How SantaCon Went From a Local Protest to a Global Phenomenon

Every December, huge numbers of drunken revellers—all wearing full Santa Claus costumes—take part in what has been described as one of the biggest pub crawls in the world. Celebrated each year everywhere from Slovenia to Australia, SantaCon attracts thousands of people, with the New York City SantaCon alone said to attract upwards of 30,000 festive partygoers every December. But where did this bizarre—and widely considered bothersome—tradition come from? 

It Began With the Cacophony Society

The usual version of this story begins in 1994, when counter-culture group the Cacophony Society essentially hosted a festive flash-mob in San Francisco, with all 38 attendees dressed head to toe in Santa costumes. The event saw the group rent a bus and travel around the city, stopping to hold an impromptu snowball fight and crashing local high-society businessmen’s nights out, before one member in particular—in the true spirit of the Society’s anarchic spirit—staged a fake Santa “hanging.”

The event understandably caused something of a stir, and before long had been picked up nationwide by other chapters of the Cacophony Society and become a somewhat unexpected annual event; the first SantaCon to be held outside of San Francisco was in Portland, Oregon, just two years later, in 1996. As word continued to spread, SantaCon broke ground internationally, and by the early 2000s, there were events being held in the likes of Vancouver, Tokyo, Barcelona, Stockholm, and London. Today, SantaCons are held in more than 50 countries all over the world. 

Unfortunately, as the event has grown in popularity, so too has its notoriety. The subversive nature of the Cacophony Society almost immediately caused SantaCon to fall on the wrong side of the law back in the 1990s, and there were at least three arrests at the far larger 1995 event in San Francisco (only the second SantaCon in history) when more than 100 Santas turned out.

Similar tales of criminality and drunken debauchery have plagued SantaCon for years since, with some venues now tightening security on the day and refusing entry to any Santas taking part. A 2014 article in The Village Voice went so far as to explain how the event went from “joyful performance art to [a] reviled bar crawl.”

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The Inspiration

But this anarchic spirit—or “Santanarchy”—is all part and parcel of the event’s true origins. Rob Schmitt, the Cacophony Society member and Burning Man co-founder who helped to concoct the very first SantaCon in 1994, later credited the idea of his original Santa mob to a Danish anti-capitalist protest group named Solvognen.

Described at the time as a “guerrilla theater troupe,” during a four-day protest in Copenhagen in 1974 the group famously descended on a local department store in the city and, dressed as Santa Clauses, began taking books and toys from the store’s shelves and unceremoniously handing them out to confused shoppers, in protest at the growing consumerism of the festive season. The group’s protest eventually turned sour and violent, and the Santa-clad Solvognen members eventually clashed with the local police and were arrested. 

The anarchic, anti-consumerism aspect of the Copenhagen protest, however, chimed with the subversive spirit of the Cacophony Society. “I’d heard about the Santas in Denmark giving away toys in the stores,” Schmitt later explained, “and … stuffed it in the back of my head.” Spotting a postcard with a Santa on it at the home of a fellow Cacophony member who helped make the society’s costumes was all that was needed for Schmitt to put two and two together, and the first SantaCon was born. 

The event may have its roots in anarchy and protest, but Solvognen’s upturned version of Christmas gift-giving has also long been part of the SantaCon spirit. Even in the same year that there were the first SantaCon-related arrests, for instance, the more than 100 Santas who took part in the 1995 gathering in San Francisco also found time to hand out presents to shoppers in a local mall. And today, SantaCon organizers appear increasingly keen to move away from the event’s notoriety and make more of its festive charitableness and the potential opportunity for goodwill that it presents.

Ultimately, the quasi-official “rules” of SantaCon (the so-called “Santa Code”) now remind revellers to spread joy, be friendly to bar staff, leave no litter behind them, and respect the city in which it is held. A $15 participation fee introduced in 2014, meanwhile, has allegedly seen SantaCon raise over $1 million for charitable organizations in the last 10 years.