It was all about bubbles at Jeff Boyer’s Big Bubble Bonanza show in Lake George

The Lake George Junior/Senior High School Auditorium was filled with children and bubbles Wednesday morning at Jeff Boyer’s Big Bubble Bonanza Show. The Caldwell-Lake George Library presented the program, which was free and open to the public.

Boyer, a renowned “bubble wrangler” and “Guinness Book of World Records” record-holder, enchanted his audience with a combination of science, humor and bubble wizardry.

“Yeah, I am a bubble expert,” says Boyer. “I’ve won several world records for the things that I do with bubbles. I perform all across the world.” He has even worked with actors playing SpongeBob and Patrick in the live musical production of the SpongeBob SquarePants Show. “But one of the most important things I’ve learned as a bubble expert is that I’m not the only bubble expert in the world. In fact, all kids are bubble experts.”

He brought his fellow experts onto the stage where he blew foaming bubbles into their hands, which exploded into hundreds of tiny bubbles when the children threw their hands up into the air. Armed with small, battery-powered fans, his helpers also chased floating bubbles and blew them towards the ceiling.

“A bubble,” Boyer explained, “is air surrounded by a wall of water.” His bubbles have three layers: two layers of bubble solution with a layer of water in between. “…and water has something called surface tension, he said. “Have you guys ever seen bugs walking on top of the water? Well, they can do that because water has something called surface tension.” That surface tension, Boyer says, holds the bubble together in a very specific shape, a sphere.

Boyer demonstrated how different objects can be used to make bubbles, including a rubber band, a pair of scissors (not the pointy end), a headband, and a pair of glasses, which produced two large, connected bubbles he risquely called hieny bubbles.

Using increasingly larger objects as a wand, he created larger and larger bubbles that shimmered and floated under the stage lights in all the colors of the rainbow. The bubbles refract light, and the varied thickness of the bubble’s surface separates the light into its different colors, Boyer explained.

Children, small at first, then larger, including two counselors with the Lake George Recreation Program, joined Boyer on the stage for what he said could be a dangerous exercise. He would encase the children in a bubble but couldn’t guarantee he could get them out. All children survived.

Boyer ended the show by blowing thousands of bubbles over the audience, and the children ran and leaped, trying to capture the delicate floating spheres.

The Caldwell-Lake George Library hosts many programs for children and adults. Visit the library’s website for a current schedule of planned events.

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