The Neon Run

Hugely disappointing and a significant waste of money!
Absolutely nothing like what is shown in the promotional pictures. People wear bright colors, go out of their way to paint their faces and splash each other with flourescent powder, but there are no black lights to make anything glow and most of the running is through parking lot style lighting, which isn’t bright enough to make it easy to see nor dark enough to enjoy the flashing lights and glowing bands everyone wears.
The route lacks serious interest and consists of many of zig-​zags back and forth through the same areas to save on space. Also, because it is an all ages event, nearly half of the bodies at the event were children.
Only a single vendor was present serving nachos, pretzels and overpriced cans of beer (and all of the pretzels caught fire while I was standing there!).
Runners were grouped into 2 large waves, so the entire event is over in less than an hour. $ 10 parking, $ 5 entry for «spectators» to sit and wait for runners to finish, but can’t view the race. There is no real «concert» or after party, just the same «DJ» on the stage as when you first arrive, playing prerecorded top 40 hits all night.
Unbelievably dishonest marketing and major price gouging. Don’t be fooled… THE NEON RUN IS A JOKE, A WASTE OF MONEY AND A SCAM!

Price increase? That is a complete joke! Stay away from this race. $ 10 to park, lame after party, no water stations, finish line was a complete joke when you have everyone standing in front of it! No water or snacks at the end. Oh wait a minute! YOu could buy french fries and cheeseburgers. $ 4.00 waters, $ 9.00 crap beer! Oh and not to mention getting sprayed by pink spray paint that didnt even glow! There wer NO black lights! They over promised and under delivered!!! By the way there was NO FREE BEER! LIES LIES LIES!!! PHX run was horrible and disorganized!

If it were possible at all to leave ZERO stars I would!!!
I participated in this event last year and it was the worst experience of my life other than breaking my legs in a car wreck. The experience was so bad I was contacted by Fox 10 news here in Phoenix and I appeared on their broadcast with a group of others who all spoke of being scammed by this horrible event. So many things were wrong with it I can’t even begin to explain. The organizers ended up refunding me 50% of my ticket price only after I appeared on the Fox news broadcast.
Easily the biggest rip off around just like most of these 5K’s who are charging you a lot of money and really not contributing to a good cause at all.
Stay away at all costs and do something beneficial like Pats run or a 5K for cancer.

I was incredibly disappointed by this race. It was false advertising at it’s finest. The pictures on their website don’t even come close to the actual experience– we were promised dripping neon paint, my shirt was white at the end; we were promised free beer at the end, we had to pay $ 7 dollars for a beer; we were promised a mind-​blowing event, what we got was a poorly lit, unsafe, water-​less track with one «blacklight» «tunnel». I can’t believe the organizers made these kinds of claims and got away with the actual experience provided. Pure thievery and deceit. Save your money!

Total money-​grab scam put on to charge you for EVERYTHING, including H20 (I guess providing water to runners in the Arizona desert is a luxury to you crooks).
Traffic/​parking was a disaster. None of the event coordinators stepped up to address the numerous complaints had by 95% of the participants.
These guys are scam artists and hide behind the Ronald MacDonald charity’s name in a weak attempt to accept any blame.
#SCAM

It appears I wasn’t the only one who thought to write a review about this event and how poorly executed it was. I pretty much had the exact same experience as everyone else (i.e it was a joke). Silver lining — I know to skip it next year and I can appreciate the well organized events like the Color Run so much more.

