Another tweeted "All the NYC folks will understand my horror at learning that I'm working in the ER during SantaCon this weekend." An emergency room physician tweeted in 2019 that the day is dreaded by ER physicians. At a 2011 community board meeting in lower Manhattan, residents complained that their neighborhood had been "terrorized" by SantaCon participants. In New York City, by far the largest SantaCon venue, the event has been criticized for widespread drunkenness and sporadic violence. The event has also been variously known as Santarchy, Santa Rampage, the Red Menace, and Santapalooza. Other events were much smaller and more subdued, with 30 participating in Spokane, Washington. The New York SantaCon is the largest, with an estimated 30,000 people participating in 2012. Events for 2013 were scheduled in 300 cities, including New York City, London, Vancouver, Belfast, and Moscow.
It has since evolved and spread to 44 countries around the world, with varying versions and interpretations. SantaCon came to Portland in 1996 to Seattle in 1997, and to Los Angeles and New York in 1998, when a "young San Franciscan strapped on a fake white beard, donned a $12 red suit, and led 200 Santas as they went caroling up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan," to the delight of passersby.
However, the event occurred again in San Francisco in 1995 as a Cacophony Society event with 100 participants and at least two arrests. Originally called Santarchy and influenced by the Surrealist movement, Discordianism, and other subversive art currents, it was not intended to be a recurrent event. Staged as street theater by a local prankster group, the Cacophony Society - which had grown out of the earlier Suicide Club - the aim was to make fun of Christmas and the rampant consumerism associated with the holiday. In 1974, Solvognen gathered dozens of "Santas" in Copenhagen to hand out items from the shelves of a department store to customers as "presents" before they were arrested. There is no SantaCon NYC this year.SantaCon began in San Francisco in 1994, inspired by a Mother Jones article on the Danish activist theatre group Solvognen. The overall purpose of SantaCon is to “get together with friends, dress creatively, and interact, participate and celebrate with friends and strangers alike.”Īfter the announcement cancelling New York’s 2020 SantaCon, the website now countdowns 346 days until next year’s event! The site pokes fun at the unfortunate cancellation and said “all of the reindeer got the ‘rona so, the elves have advised Santa to hold off on the in-person merriment. 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. Sadly (or not sadly, depending on if you were a fan), in efforts to maintain safety for the city during the pandemic, the beloved SantaCon bar crawl has been canceled this year.īeginning as “San Fransisco’s Santarchy, a culture-jamming event created by the Cacaphony Society to point out the absurdity of America’s consumerist holiday traditions,” 24 years later, the annual event now occurs across 40 different countries, according to a press release! SantaCon NYC, a wildly festive holiday tradition dating back to 1994 has become an iconic event for New Yorkers. Guess we’ll have to wait until next year to see thousands of New Yorkers swarm the streets in Santa suits!
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