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Every bubble, no matter how grand, eventually bursts. And so it goes for the Off Broadway phenomenon Gazillion Bubble Show, which has delighted countless families and tourists for nearly two decades. Here's the soap dish: Time Out has learned that the show, created and initially performed by self-described "bubble scientist" Fan Yang, will end its run at New World Stages on September 7, 2026.
"Fan Yang's blissfully disarming act consists mainly of generating a dazzling succession of bubbles in mind-blowing configurations, filling them with smoke or linking them into long chains," wrote David Cote in his laudatory 2007 Time Out review. "Lasers and flashing colored lights add to the trippy visuals."
TICKETS: Buy tickets to Gazillion Bubble Show
Gazillion Bubble Show's focus on creative wonder has made it especially popular with young audiences. But it has been a family show in another way, too: Over the years, as Bubble Show's remarkable run continued, Fang entrusted its performance to other members of his clan: his wife, Ana; their children Deni and Melody; and his brother Jano. Together, the Yangs have set 18 Guinness World Records, including for the most people inside a single bubble (181) and the largest land mammal placed inside a bubble (an elephant).
“For 19 years, New York has dreamed in bubbles,” say Fan Yang. “What began as a unique family production became something much greater than we ever imagined. Gazillion Bubble Show became part of the memories of millions of families from around the world. We are deeply grateful to every audience member, performer, and supporter who helped make this show part of the fabric of New York City.”
After the 2023 close of Stomp, the 2024 adieu of Blue Man Group and the 2025 shuttering of Sleep No More, the departure of Gazillion Bubble Show represents the end of a particular era in Off Broadway theater, when unusual theatrical ventures with high appeal to foreign visitors—none of them required a strong command of English—seemed like they would run forever. The newer crop of long-running shows, led by Little Shop of Horrors and The Play That Goes Wrong, are more traditional; even the magic show Amaze has a strong narrative element. (We will not speak of the tourist-trapping shows at midtown's shabby Theater Center: the unkillable Perfect Crime and the multiple musical parodies of sitcoms.)
Gazillion Bubble Show plans to mark its final months with a "Summer of Bubbles" that will include what it calls "special events, audience celebrations, surprise moments and a look back at nearly two decades of magical memories." And don't worry about the Yangs or their soapy creations: They are already making plans for national and international tours. For New York City, though: It's a bubble wrap.
