Sure, the Christmas season is about spending time with family, giving and receiving gifts, and enjoying childhood memories of holidays past. But—depending on your predilections—it can also be about donning a Santa costume and hitting up a bunch of bars with a ragtag crew of similarly garbed revelers.
We’re talking, of course, about SantaCon, and our fair city of Hartford lays claim to its own boisterous version. Smack dab as we are in the heart of town, the Goodwin makes an unbeatable home base for participating in the 2017 proceedings.
The 2017 Hartford SantaCon: Pub-Crawling With an Army of High-Spirited Father Christmases
The Hartford SantaCon action gets underway on Saturday, December 9. A slew of bars, lounges, and nightclubs will be marking the event with drink specials for any and all SantaCon ticketholders, and needless to say a very festive spirit will be prevailing among the roving crew of merrymakers.
A Little Bit of SantaCon History
These days, SantaCon bar crawls go down all around the world, from the Big Apple to Moscow, but its origins are traced back to San Francisco, where a troupe of rabble-rousers called the Cacophony Society organized the first one back in 1994. This “Santarchy,” as it was then known, was partly inspired, meanwhile, by a Danish protest of Christmas consumerism two decades before, executed by a theater group called Solvognen.
The SantaCon Experience
The early roots of SantaCon may have incorporated social commentary and surrealist performance art, but the modern-day happenings tend to put the focus on sheer fun. And on a crisp, sunny, early December day in the Connecticut capital, bar-hopping with a big cohort of festively outfitted kindred spirits is definitely fun.
You can go the classic route and suit yourself up as good ol’ Saint Nick, or maybe you’ll adopt some other Christmassy uniform: one of Santa’s elves, perhaps, or maybe a reindeer. It’s your call.
Tickets & Registration for the 2017 Hartford SantaCon
You can purchase tickets for the 2017 Hartford SantaCon right here. Registration will take place from 2 to 5 PM at Federal Café at 84 Union Place just south of Church Street—a mere quarter-mile from the Goodwin.
So scoop up your SantaCon tickets, lock down your room at our historic hotel, and set about acquiring an amply sized red suit and a fake snow-white beard, and you’ll be all set for Hartford’s jolliest and most shambolic Christmas tradition this December 9!
