Welcome to the worldwide Santacon nexus, the orginal resource for Santarchy events across the globe.
Every December for the last 17 years, Cacophonous Santas have been visiting cities around the world, engaging in a bit of Santarchy as part of the annual Santacon events.
It all started back in 1994 when several dozen Cheap Suit Santas paid a visit to downtown San Francisco for a night of Kringle Kaos. Things have reached Critical Xmas and Santarchy is now a global phenomenon.
You'd better watch out! Santa's coming to town!
Santacon 2010 Information
and Event Coverage
"You'd Better Watch Out:
Portland Santacon '96"
Weird America's San Francisco Santacon '95
- For the most part Santarchy! is an archive only. We don't do any active planning on this website, however we will mention upcoming Santacons that have their information posted online.
- If you are looking for Santacon planning info, try contacting your local lodge of The Cacophony Society or the Santacon and Santarchy tribes.
- We do not condone or encourage any kind of vandalism or violence at a Santacon event. Our santas do not destroy property, steal merchandise or do harm to others.
- Santarchy is not a movement, that's what you do in the bathroom. In addition to that, the annual Santacon events are not a protest against Christmas or commercialization. Really, it's just a bunch of santas getting together to have a good time.
- We do not provide or sell any stock photos or video footage and all images on this website are copyright of their owners. If you want to use any photos or videos on this website, please contact the owner directly.
- We do not do interviews with the media and so on. We're not actively involved with organizing any of the Santacon events (see #1), so if you are looking for people to interview, try contacting the organizers of various regional Santacon events.
- We have absolutly nothing to do with any idiot santas you may have heard about in New Zealand. Contrary to misreporting by the media, they are not associated Santarchy or the Santacon events.
- If you came here looking for Chuck Palahniuk, he's the one drinking cheap tequila over here.
October 2010
October 2009
October 2008
January 2008
December 2007
August 2007
December 2006
November 2006
March 2006
January 2006
December 2005
Do you have a santacon website you would like to add to the archives?
Contact us at:
hohoho AT santarchy DOT com
Make sure to mention what which city it took place in.
This site is maintained by Santa Squid (retired), with occasional input from Santa Melmoth (retired), both veterans of the great Santa wars 1994-98.
With special guest bloggers Santa de Nada & o'Santa Bin Laden
This blog runs on WordPress (ask Santa to bring it to you for Christmas)
this website is licensed under a
Creative Commons License
Santacon 2010
Here are some of the cities that have been targeted for a Santarchy invasion this Christmas season. If you are organizing a Santacon, let us know and we will add your link to the list.
Please Note: We only list Santacon events that have information online for us to link to and we only list actual Santacon events, not general Santa themed events, fundraisers, etc.
December 4
December 11
December 12
December 17
December 18
Santacon 2009
Here are some of the cities that have been targeted for a Santarchy invasion this Christmas season. If you are organizing a Santacon, let us know and we will add your link to the list.
Please Note: We only list Santacon events that have information online for us to link to and we only list actual Santacon events, not general Santa themed events, fundraisers, etc.
Santacon 2008
Here are some of the cities that have been targeted for a Santarchy invasion in December 2008. If you are organizing a Santacon, let us know and we will add your link to the list.
Please Note: We only list Santacon events that have information online for us to link to and we only list actual Santacon events, not general Santa themed events, fundraisers, etc.
