About The TBOX Christmas Bar Crawl & TBOX Founder "Mr. Festa"
TBOX (R), The Original Twelve Bars of Xmas Bar Crawl, was started by Owner Christopher Festa in December, 1996 ─ the TBOX Pub Crawl is the world’s largest and longest-running holiday / Christmas pub crawl. TBOX began as a small, informal gathering of friends over and grew into one of Chicago’s most iconic and sometimes infamous party and holiday events. TBOX first became a commercial enterprise in its 8th Year in 2003, and has served over 250,000 crawlers who have experienced this true “bucket list” event. TBOX is a rite of passage for single young Chicagoans, but also attracts a nationwide audience, with about 10-15% of participants traveling in from out of state. “Mister Festa” as he is known to his fellow partiers, is considered the pioneer of the bar crawl industry, “inventing” the concept of pub crawls as a business, leading the way for all the other bar crawls you see today.
Our goal at TBOX (Festa Parties Incorporated) is to produce unique, memorable, exciting, and highly engaging events for our customers. We want you to have an amazing an memorable time NOT focused on drinking, but on having a great time with your friends, making new friends, and having lots of fun stuff to do and to collect throughout the day. Among the things only at TBOX… collectible stickers at every event (over 2 million produced); picture frames at events (we invented those); cereal shots (our greatest contribution to Western civilization); collecting numbered beads; covering your bases; going wire to wire; opening and closing ceremonies; losing your bar crawl virginity… and much, much more.
TBOX has been featured in print and media many times on outlets such as: WGN TV & Radio, The Jam Program on WCIU TV, Chicago RedEye, Chicagoist, Thrillist, Chicago Magazine, Playboy, CLTV, Fox TV Morning Show, TimeOut, Conde Nast Traveler, CBS Chicago, and more.
If you’re interested, you can read all about The History of TBOX and how we started with 60 people and grew to tens of thousands. TBOX has also donated over $370,000 to Local Charities, and we work closely with the City of Chicago and the local community in producing our iconic pub crawl events.
TBOX Founder / Owner Christopher Festa
Christopher “Mister Festa” Festa is the Founder & Owner of TBOX. Mr. Festa grew up in a small beach town in Florida, then attended Stanford University, majoring in Economics. He worked briefly in the finance industry before joining the consulting firm Accenture. Fortuitously, his third major assignment took him from the Miami office to a permanent transfer to headquarters in Chicago… where he had never seen SO MANY BARS EVERYWHERE, on every block, on every corner, and wanted to go to every one of them! Mr. Festa began having quarterly pub crawls for his co-workers and friends, and in 1996, had his first “12 Bars of Xmas”. The rest is history, and you can see it all here.
Until further notice, you will see Mr. Festa leading every TBOX Bar Crawl and fully participating! Make sure to find him and ask for his personal sticker when you attend a TBOX event. Click Here for Mr. Festa’s LinkedIn Page
