In Photos: Santa Clauses came to town

“What do we want?” 

​”Christ­mas!”

​”When do we want it?”

​”Now!”

It’s ear­ly when Huck pho­tog­ra­ph­er Theo McInnes arrives at the Leake St tun­nel next to London’s Water­loo sta­tion. Also known as ​‘Banksy Tun­nel’, the road tun­nel close to the Riv­er Thames is famous as one of the few places in the city where graf­fi­ti is legal. Its walls are a vibrant, ever chang­ing mur­al to the cre­ativ­i­ty and chaos of the metrop­o­lis. It is, then, the per­fect start­ing place for this year’s San­ta­Con event. 

This aus­pi­cious gath­er­ing of ​‘San­tae’ found it’s begin­nings in Den­mark in 1974 where activist the­atre group Solvog­nen gath­ered dozens of San­ta to hand out items from the shelves of a depart­ment store in Copen­hagen as ​“presents” before being arrest­ed. The prank was designed to make fun of Christ­mas and the con­sumerism that had con­sumed (get it) the hol­i­day. 

Inspired by an arti­cle on the action peo­ple came togeth­er in San Fran­cis­co in 1994 in an event dubbed ​“Santarchy” which was influ­enced by the Sur­re­al­ist move­ment ​‘Dis­cor­dian­ism’. Though not intend­ed to be a recur­rent event, 100 par­tic­i­pants gath­ered in the city in 1995 and the move­ment was born.

Now, almost 30 years on, San­ta­Con events are held in hun­dreds of cities across the world.

​“It was basi­cal­ly about 300 San­tas on a giant pub crawl, with chants and music,” McInnes recalls. ​“Every pass­er- by smiled when they saw the chaot­ic group approach. They hand­ed out sweets to kids as they passed, it was very good vibes!”

After assem­bling in the tun­nel the San­tas then descend­ed on local pubs, fol­low­ing the route of the riv­er, cross­ing the icon­ic Tow­er Bridge to get the tube to tem­ple before end­ing the day at Trafal­gar Square.

​“I was sur­prised how it stayed togeth­er to be hon­est, there were some San­tas who would chant ​‘ho ho ho, San­tas got­ta go’ which would mean the next loca­tion,” says McInnes of the organ­i­sa­tion of the day. “ Each loca­tion was a pub with a big out­side area. As the day went on and the San­tas had more to drink it did start to break up a bit. Some San­tas might have had a few too many though and had to peel off early!”

Fol­low Theo McInnes on Insta­gram.

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