SantaCon will continue this year despite its longtime organizer’s recent indictment for fraud, frustrating Lower East Siders hoping for a reprieve from the chaos and gushers of bodily fluids inevitably spewed across the streets by drunken revelers during the notorious bar crawl.
The parade of drunken Santas, which draws thousands of participants each December, will take place Dec. 12 under “new management,” according to the event’s website.
Former organizer Stefan Pildes is accused of diverting roughly $1.3 million, about half the amount raised for charity by SantaCon participants from 2019 to 2024, into a personal slush fund, using the cash to pay for home renovations, concert tickets, luxury getaways, Michelin-starred meals and a sports car, according to federal prosecutors.
Pildes, “stole Christmas from tens of thousands of victims and deprived local charities of more than one million dollars,” FBI Assistant Director in Charge James C. Barnacle, Jr. said at Pildes’ indictment for wire fraud in Manhattan Supreme Court in April.
Pildes pleaded not guilty and was barred from involvement in this year’s SantaCon by Magistrate Judge Katherine Parker as a condition of his release on bail.
AP Photo/Seth Wenig
Stefan Pildes leaves a courthouse in Manhattan on April 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Pildes was the chief organizer of SantaCon from 2014 to 2025 as president of his nonprofit organization Participatory Safety Inc.
“The previous president of Participatory Safety Inc., the organization that ran SantaCon NYC, is no longer involved with the planning, operations or leadership of SantaCon NYC and will not be participating in SantaCon 2026,” the current organizers said in a press release. “SantaCon 2026 is officially organized and produced under a new parent company, North Pole NYC.”
North Pole NYC was incorporated in September by Pildes’ longtime SantaCon co-organizer Theresa “Shiny” Galeani, according to state records. Galaeni told Business Insider that the company “aims to donate to local charities and is working to attain nonprofit status in the future.”
SantaCon generates millions in annual proceeds through ticket sales to participants and commissions to the bars and restaurants that host them.
The gonzo, booze-fueled festival draws at least 25,000 people dressed as Santa and other holiday characters, to the chagrin of locals disgusted by the antics of inebriated participants, including voluminous vomiting and urinating in the street.