Pub crawl celebrates Mardi Gras, Chicago style

Collect colorful bead necklaces, drink Hurricane cocktails made with dragonfruit-flavored vodka and celebrate Mardi Gras with 1,000 other people ... in 20-degree, snow-filled Wrigleyville?

That's the concept behind "Beadquest II: The Beadz Are Back in Town," a nine-bar Saturday afternoon pub crawl next weekend.

"Out here in the suburbs, they don't have anything that compares," said Jodi Zanella, 33, of Naperville, who went to last year's Beadquest and has tickets to this year's. "The cool thing about Beadquest is that it has a serious Mardi Gras feel to it. There's a diverse mix of people and a variety of age groups. You can get crazy with themes and costumes and they'll embrace it. In the suburbs, it doesn't get to that scale."

The pub crawl starts and ends at Murphy's Bleachers, next to Wrigley Field. At each bar, bead necklaces will be handed out with a number on them. At the end, there will be a raffle for anyone who has collected all nine necklaces, and rooftop Cubs tickets are the grand prize. Other prizes are gift certificates.

The man behind Beadquest II is Chicago T-shirt mogul Christopher Festa, who likes to tell people that his last name means "party" in Italian. He said Beadquest came to life last year, as a way to beat the winter doldrums.

"It was a time of year when there wasn't a ton of other stuff going on. Mardi Gras just struck a chord with people," said Festa, who attends all the events. "It's not just for the right-out-of-college crowd. A lot of my friends are married and have kids, and they get one 'hall pass' every couple of months and they use it to come to this."

Through his business, Festa Parties ("which means party parties"), Festa organizes four pub crawls a year, the most popular of which is his Twelve Bars of Xmas (TBOX). Last year, it drew more than 7,000 people. Yes, that's thousand, not hundred. They've had to break the groups into different routes, on shifts, and spread the crawl across 36 different bars.

Because TBOX starts at 8:30 a.m., the morning includes "cereal shots" (Apple Jacks, Froot Loops, etc.) to help minimize alcohol consumption. The groups are then led to the different bars by "royal court members."

Festa estimates about 25 percent of the participants at his pub crawls are suburban residents. One of them is Marina Christos, 34, of Joliet, who jokingly refers to herself "a professional pub crawler."

For Beadquest, Christos takes public transportation to the city and then crashes at a friend's apartment for the night.

"It's a good opportunity for people who don't normally get to the city to get to the city, because there's more to life than downtown Naperville," she said. "The bars are fun and really cooperative. There are always drink specials, like $2 for a beer ... and you meet new people."

It's also fun when people try to barter for your beads, Zanella added.

"As the years go on, it's just going to get better," she said. "(Beadquest) will get a cult following behind it, and it will become part of a tradition."

Beadquest II: The Beadz are Back in TownWhat: A Mardi Gras-themed pub crawl where colorful beads with numbers are handed out at each of nine bars. Collect them all and be eligible for a raffle at the end of the night. Must be 21 or older.When: 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 20 Where: Starts and ends at Murphy's Bleachers, 3655 N. Sheffield Ave., ChicagoCost: $18, includes a T-shirt and wristband. Every bar on the crawl offers drink specials.Info: festaparties.comFalse500395Lindsey Glosniak, Christopher Festa, Sarah Wallace, Mary Wysocki and Lauren Carkhuff pose for a picture during last year's Beadquest pub crawl.Courtesy of Festa PartiesFalse