SantaCon Lawrence was yesterday in downtown Lawrence, and it was fun!
The Sandbar was excited to be one of the six participating bars for this event. The Santa party started off here at 1:30 p.m. with around 30 Santas, elves and Mrs. Claus characters. Many of the participants were Sandbar staff and friends, but one couple even drove in from Kansas City to participate in the fun.
A reporter and photographer from the Lawrence Journal-World stopped by, and they interviewed some of the Santas and took lots of pictures. In fact, they stayed with us for over an hour and even traveled to the second bar- Louise's Downtown- with us! Read the article here, and there are a couple of pictures and even a video featuring dancing Santas.
After about an hour at the Sandbar, the Santa parade went to Louise's, followed by the Replay Lounge- where Santa and Mrs. Claus danced on stage!- the Bottleneck, Red Lyon and finally ending up at the Barrel House. Santa made a few detours along the way, wandering through Sunflower Bike Shop (at their request), the Bourgeouis Pig and Free State. The group dwindled along the way, but the die-hard crew of 5-6 Santas ended up back at the Sandbar around 8:30 p.m.
All of the bars were very accommodating to the group of Santas, and the people on Mass Street really seemed to love it! Several Santas actually had bags full of trinkets and toys, and they handed them out to kids on the street. They also popped into some of the downtown businesses to spread a few "ho ho ho's."
SantaCon wasn't all just for fun, though- in the spirit of the season, Santas were encouraged to bring non-perishable food items to donate to Just Food, a local food pantry here in town. We filled one giant box at the Sandbar, and there were a few more bags of food that didn't fit in the box. Way to go Santas!
You know how much we love costumes at the Sandbar, so we are definitely looking forward to doing this again next year! Our upcoming staff holiday party will also be a Santa costume party, and we've heard that some cities have started having "BunnyCon" and "PirateCon" events to tide them over until Christmas every year...
Check out our pictures on Flickr or Facebook here. If you were at SantaCon, we'd love to see your pictures! Email them to us at [email protected], upload them to our Facebook page or tag them on Flickr!
