Chaotic off-brand Willy Wonka pop-up exhibit ends with police intervention
An immersive faux-Charlie And The Chocolate Factory event in Scotland has become the Internet's new favorite scam
Aux News Wonka
“Willy’s Chocolate Experience,” the knock-off Wonka immersive event in Glasgow, was indeed a world of pure imagination—if you were imagining Fyre Festival-meets-DashCon. This Scottish scam is going viral for how utterly ridiculous it turned out to be, and how upset attendees were when it turned out to be nothing like it was advertised. In fact, police were called to the scene as disgruntled ticket holders sought refunds for the disappointing experience, which was abruptly canceled midway through the day, according to BBC News.
The event was hosted by “House of Illuminati,” which made a lot of promises about what “Willy’s Chocolate Experience” would look like. (“Any resemblance to any character, fictitious or living, is purely coincidental,” a disclaimer on the event website reads. “This experience is in no way related to the Wonka franchise, which is owned by the Warner Bros. company.”) Exhibits supposedly included “an enchanted garden, with giant sweets, vibrant blooms, mysterious looking sculptures, and magical surprises,” the trademarked “Imagination Lab,” which “invites you on a surreal journey where the boundaries between reality and fantasy harmoniously merge, resulting in an enchanting and visually striking encounter,” and the Twilight Tunnel, “a dimly lit passage adorned with captivating projections, enigmatic sounds, and surprising turns.”
Except the website had no pictures of previous events held by House of Illuminati, and instead features images and text that is clearly generated by artificial intelligence. A graphic for the Twilight Tunnel teases “enigemic sounds” and “ukxpected twits.” Another graphic advertising “encherining entertainment” lists spectacles such as “Catgacating,” “Carchy tuns,” and “a pasadise of sweet teats.”
Obviously, when the poor Charlie And The Chocolate Factory enthusiasts showed up at Box Hub Warehouse, the event looked nothing like what the event description suggested. Instead, they were confronted with a sad-looking, mostly empty warehouse with a bouncy house and some ramshackle decorations. Jack Proctor, a dad who took his kids to the event, told STV News that “we stepped inside to find a disorganized mini-maze of randomly placed oversized props, a lackluster candy station that dispersed one jelly bean per child, and a terrifying chrome-masked character that scared many of the kids to tears.”
House of Illuminati’s “director” Billy Coull took a “we’re all trying to find the guy who did this” approach in his response to the controversy. “I’m really shocked that the event had fallen short of the expectations of people on paper,” he said to STV News. “My vision of the artistic rendition of a well known book didn’t come to fruition. For that I am absolutely truly and utterly sorry. There was every intention to hold the event, from the pictures, despite not being in the best light hopefully you’ll be able to see that there was every intention to hold the event. Unfortunately there was unforeseen circumstances and the event didn’t come to light. “These issues were technological in nature. We had ordered a holographic paper that didn’t arrive on time. The holographic technology in itself is absolutely fabulous technology and unfortunately there was a delay in postage.”
Would holographic paper have salvaged “the unsalvageable,” as Proctor described Willy’s Chocolate Experience? Hard to imagine so. Most of the members of the newly launched “House of Illuminati Scam” Facebook group have labeled Coull a scammer, identifying him as the author of a number of possibly-AI assisted books posted on Amazon. “I paid for Willy Wonka and got Billy Bonkers,” one attendee posted to the group. “Having now seen the posts on this page and stories about the event organiser, it’s clear the guy is a sandwich short of a picnic and has some sort of pathological disorder.”
According to the BBC, attendees were given “advice” from police on the scene—however far that might take them. Coull has promised refunds for all, but another attendee told the outlet that she’d heard “absolutely nothing” from the company and that she was “not very hopeful” she would get her money back. “Tickets are not refundable,” the event website states. “The terms and conditions of non-refundable tickets are agreed upon prior to purchase.”
24 Comments
genuinely looks like they drop shipped the entire event. it’s too easy to buy some things in this world.
