The unlikely story of how Chicken Rush was born
Let me tell you a story about a boy, dating and a "2nd-hand unisex fancy dress chicken suit" from eBay.
It all started when a friend at university said they wanted to play a game called "Ou Est le Poulet".
The game involved racing to find a friend in a chicken costume, who would be hiding in one of Edinburgh's finest pubs...
It just sounds fun, right?
And it was.
Many years later, I was bored and thinking of some fun ideas to work on. One of these was "What if Où Est le Poulet had an app for location tracking?" and I started spending some evenings tinkering with a prototype from my bedroom. (April '22)
After many late nights and even more cups of coffee, the game was ready for testing. It was full of bugs but the phrase "YOLO" rang true here.
But our game needed a name.
Initially it was just going to be "Ou est Le Poulet", but turns out most of the English can't spell French. Back to the drawing board.
In the end, we settled on the name Chicken Rush. (A mix of Ironhide's "Kingdom Rush" and Aardman's "Chicken Run")
To kick things off, we organised three games just for singles.
Why? Because dating in the 21st Century sucks.
It's the wild-west out there. Full of relentless swiping, a dash of anxiety and swathes of apps that rarely help. So I thought let's mix things up a bit and get loads of singles to chase a Chicken. Why not, eh?
The plan was simple, if everyone was distracted by the game, they would forget they were on a date. And the best dates are the ones where you don't realise that you're dating.
Our first game was for 60 singles, a mixture of my friends and friends of friends. The second was for 80. By the time of our third game, we had 100 people coming that I'd never met before!
These dating games became known as our Blind Dates events and have since hatched EIGHT relationships(!). That's sixteen people answering "How did you two meet?" with "Well, there was this Chicken..."
Our success made some waves in London's dating scene and the Evening Standard & Cosmopolitan named us one of London's Coolest Dating Events. A side effect was that our events were now massively over-subscribed. Suddenly hundreds were applying for a spot in each game.
It turns out chasing a Chicken is the ultimate icebreaker. Personally, I think it's the perfect date.
Up until this point, all games of Chicken Rush had been hosted by us.
But I wanted more people to play the game. I wanted their feedback. I wanted some criticism. I wanted new ideas. I wanted to hear funny stories about how their games went.
So I launched a new feature called "Hatch" where anyone could set up and play their own games. The game was still a bit buggy, but I wanted to see others give it a go.
From this point on, things went a little bit crazy.
One Sunday night in February, I posted a highlights video of a recent game for Instagram & TikTok.
I honestly expected nothing of it, at this stage it was pretty much just my mum watching our videos.
Then, at 3AM I woke up to my phone constantly vibrating. It didn't even have gaps between buzzes, it was just a persistent buzzzzzz.
Chicken Rush had gone viral.
The following weeks were a blur. People were messaging us non-stop about the game. New games were being set up around the world. I even got interviewed on a radio station in Sydney. It was terrifying.
Meanwhile, I still had a normal job completely unrelated to Chickens. I started to gradually reduce my hours each week to free up more time to fix my buggy Chicken-hunting prototype.
Striking while the iron was hot, we fledged our humble London nest and had games in Madrid and Sao Paulo in May '23 to host two games at the same time on different sides of the world.
Our Chicken-chasing game was now truly global. We managed to translate the whole game into Portuguese for the Brazilians.
A month later, we teamed up with world-renowned festival organisers elrow to gather nearly 200 players to chase their mascot, a Chicken called Rowgelia, through Soho in London. Finishing with a DJ set and the top 3 teams getting tickets to one of their festivals.
We partnered with more brands for wild one-off games with el Tab and DRTY, mixing up the rules and having bigger prizes.
This was the next phase. This little game had to grow up a tiny bit, not too much, but just a little. But I still remind myself that we're a Chicken-chasing game... we can't take ourselves too seriously!
So after two years of testing, we registered as a company.
Cluckin About LTD was born.
With this newfound confidence (and the best name in the UK, it's genuinely our officially-registered name) we started offering the game to other companies.
What if your team's next work social was hunting your boss in a Chicken costume. It doesn't sound very professional... but what if that was a good thing? The breath of fresh air the UK's workforce needed?
In April 2024, we launched our Corporate bookings page - check it out.
And then we waited...
The bookings slowly started trickling in. Super slow. But encouragingly slow.
But the ball started rolling. Faster and faster.
Some larger companies started booking. Brands that I'd grown up with, brands I'd dreamed of getting to play the game and brands I thought would never go near it.
At some point, amidst all the chaos, we became a legitimate company delivering a much-loved service in a professional setting.
And then Channel 4 filmed one of our dating events where 154 singles hunted a Chicken.
What the cluck's going on!
Now the dust has settled, let me explain why we're doing this.
The world got a bit lonely after COVID and pubs & bars have really struggled since.
I like to think this game is a tiny rebellion against all of that.
Since the first Chicken was chased we've seen thousands of "Rushers" go outside, make new friends and, in a surprising number of cases, find love.
This game was always, and always will be, a 'passion project'.
This term has negative connotations as it usually is used to describe a project that someone is passionate about, but would never make enough money. It's as if the project's wings are forever clipped, unable to break out of the earliest stage of startuphood.
And that's quite sad.
I hope that Chicken Rush can be one of the few passion projects that 'makes it'. Continuing to grow and evolve, without our team ever forgetting how fun it is to build a hilarious Chicken-chasing game that's loved by a few people all over the world.
We've carved out a niche in "unique social experiences that foster connection".
Where tech meets creativity.
Where strangeness meets in-real-life events.
Where loneliness meets... its end.
I never thought Chicken Rush would get this big and I'm extremely grateful that it has. There is a long way to go. The app needs work. The game needs improving and some bugs need squashing. But as I write this, right now, I am truly happy.
If nothing else, build something people enjoy.
You may notice that I flick between using "We" and "I".
I get asked this question a lot, "Who is We?"
Well, Chicken Rush may only have one full-time employee right now (me), but none of our progress would have been possible without our wider flock.
We have a small army of volunteers, ranging from a few old friends (Ed, Ruby, Kirsty, Poot, Alex, Hannibal, Charley, Millie), to some new ones met through previous games (Liuba, Ed, Lydia, Pippa, Toby, Jamie, Giorgio, Tabby, Aggy, Shaun).
(And since we wrote this, Dean agreed to join the team imminently - which is INCREDIBLE news)
And a special shout out to my girlfriend. I owe her a lot, she's been found wearing the Chicken costume in 25+ degree heat. Cheers Tills.
And to you. If you're reading this and have made it this far, you're part of our flock now. That's it. No take backs. Whether it's telling friends about Chicken Rush or attending one of our events, our flock has encouraged us to keep pushing on.
For a long time, Chicken Rush wasn't making any money. Without all of your support it would have ceased to exist a long time ago.
Final words
Have a wander around our website and follow us on Instagram for future events and updates, we're always up to something.
One day, I hope that Chicken Rush is just one of many projects that bring people together in new ways. We have some exciting ideas and when they're ready, you'll be the first to know.
Keep chasing,
Fred 🐔
If you ever want to chat - contact us
PS. Since writing this, we experimented with two new things that are currently paused (we ): Flock & run.dance