LOS ANGELES, CA
- Los Angeles Times
PORTLAND, OR
- All Things Considered, NPR
AUSTIN, TX
- The Austin American-Statesman
- Steve Hopson
NEW ORLEANS, LA
- principaltarget
NEW YORK, NY
- Bill Cunningham, On the Street, The New York Times
- Kaax
- pazzmanmusic
- GammaBlog
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
- Laughing Squid
- Geek Entertainment TV (GETV)
- WHAT IM SEEING
- The San Francisco Citizen
- SFist
- The Snitch (SF Weekly)
- Santa’s Little Secret Service
- Eddie Codel
- Mitchell Aidelbaum
- Berderp
- M2
- Steve Rhodes
- Sandwich Girl
- Enric Teller
- Stephen
- Joe
- Santa Spaz
- SeenyaRita
- Jen Fogg
- Kevco
- Aaron
- James Reffell
- Grodeen
- Jennifer Simpson
- Lisa Sculati
DAYTON, OH
- Dayton Daily News
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO
- santarchymx
- Palmira
NEW HAVEN, CT
- New Haven Register
- New Haven Independent
You’d Better Watch Out: Portland Santacon ’96
“You’d Better Watch Out: Portland Santacon ’96”, the 40 minute documentary video by Scott Beale chronicling the infamous Portland Santacon 1996.
Santacon 2007
Here are some of the cities that have been targeted for a Santarchy invasion in December 2007. If you are organizing a Santacon in your city or have photos, video or a write-up of a Santacon event, let us know and we will add your link to the list.
Please Note: We will only list your Santacon event if you have information online for us to link to.
LOS ANGELES, CA
GammaBlog
Santa Ed
Hideout Painters
Jérôme Sudan (video)
Madhattan Nights
Chris Bickford
Lorenz Fish
eatsdirt
jekoontz (video)
Rudolph Arrested At Vancouver Santacon
CTV News is reporting that Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer was arrested at the Vancouver Santacon on December 15th.
The Amazingly True Story of Christopher Cringle
The Amazingly True Story of Christopher Cringle by P0YKPAC.
Santarchy on Boing Boing TV
Santarchy was recently featured on Boing Boing TV: Part 1 & Part 2.
Santacon 2007 Carol Book
The 2007 version of the Santacon Carol Book, put together by Bitter Brooklyn Santa, is now available for download as a PDF. Print it out to bring along with you on your Santarchy adventures.
Santarchy In Second Life
The Cacophony Society presents Santarchy in Second Life this Sunday, December 9th at 4pm SLT at Pier 109/139/23 in Second Life. See the Santa in Second Life: A Crash Course for more info.
Are you a Sad Santa because you can’t go rampage with those other bad Santas this year?
You don’t have all day to act stupid? Or you got no plane ticket? Or your Cheap Santa Suit caught fire last year? Maybe you’re a crippled shut in?
All is not lost. Santa’s gonna take a little tour through Second Life this year so all you need is a couple hours, a bottle of booze and your internet connection to get your Ho on. If you’ve been in-world before and know what you’re doing, join the Santarchy group and meet us at the location above. We’ll give you a Cheap Santa Suit, a stiff drink and a teleport.
via Laughing Squid
London Santa Stencil
Santa stencil by Arofish as seen on the streets of London.
via HappyFt Travels via Wooster Collective
Santarctica 2006
On Christmas day, 60 rogue Santas reclaimed the South Pole for the 4th year in a row at Santarctica 2006 during winterover at McMurdo Station. Here’s full story from Sandwich Girl. Even more coverage over at Boing Boing and DOWN and OUT.
Check out the great photos of Santarctica 2006.
santarctica began down here in 2003, when i received 30 santa suits from some santa enthusiast friends back home. it continued when i received 30 elf costumes in 2004, but just a wee bit after the event due to the package mail delay. we broke them out again in ’05, and yesterday as well. The funny part about this story is that there are 60 santa/elf suits, donned by 60 antarcticans annually. that is a statistic to be reckoned with.
Ninja Santa
Ask A Ninja: Question 2 “Ninja Santa”
santarchy around the world
Santa, that dirty whore, sure gets around. Soylent Santa aka Spacemonkey collected his many appearances this year in a downloadable document you can view with Google Earth or Google Maps.
It seems to be missing the Moscow SantaCon though, was it too intimidating?
Muckmouth’s Last Christmas
Muckmouth and the Auckland Federation of Santas, the guys behind last year’s controversial Santacon in Auckland, New Zealand, decided to mellow out a bit this year. They produced this Santa boy band music video “Last Christmas”, a cover of Wham!’s 1984 Christmas love song. It’s quite touching to see this gang of reformed santas focus their talents on a sappy Christmas ballad.
