Here comes SantaCon NYC: Where to go (or avoid) during Saturday’s revelry

SantaCon, the annual bar crawl for people dressed up like Santas and other winter holiday characters, returns to Manhattan bright and early on Saturday.

It’s technically a ticketed event — a $15 donation gets participants a VIP “badge” that provides access to certain large venues, along with other unspecified perks. (SantaCon NYC is put on by a registered nonprofit called Participatory Safety, Inc. Records show they’ve spent a good deal of the proceeds on cryptocurrency and Burning Man-related projects.)

The first rule of SantaCon is that there are a lot of rules about SantaCon. The event’s website has a detailed list of do’s and don’ts, presumably informed by mishaps from SantaCon’s past.

Perhaps the most important is this: “Should you find yourself in conflict with a drunken Santa, walk away … Just let it go.”

Among the other guidelines:

• Don’t vomit or urinate in public.
• Be nice to kids.
• Be nice to cops.
• Tip well, in cash.
• Wear comfortable shoes.
• Wear thermoregulating layers.
• Don’t secretly be under 21.
• Wear the full costume, organizers say: “None of that ‘just a hat’ bulls–t.”

This year’s SantaCon officially kicks off at 10 a.m. (why not) on Broadway and 39th Street and runs until 8 p.m., with participatory venues spread in a wide, diagonal line from 53rd Street down to the Bowery.

A brief perusal of the event’s map suggests there are options for different types of Santas. There’s a bar for gamer Santas. One for hookah-smoking Santas. At least two for queer–friendly Santas. One for more “sophisticated” Santas. There’s a darts bar (be careful) that claims to have “the cleanest bathrooms in NYC.” And there’s Margaritaville Times Square.

As has been the case since 2012, alcohol will be banned on Metro-North and Long Island Rail Road trains and platforms on Saturday and continuing until noon on Sunday. MTA officials said they’re deploying additional cops to Penn Station, Grand Central Terminal and Grand Central Madison to enforce open container rules.

If this stresses you out, here’s the venue map one more time so you can plan your day accordingly. And if this sounds like fun to you, but conflicts with other plans, there’s a SantaCon in Hoboken next Saturday.