Andy Frain Services was founded in 1924 by Andrew T. Frain, a young man who lived in a poor neighborhood shantytown in Chicago. Andrew started working a Chicago Stadium hockey games, and he noticed that gate-crashing and usher-bribing were common problems that plagued the Chicago sports scene with a new sense of how to handle crowd management. His idea with a small group of friends was to create a better ushering service, a system that made the White Sox stadium operate at a better capacity. The main reason for the success is that they followed military discipline and were not to be tempted into corruption and bribery. Andrew moved his idea and troop to the famed Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois.
William Wrigley, Jr, owner at the time of the Cubs, was so impressed with Andy’s group that he invested the capital necessary to outfit Frain’s men in their traditional blue and gold uniforms. With his enterprise underway, Andrew expands his services city-wide to all venues, including his ushers as drivers, parking attendants, pallbearers, and even emergency prom dates for girls in school. He ran it with strict discipline, with white teeth, short haircuts, and clean-shaven men who would follow a militaristic corporate structure. By the early 60s, Andy Frain’s national institution with 25 locations. Sadly Andrew Frain died from a heart attack on March 25, 1964. His three sons would take over the company. They started hiring women to keep up with the times by the late 60s. The company by the end of the decade has multiple famous events, and concerts like The Beatles, Elton John, the 1960 Republican National Convention, and the famous 1968 Democratic Convention which was in the middle of a nationwide protest with the assassinations of Dr. King Jr and Bobby Kidney The company was was sold to investors in 1982. The company remained after multiple bankruptcies, and in 1996 the company was brought back into the event staffing business.
