Is it good to be bad? You can join the Krampus on a pub crawl through downtown Elgin

Hey, Elgin, you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I'm telling you why.

Krampus is coming to town. And he's gonna get a few drinks in him.

The Krampus Krawl will be back Saturday in Elgin after a several-year hiatus, with revelers celebrating the mythological half-man, half-goat who comes around each year to punish poorly behaved children.

But rather than hunting down kids on the naughty list and whacking them with sticks, folks will enjoy a bar crawl through downtown establishments, have a Krampus costume contest and hear the authentic German folk/pop band Alpine Thunder.

Organizer John LaFleur said the event is for adults looking to do something different around the holidays.

"This is a good excuse to go out, have a few drinks and have an alternative to normal Christmas stuff," LaFleur said. "We're just trying to keep Elgin weird."

LaFleur said people who enjoy Nightmare on Chicago Street will like the Krawl.

"It's certainly not anywhere near that scale, but we want to capture a little bit of that spirit," he said. "It's fun. And it's an economic driver for the downtown."

People can join the Krampus Krawl at any time at any one of four stops. Each participating bar is doing a specialty cocktail for the evening.

The stops are:

• 6 p.m. at the Elgin Public House with the 12 beers of Christmas and a Belsnickels Cookie cocktail.

• 7 p.m. at Vern's Tavern with a Spicy Krampus Margarita.

• 8 p.m. at Kubo Sushi and Sake Lounge, serving a Krampus Killer cranberry ginger cocktail.

• 9 p.m. at Martini Room with a Krampus Mule and Naughty Old Fashioned.

The bar crawl will end at Martini Room with the Krampus costume contest and the Alpine Thunder performance at 9:30 p.m.

The event, first held in 2015, was organized by local artists from Side Street Studio Arts and Oddball Art Labs. The volunteer-run Krampuslauf-Elgin is bringing it back after a hiatus with the help of the Downtown Neighborhood Association, which coordinated the participating businesses and helped sponsor the entertainment and promotion.

"This gives us a great, adult-friendly holiday offering to plug in with the rest of what we have going on," said Downtown Neighborhood Association Executive Director Jennifer Fukala.

"When we do things that are sort of unusual that come from an authentic place here in Elgin, I feel like that resonates really well, just like with Nightmare."