Red Frog Events

Mirroring the television show The Amazing Race, Joe Reynolds organized and launched Great Urban Race, LLC, and hosted the first race on September 15, 2007 in Chicago.[1]

In December 2008, Reynolds brought on four event coordinator interns ("Tadpoles") and moved the business into an office in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood to help keep up with the planning and organizing of Great Urban Race.[1] In 2009, Ryan Kunkel joined Reynolds to expand Great Urban Race and develop new events.

In the summer of 2009 the company was renamed Red Frog Events, LLC, and the first Warrior Dash was held in Joliet, Illinois.[2] In 2010, Red Frog Events moved from the Lincoln Park office to the current location at 320 West Ohio Street.[3]

On November 13, 2010, the first Beach Palooza (later rebranded as Beach Dash to maintain consistency with the Warrior Dash race series) was held at Daytona Beach, Florida.[4] In 2011, Red Frog Bar Crawls were launched. The first event, a Halloween costume bar crawl called Nightmare on Clark Street, occurred on October 15, 2011 in Chicago. Snow Day in Washington D.C. was the next in the series, on December 17. Two more bar crawls were introduced in 2012: Bright 'N' Tight in San Diego, California, and Derby Days in Charlotte, North Carolina.

In 2012 the Firefly Music Festival was launched in Dover, Delaware, and Farm to Fork, a "farm style dinner," took place on September 22 at McDonald Farm in Naperville, Illinois.

In 2013 Red Frog launched three new running events: Iron Warrior Dash, Urban Warrior Dash, and Illuminite Run.[5] It also launched the American Beer Classic beer festival and the Candy Cane Express.

In 2014, Red Frog launched the Bacon Chase in Atlanta, Georgia on March 22, 2014. It also bought DC-based ShamrockFest from GoCity Events and began offering its ticketing platform, EventSprout, to third-party event organizers.

In 2015, Red Frog Events launched Big Barrel Country Music Festival[6] and bought DJ's National Food Services which was renamed to Red Frog Food and Beverage.[7]

On July 21, 2015, Red Frog laid off 29 of its roughly 105 employees.[8]

In Aug 2019, Red Frog Events ceased to operate.[9]

• EventSprout[16] was an online registration platform. Red Frog began developing the system in 2009 and now offers it to third party events.
• Red Frog Food and Beverage was a food and beverage operation service formed when Red Frog acquired long time partner DJ’s National Food Service in 2015.

• The company was selected as St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's "Corporate Partner of the Year" and committed to raise $25 million for the organization to open the St. Jude Red Frog Events Proton Therapy Center.[17] As of January 2019, Red Frog had only raised $15.5 million of their $25 million commitment.[18]
• U.S. Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the Year[19]
• Chicago Tribune Top Workplace[20]
• Chicago Innovation Award[21]
• Inc. 5000, Inc. Magazine, #9[22]
• Outside Magazine Best Places to Work, #16[23]
• Forbes' Most Promising Company in America, #18[24]
• 101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For[25]

As of July 31, 2019, Red Frog events announced their closure and has ceased operations.