About SantaCon

What is it? A SantaCon is a convention of santas - groups of men & women dressed like Santa.

Why do it? Because it’s fun. That is all. It’s one of the few chances left for adults to be silly without any kind of agenda.

Where is it? Everywhere. Look behind you. If you don’t see Santa, check the Locations page.

Politics: Santa is jolly and kind to everyone. As Santa, you get to take a break from all the things that might be bothering you about society and the world. Be nice.

Getting hurt: It can dangerous out there. Covid is still a threat and may be getting worse again. Take care to keep yourselves and others safe!

Getting scammed: SantaCon is normally free to attend so please be extra careful if you’re being asked to buy a ticket.

Scammers are known to try to sell tickets to other people’s events - including those which are completely free to attend - or create events that get mysteriously canceled at the last minute and Santa can’t get you your money back.

On this website, we use the term "SantaCon" with a capital S and a capital C to refer to any public gathering of people dressed as Santa.

The individual events also go by other names such as Santarchy, Santa Rampage, Santa Crawl etc., but Santa knows a SantaCon when he sees one:

If it’s open to the public and not exploitative, we’ll list it here on SantaCon.info. But if the “SantaCon” exists solely for the purpose of taking money from people who don’t know better then, no, we will not list it.

Traditionally, a SantaCon is free to attend - you simply show up dressed as Santa. However, in some cases a legitimate contribution is requested and this may include some commercial events - See “Tickets?” below.

Yes.

Everyone is called Santa because everyone is Santa.

But, to ease the confusion, the comments system has a feature where you can tap on the name (Santa) or icon (Santa hat) to toggle a color hint and identify which comments that particular Santa wrote.

I can’t guarantee that different Santas won’t have similar colors but I think it meets a minimum standard.

This doesn’t apply to organizers or Websanta who are uniquely identified.

See the Terms & Privacy pages for details about the comment system.

So you checked the Locations page and your town/city is either not listed or no date has been set and time is getting on...

This means you must organize your own SantaCon!...

It’s easy: Decide the date, time and place (usually a friendly bar) to meet and Contact Santa.

Being listed on SantaCon.info is free and is the quickest and easiest way to enable other santas to find & join you.

If you are more ambitious, the Organizers page has a few tips.

Probably not. Kids get the rest of Christmas and all the other holidays. SantaCon is normally adults only.

If the event info for the SantaCon you want to attend doesn’t say that it’s family friendly you must assume that it isn’t.

A SantaCon is typically an event that involves people all dressed in the same costume and being silly and probably partaking of some alcohol. Taking your family to such an event could be considered unwise for a bunch of reasons, most of which are obvious.

That being said, many SantaCons are very community oriented, some cater specially to children, some raise money for good causes and some will even let you bring your pet. Some SantaCons are combination events suitable for different types of santa at different times. It’s very important that you read the event-specific info to make sure you know when to show up and what to expect.

Sure.

But if this is what you want to do, we ask that you stay home and don’t dress like Santa. Definitely don’t show up at a SantaCon.

SantaCon is fun because Santa is jolly.

Santa being drunk/disorderly in public isn’t fun for anyone and will get you into trouble.

Don’t be that santa.

The guidelines now have their own dedicated page: Guidelines.

WATCH OUT, WATCH OUT - SCAM ALERT

Each year we get reports of websites making false claims and trying to sell tickets to SantaCons which are actually free to attend.

Please don’t get scammed. Use this guide:

• Most SantaCons are completely free to attend (Washington, DC is one of these).
• Many SantaCons request a donation which is completely optional (San Francisco is one of these).
• Some SantaCons request a donation which gets you some extra benefits (NYC is one of these).
• A few SantaCons are ticketed events, mainly because the organizers have excess costs that need to be covered. Santa will make it very clear on the event page when this is the case.
• There are a lot of Santa themed events that are commercial.
• There are a lot of scams out there.

It’s understandable that you might be hesitant to believe you don’t need a ticket. If in doubt please post a comment on the page for the location you’re interested in and someone will reply to reassure you.

Articles: Santa loves the media but doesn’t really have anything to say. SantaCon is simply a bunch of people having fun dressed as Santa. Many SantaCons are organized to support their local communities and that’s probably where the best stories are.

Photography: Santa gets a lot of requests for quality images for use in publication but [as of August 2018] Santa doesn’t have any. If you are looking for photos, sorry. If you’re a photographer who has such images, please Contact Santa - he can get you published.

Movies: Santa has helped promote a lot of movies, from short films on YouTube & Vimeo and the occasional SantaCon Film Project to major titles such as Rare Exports (2010) and Bad Santa 2 (2016).

Music: Santa is happy to promote Santa-themed music & video.

The SantaCon page on Wikipedia has been vandalized so we’re building our own here where it can be protected: Wikipedia.

Santa has a few rules concerning how you use this website and there are some details about using the comment system that aren’t obvious:

Please read the Terms page before posting any comments.

Santa takes privacy and security very seriously:

Please take a moment to read the Privacy page before continuing to use this website.

The SantaCon.info website is supported by advertising. More info is on the Advertising page.