…it should be harder to buy cheap decorations?
basically! time was you’d at least have to fake hire some high school kids to build this crap out of paper mache.it doesn’t even have the crappy charm, it just looks like an amazon overfill.
I think high schoolers would’ve done a much better job—at least if it’s the theater department of a high school with even a modest budget. They do some pretty great stuff.https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/theater/high-school-alien-play.html
yeah that was my point
“::sigh:: I’m going to be on the Internet, aren’t I?”
Someone get an interview with this lady I want some deets.
Someone get Bowen Yang his Oompa Loompa wig stat
And some sweet teats
Unfortunately it seems that the Daily Mail were first on the scene, but this is probably the best piece of journalism that rag has ever put out.Since the event went viral a photo of Ms Paterson dressed as an Oompa-Loompa standing by a chemistry set with fumes billowing out has led her to be described as a ‘m***-lab Oompa-Loompa lady’. Speaking to MailOnline, she confirmed that not only had she not been paid she also hadn’t been briefed on what her role would involve. She explained: ‘I was angry at the time because I felt like this is embarrassing for me, and I felt bad for the people coming in as well.‘I actually ended up shouting at the guy. I just said to him he’s a joke and this is like embarrassing, and how can we basically live with himself, doing this to people.‘This is really embarrassing for me. My job is teaching kids yoga and I go into schools and stuff and I do kids’ entertainment.‘This is none of our faults at all. We got the job and then we got given the script.‘By that point I’d signed a contract and they said they were going to put us £500 for the two days which is a lot of money which is a lot of money to say no to.‘I got stuck to the jelly bean bit and by that point I felt awful. There was a part where they were saying it was like a science lab, and you were supposed to hand out jelly beans, and by that point they had run out of jelly beans, so I was just trying to make slightly exciting for the kids.‘Then I walked off scene because I was so embarrassed.‘I went mental about the guy and feel awful about the whole thing, like I really honestly do, and I walked off because I was just like feeling so shit for the kids. The whole thing has just been awful.‘The whole thing’s just been a complete and utter shambles. It was shocking honestly.’https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13131605/willy-wonka-scam-embarrassed-actress-memorise-ai-script-not-paid.html
Why are there so many quotation marks within the quote?
Rachel Dratch?
On another note, they should’ve leaned into it, called it an “art installation,” and given the character a name like “Wilton Wanka.”
This has Banksy written ALL OVER IT
This is one of the most Dystopian things I’ve ever seen. It looks like something right out of A Clockwork Orange. The parents should have known not to trust something Organized by someone called “House of Illuminati”
The fact that anyone saw that AI website and thought it was worth spending any money on going there absolutely shows that people will fall for anything.The AI images are incredible in their half-assedness, even excusing the melting faces and formless, shapeless monstrosities, it’s rife with misspellings and nonsensical words. And importantly doesn’t even try to show something approximating the real experience.The absolute lack of any effort on the part of the organizers is almost commendable. They put together the cheapest “experience” possible, barely even try to hide it, and people still paid money and showed up.It almost worked.
Even speaking as a parent who is generally looking for fun stuff to do with/for a kid, this is definitely one of those things you drive by to assess before committing to it.
That headline is WAY more dramatic than what actually happened. A scumbag rented a warehouse and ran an underwhelming event. The end.
I live 5 minutes by bicycle fr9m that warehouse (which I had never heard of before today). Hey, mum! Glasgow got on AVClub!
This has got to be some kind of KLF/Banksy calculated provocation, right? Does anyone remember Dismaland?
This and those shitty “escape rooms”. A glass display case full of junk in a liminal space isn’t an immersive experience. Stop it.
Interestingly, all those text / grammar errors are fixed on the event’s site.
Why bother correcting it at all after the hubbub?
What, you’re not interested in “Cartchy tuns” and “Exarserdray lollipops”?
I’m totally interested in ‘em! GIVE ME MORE CARTCHY TUNS!!!
I phrased it wrong—I meant “why would the event scammers change their site after everything’s gone to hell”? Seems like a ridiculous detail about which to worry when there’s all the issues of refunds, etc.