DO NOT BUY INTO THIS SCAM!!! I’m ashamed I didn’t put up a stink while I was there! It was all a scam and we were all lied to and placed in danger! First who runs a 5k with NO WATER or EMT? Hoses running across a dark track not taped down? I tripped so many times on the track and hoses and thats just the start.
How horrible can one 5K truly be? I mean there is not really that much to them.
Theme… Check! Track… Check! People… Check! Great time… umm no check.
Let us count the ways a 5K can be epically horrible.
1. Traffic backed up for over an hour missing the start of the race to only wait to pay to park $ 10. Regestration charged $ 5 for? having only been given one day at one location to get the pack ahead of time is a scam! Then they didn’t check my ID nor the paperwork just made sure I signed the waiver. After the reg table I was told to get go on to pick up my grab bag that had no bag but a chappy tshirt and 2 glow braclets. Where was the paint and head band and the free beer coupon? Oh and one of my glow braclets didn’t work. The porta potties (shocked they had those out there since there was no water to drink only beer and crappy food) No one to be found to help with questions or directions to what was happening. Once the race started and we got away from the stage it was pitch dark and the track was not flat. After twisting my ankle once I had to really focus on running and only forgot to focus again when I got to the «spray stations» where hoses were strung across the run with no tape or protection from falling!!! I’m shock noone was hurt! NO black lights at all! I didn’t know I wasn’t glowing because it as pitch black. No way of knowing if you were past a mile or not. The spray zone people didn’t even talk. No real established finish line that I could see… then after running more then a 3k (my run tracker said it was further) we were offered NO WATER! Not evena hose! There were free coconut waters thanks to zico samples but not many people drank the chocolate flavored coconut (warm) water. This was a dry dirty track and nothing to drink after! Still no black lights! The spray didn’t glow we found out later. If you’re in another city read all these posts and the Facebook posts! DON“T WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY!

everyone contact all the local news media on this matter email them directly and leave comments on their Facebook pages as well. worst event ever

I would have given 0 stars if allowed. This run was terrible and I want my money back!!! It took hours to go the last 1 mile on the freeway! Once there, there was no lighting in the parking lot, the terrain was rough (alternating between asphalt, gravel, and dirt), exhaust from racing cars next door, no glow in the dark along the way or mile markers, no drink aid stations, not to mention going through the finish line was absolutely no excitement (besides myself excited to be done with this horrid thing) and people crowding the finish line to hand out advertisements to future events. Afterwards, good luck finding your car since there was no way to figure out what aisle you parked in. I think some legal ramifications should fall on whomever did this event… this wasn’t just poor planning, this was a blatant attempt to spend as little as possible in order to make as much money as possible! Shame on you! I will never do this run again!
I have so much more I can say about this run but if you read others comments you will see exactly how I feel. Save time and money and DO NOT do this even!!!

The paint wasn’t even black light sensitive. I went home and plugged in my black lights that I had from Halloween. The only thing that glowed was the glow stick. There was warm water coconut supplied to the first wave of runners, and probably to only about 200 of us that were up front. There was no lighting so we were running in the dark almost the entire way. There was zero organization and you couldn’t get answers from anyone. Whoever Mark is (the guy that was supposedly in charge) refused to come out and talk to anyone to address issues. They promised us headbands and there were none. They promised us free beer but charged $ 9 instead. That is just the beginning of the issues with this race!

Disappointed! The pictures online show participants covered in neon paint. I walked away with very little color. Every spray station aitmed at my knees to waist and really just got me wet, not colorful. The T-​shirts are boring. The track was dark, uneven, and dangerous. This even didn’t live up to the hype at all. Will not waste my money to do this again.

Sadly misrepresented!
No neon tattoo or spray bottle with neon water as promised in the Groupon that I purchased for this event.
It alluded to getting a beer free after the run. It also alluded to AMAZING glow stations and black lights. There were 3 spray stations and 1 black light area (that consisted of 2 tents). Unfortunately the other lights inside the tent negated the black lights, therefore making it all a very moot point.
NO water stations, could only hear music from a distance, and I think I saw one photographer along the course so I’m certainly glad I didn’t pay for the «photo package!»
Not worth the money or the hype.
Running in and around pot holes, on gravel at some points and beautiful barbed wire as scenery while you smell the burnning rubber of the raceway cars.
This is what you will look like BEFORE and AFTER the race:
Do not forget this is a CHARITY EVENT!!! But wait… They NEVER say what charity and as far as I am concerned they’re pocketing all this as FRAUD!