Toronto Uncovered

For the last gazillion years my friends have organized a streetcar party on Halloween. The idea is simple: charter out a streetcar and bar hop until you can bar hop no more. Its always a smashing success. This year, I helped organize and recruit people, which wasn’t hard since I have been raving about it since last year. One thing that most people (including myself) didn’t realize is that you can charter out a streetcar for your own personal partying pleasure anytime you want. If you’re interested in organizing a similar type of event, here are some things you should know:

1. Cost: A single streetcar, which has capacity of about 70 people, is about $1000.00 for 4 hours. A double streetcar, which can hold upwards of 110-120, is about $1600.00 for 4 hours. Additional TTC info can be found here.

2. Bars: My friends contact different bars (along streetcar routes) ahead of time to make sure they are bar hop friendly. Any bar owner with even the slightest iota of business sense will jump at the chance to have 100 drunken patrons brought their bar.  Make sure you choose bars that don’t get too crowded as it can be difficult to round everyone up to head to the next stop. Some good bars include: Raq n Waq, The Rex, Midtown, Prohibition, and Bovine Sex Club.

3. Bar Treats: Most of the bars will offer complimentary shooters and/or food. Don’t be scared to ask for some extras, including easy entry and no cover.

4. Timing: We usually start early. If you only have 4 hours of streetcar,  5 bars to hit, and the last bar closes at 2am (making your latest arrival time 1am).. carry the 3.. and that gives about 1 hour at each bar when you factor in travel time. This year’s meet time was 6:30. Of course we didn’t actually leave the first bar until just after 7:30.  We arrived at the last bar around 12:30. Make sure to time everything out.

5. Theme: For Halloween, no other theme is necessary. If you are going to plan a streetcar party on a normal night a theme is a good idea.   Its way more hilarious for everyone to dress up, not to mention far more interesting for everyone on the streets and in the normal streetcars to see a TTC vehicle come to a stop and unload 100 dressed up, rowdy partiers.

6. Make it charitable: The cost per person is usually around 40.00. After all the expenses (ie. streetcar, wrist bands, on-street-car jello shots) are taken care of, you will definitely have some extra cash left over. We always donate the proceeds to a local charity.

The Streetcar barhop is a great time and an experience most people have yet to come across. Let me know if you want any more info or details on how we organized things this year.

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