Weird America’s San Francisco Santacon ’95 Video
Chuck Cirino recently posted his classic San Francisco Santacon ’95 video that he shot during The Cacophony Society’s second Cheap Suit Santa (Santacon) event where over 100 Naughty Santas invaded San Francisco in 1995. This one features the famous scene where we hung Santa Melmoth from a streetlight on Market Street.
70,000 Santas Invade Moscow
Putting our silly little Santacons to shame, 70,000 Santas invaded Moscow on Sunday as part of a pro-Kremlin publicity stunt in honor of the Battle of Moscow. English Russia has some photos of the mass santactivist convergence.
Ahead of July’s Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg, much was made of the fact that the Kremlin had gone so far as to hire a U.S. PR firm to tidy up its image. That turns out to have been small potatoes. On Sunday, 70,000 activists from the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi descended on the city in Santa suits and snow princess costumes, the best example, to date, of how just farcical the government’s image-making can get.
The parade of Grandfather Frosts appears to have been aimed at diverting attention from two other rallies — a Saturday event organized by The Other Russia, a liberal coalition, and a Sunday gathering honoring journalists slain in Russia since 1991. That Nashi billed its march as a 65th-anniversary commemoration of the Battle of Moscow rang hollow, given that the battle ended Dec. 5, almost two weeks before Saturday’s “anniversary.”
Thanks to Niall Kennedy for the tip!
1996 Portland Santacon 10th Anniversary Party
Santa Squid & Santa Melmoth of Laughing Squid present a very special 10th anniversary screening of Scott Beale’s documentary on the infamous 1996 Portland Santacon:
“You’d Better Watch Out: Portland SantaCon ’96″
Tuesday, December 19th
Cafe du Nord
2170 Market Street
San Francisco
doors: 8pm
video starts: 9pm
Santa Open Mike and general merriment after screening til closing.
Free admission. Santa attire encouraged.
The event will also serve as a post-Santacon 2006 event for Bay Area Santas and we would especially like the 1996 Portland alumni to join us and tell war stories and show off their scars.
If you’ve ever seen a mob of hundred’s of surly, inebriated Santa’s swarming around the shopping and drinking districts in your city & wondered what they were all about, this film will explain it all. The SF Cacophony Society kicked off the Santa phenomenon in 1994. By 96 it was out of control. This film by Scott Beale is a document of the biggest, reddest and most outrageous of all the Santarchy events from the world-over since this silly traditions inception twelve years ago. Watch as 50 Santa’s board a jet for Portland, spreading X-rated X-mas cheer through the friendly skies! Marvel at how much Santa can drink and still manage a hundred Santa conga-line! Come and see 200 Santa’s in a cheery standoff with riot police in body armor!!
Here’s a review of the documentary written by Jack Boulware for the SF Weekly.
Oh and here’s the Portland Police Memo that was sent out to warn the citizens of Portland about the impending invasion.
UPDATE: Here are some photos from the Santacon Party.
illustration by Greg Reynard
Santacon 2006
Here are some of the cities that have targeted for a Santarchy invasion in December 2006. We will be updating this list with links to photos, videos and blog posts as they come in.
AUSTIN
Portland Cacophony Society
Matthew Ginn
Justin Splooge
Markantes
Christian Gartmann
The Dept. of Santa
Lane Hartwell
Tracy Bugni
Dennis Yang
Evil Sign Post
SeenyaRita
noisystreet
STOCKHOLM
COLORADO SPRINGS
RENO
LUANG PRABANG, LAOS
MELBOURNE
MINNEAPOLIS
SneeryKlaus
ijinden
Toitoi
John Cabbla
Oshamanbe
Escalator Santas & Roppongi Hills Santas (video)
Tokyo Damage Report (Santa Hello Kitty)
Santa vs. Right-wing Nationalists (video)
NAGOYA
ANTARCTICA
Santarchy 2006: Photo Highlights
