Every December for the last 14 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 2007 Information
and Event Coverage
- 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.
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.
"You'd Better Watch Out:
Portland Santacon '96"
Weird America's San Francisco Santacon '95
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
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
Photo credits, top to bottom: Lane Hartwell, Volker Neumann, Dav Yaginuma, Rick Phillips, Dave Matthews.
“Scared of Santa” Gallery
For your perusal: SouthFlorida.com’s gallery of Santa terror.
SantarquÃa en México
Santas Cacofonicos en el dia de Kringle Kaos:
