Wonka may have brought renewed interest in the world of Roald Dahl back in December, so it was only a matter of time before anyone else tried to bank in on the IP any way they can. Unfortunately, for the people of Glasgow, they got the poorly executed Willy Wonka Experience.
CNN reports that families in Glasgow, Scotland were met with a huge amount of disappointment when they paid for tickets to what was being marketed as a Wonka-inspired event complete with ‘extraordinary props’ and ‘optical marvels’—only to be met with a poorly decorated warehouse, and a handout of a quarter-cup lemonade and a jelly bean.
A ticket was said to be worth around £35 ($44) and was marketed with AI-generated images of a magical candyland (which was far from what the attendees got):
apparently this was sold as a live Willy Wonka Experience but they used all AI images on the website to sell tickets and then people showed up and saw this and it got so bad people called the cops lmao pic.twitter.com/tfkyg0G0WG
— Chris Alsikkan (@AlsikkanTV) February 26, 2024
For now, the internet is having fun picking apart all of the terrible things to come out of the event including lazily printed tarps, an Oompa Loompa meth lab, and an ‘original’ creation called The Unknown—an ‘evil’ chocolate maker who lives in the walls of Wonka’s factory.
A ‘Willy Wonka’ “immersive experience” that promised to transport fans into a “magical realm” left kids in tears.
The event turned out to be such a letdown that customers called the police and compared the attraction to a “meth lab.” pic.twitter.com/h0tGykPzzY
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) February 28, 2024
Even the actors who were hired for the event have started telling their horror stories with the organizers. The ‘sad Oompa Loompa’ actress had even said that she started having to ration the jelly beans for the kids:
Kirsty Paterson, who played the sad Oompa Loompa, explains the backstory behind the photo.
“They’d told us to abandon the script. They had this ‘Jellybean Room’ but they eventually ran out of jelly beans. I was already rationing the jelly beans to 3 per kid, that was me being… pic.twitter.com/3kzJ8W9O4R
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) February 29, 2024
And the actor who played Willy Wonka said that he was told to memorize an AI-generated script full of new lore for the place:
https://twitter.com/TheGMcConnachie/status/1762572534602416419
For now, House of Illuminati, the group that organized the event, has issued an apology. They said:
“Today has been a stressful and frustrating day for many and for that we are truly sorry… This was an event gone wrong… The house of illuminati will NOT be holding any other event in the foreseeable future.”
https://twitter.com/jadikosaur/status/1762783720853926022
For now, Twitter is just absolutely tearing the event to shreds. We don’t know if anyone else would be willing to pull off this event, but at least they already have an idea of what not to do.
