 1998.
So how big did Santacon get? Over the years, it has spread worldwide, with an estimated 300 cities in 44 countries hosting similar events during the holiday season.
The majority of the events are relatively tame, with a moderate amount of people in attendance, however some cities really took the event to a new level. In New York City alone, it is estimated that as much as 30,000 people participate in the event and San Francisco see between 15,000 and 20,000 each year.
Since the event is basically a huge San Francisco Pub Crawl, as most of the participating Santas travel from bar to bar, grabbing drinks at each stop, so it has been met with some opposition since a small number of Santas get drunk and sometimes do some bad things. However, an overwhelming majority of the participants are just there to have a good time. In fact, the organizers do not condone or suggest any drunken, naughty Santa behaviors. If you don't want to run into some imbibed Santas on the day of SantaCon, then it is best to avoid the main areas like around City Hall and on Polk Street.
The event takes place in December each year. To find out more about the SantaCon, check out the official website at https://www.santacon.info.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Polk+Gulch,+San+Francisco,+CA+94109
SantaCon is when thousands of people dressed in Santa costumes walk through the streets spreading good cheer
- You will find this annual event in almost every large city in the US and around the world.
- It's a non-political, non-violent, non-controversial day fueled by fun-loving people, revised Christmas carols and, of course, a few holiday drinks.
- It's free to participate--just put on your Santa costume, follow the walking routes and sing along for fun.
- Bring cash if you plan on enjoying a few holiday cocktails or a bite to eat along the way.
Pay for your drinks and food in cash. The bars will be slammed, so this will make the process much easier for them.
- This event gets a little crazy please, please, please be kind and respectful to those around you. This is meant to be a fun way to meet new people and spread some holiday cheer.
- Dozens of bars have drink specials all day long
Not all bars welcome Santas, so look out for any "No Santas" signs before you enter
SantaCon San Francisco Event Details:
- Everyone meets at Union Square at noon on a Saturday in December
- Drop off a toy for the toy drive
- Mingle with other Santas and then head out on one of the routes.
The NYC event was turned into a not for profit in 2012, and since then has supported local charities by raising more than $400,000 for organizations like The Ali Forney Center, The Secret Sandy Claus Project, City Harvest, and The Food Bank for New York City. The overall purpose of SantaCon is to "get together with friends, dress creatively, and interact, participate and celebrate with friends and strangers alike."
Santacon has been a part of New York City's holiday season for nearly a quarter-century now, and after 2020's event was canceled because of the pandemic, the roving all-day party was back with a vengeance on Saturday December 11, 2021 as thousands of jolly revelers swarmed parts of Midtown and the East Village.
As always, the effort and creativity that went into individual costumes varied considerably, from elaborate pagan snow gods to dudes who just, like, wore a red shirt. There were hordes of Santas, of course, from the traditional-looking to nightmarish. There were reindeer, snowpeople, Christmas trees, Grinches, and lots and lots of rude "ugly sweaters."
https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/photos-santacon-nyc-2021
SantaCon 2018 Union Square San Francisco California
Thousands of people dress up in Santa suits and bar hop all around San Francisco. Wearing a Santa hat isn’t enough either - it has to be a full on Santa suit.
