They are incredibly disorganized and have a strict no refund policy. When you sign up it says FREE then they ask you to pay money at the end. Once they get your credit card payment, they will not refund it. Further, they are asking for cash only the day of the event in 2026! In 2026, many county fairs and sporting events are not even accepting cash! They are saying cash ONLY at the event for parking. Unbelievable!
HE
helene
it is a scam
it is a scam! Not a real run. They just make you pay for a free road. They know and will refuse to refund. I paid the whole package, drive 1h came early to be ready for my 9am wave just to be denied. No start, lines open without staff. Everyone get gift without paying and I got nothing after paying VIP package. "Your line is not there go look somewhere else!"
AL
Alicia
This is a complete scam
This is a complete scam. I have registered for several of these runs over the past few years. I never had to give payment info, as according to the text and link when registering, it was FREE. Every single time they cancel the event.
Today I just went on their site to possibly register again and now, even though you get a text promotion for it to be free, they now request card info for a “processing fee” Thankfully I never gave them cc info so I haven’t lost money. This is just a warning to others. The only thing I lost was not experiencing the excitement of a fun 5k bubble run.
AJ
alex J.
Absolute scam
Absolute scam. Arrived more than an hr before start time. Waited 90 minutes and was still an hr or two from the front to sign in. Walking back to the car realizing the line was over a mile long with hrs and hrs of want time.
PA
Patient
Worst 5k event we have ever participated in
This is the worst 5k event I have ever participated in and the previous bubble runs I had done were far better. They advertised it everywhere as "free" and I was fine with the initial fees for sign up of $25. The event was supposed to be in Richmond, VA, but they only informed us a few days before the event that it was in the middle of nowhere 45 minutes away. This also made it difficult to pick up the packets ahead of time and they charged us $5 each for picking up the same day. When we finally got to the location, there was a long line of cars all the way out in the main road and it took a long time to get to the parking lot. Then they charged us $20 for general parking which was not mentioned on the event email or website anywhere, and it was cash only. Luckily we had extra cash in our car, but we saw quite a few cars that had to turn around to drive to the closest atm a few miles away (or possibly just go home). Then from the parking lot it was a really long walk just to get to the registration for the event.
One of the few good things I can say was at least the lines weren't very long for picking up our packets, but it may have been because we were in a later starting wave and the crowds were pretty spread out from the parking situation.
The entire event and racetrack itself were entirely in grass, dirt, or dusty gravel, which was a horrible choice for a bubble run. The areas with the bubble machines were completely muddy, so I really only saw children go through the bubbles. Almost every adult decided to go around so we wouldn't get our shoes completely soaked and muddy. Every past bubble run Ive participated in had the bubbles on hard surfaces, so it was way more fun to play in the bubbles and still be able to use our shoes afterwards. The cones and tape that marked the layout of the race were extremely confusing in many sections and most people just cut through instead.
Despite all of these complaints, it still seemed like most people enjoyed themselves, especially big teams and those with children. But overall it just felt like a huge cash grab and the company was cutting every corner possible to maximize their profit. I would have given this event 0 stars if I could.
CC
Court C.
Don't do it! It is a money grab!
We only had fun because we made it fun for our family.
It is a money grab and I am extremely disappointed that I paid $24.95 for Fast Track Shipping & I didn't receive my packet. I had to drive 30 miles to pickup my packet the day before the event. If I waited until the day of the event, they were going to charge an additional $5 for each runners bib and $20 for parking-Cash Only! This made me very suspicious because why in the year of 2026 are you collecting cash with no way to track where this money is going? After the race, I sent an email requesting a refund of the $24.95 and I was told that they can't refund it because the packet was mailed 2 weeks before the event. It was possible that the packet was returned to sender or lost in the mail once it was handed over to USPS. After that email, I asked them what was included in the mailed packet and they told me that it was "exclusively your race bib." These are CROOKS! They charged $24.95 to mail a race bib and didn't include the t-shirt. I would have been okay with paying $5 in order to get the bib mailed, but $24.95 is an exorbitant amount for a race bib.
The idea is great, but the execution of the event was extremely disorganized, it wasn't a 5k, parking was a disaster, there were no professional photographers taking pictures (Bubble Run expects you to upload your personal pictures), and there were no scanners to track your race time.
EM
Emily
Awful- really scammy
Awful. Hours long line to pick up the packet “early” they lost one of our registrations so we paid twice for one team member. Turns out, you don’t need to pay at all because they just let anyone run. The bubbles/foam was basically non-existent. Two stations completely were not working, two were poorly half working and only one station had any notable amount of foam. I have videos and images of every station and they were all terrible. The DJ was really bad, she literally said the same four things over and over and over. The line to get to the venue was over an hour of waiting in traffic. And if you do pay (again I would not) definitely don’t pay more for early entry, first, you can’t get through traffic, and second, they let people run at any time they arrive. It’s all a scam.
WD
Wendy D.
The idea was fun, management was worst ever
The idea was fun, cost was reasonable, event itself was worst managed race my family has ever attended. Traffic was a nightmare. Took over an hour to get off the exit and no one to coordinate traffic. No start line even marked, was just an informal announcement to jump over the jersey barrier and start running. Spectators were invited to join so you really didn't have to pay for it. Bathrooms ran out of toilet paper by 10 am, had no water to wash hands by 9 am, and bubbles were most disappointing. A couple spots were okay but by the time some people made it through the traffic nightmare they created they stopped the bubbles all together and finally turned on a couple of all. Length was actually 2.8 miles. No bubbles at the end like the online ads show. Many bubble machines didn't even work well. My 5 year old niece was in tears because she sat through 2 hours of traffic to find a mostly bubbleless run. No one we talked to would ever go again.