On February 24 in Glasgow, Scotland, a magical Willy Wonky event called “Willy’s Chocolate Experience” was scheduled to occur. “The House of Illuminati,” an event space in Glasgow, put the entire thing together, the director being Billy Coull. The movie industry had zero  involvement in this event. The advertising for this event made it seem like this “Chocolate Experience” would be an incredible thing for children to enjoy. The prices of these tickets were $44 per person (the tickets were not cheaper for children), but many figured it was worth it, considering how excited all the children were. Additionally, they were promised they would receive plenty of chocolate as well (considering this is called the Chocolate Experience). The advertisements made WIlly’s Chocolate experience look like a truly once in a lifetime experience.

Children of all ages were incredibly excited to attend this event, considering expectations were set high due to Artificial Intelligence creating these high quality advertisements. However, the children were met with something very different once they entered the empty warehouse. There were little to no decorations. Instead of receiving all the candy they were promised, they instead were given a half of a cup of lemonade and two jelly beans each. Additionally, the script for what the actors were supposed to do was created by Artificial Intelligence as well.

 Actor Paul Connell, who played Wonka in the experience, said the script was “15 pages of AI-generated gibberish.” Photos of the experience were put online due to the lack of decorations, the terrifying staff, and overall, how falsely the event was advertised. Willy’s Chocolate Experience was meant to send children to this magical world and ended in tears due to fear of the creepy characters, and how uncomfortable the children were made. One character specifically truly made the children terrified. This character (called “The Unknown”) was created by artificial intelligence, and was an addition to the script. The character  was supposed to be an evil rival chocolate maker who lives in walls that artificial intelligence created.

Stuart Sinclair, a father of three who brought his kids to the event stated that “There were maybe 20 chairs, a couple of tables and a half-inflated bouncy castle.”  (Vox Media) Due to the children’s true fear of the characters, and the parent’s anger the police ended up getting involved. Once the police arrived, they were met with angry parents demanding refunds. The event was shut down and the organizers refunded tickets and apologized for the “very stressful and frustrating day”. The House of Illuminati put out a statement explaining that “Unfortunately, at the last minute we were let down in many areas of our event and tried our best to continue on and push through. We now realize we probably should have canceled the first thing this morning instead” (Wired). 

Although the day has caused stress for many of the attendees, many on the internet found this entire situation comical. Many different memes have sparked due to this catastrophic event. Many are even comparing this to the Fyre Festival that occurred in 2017. Specifically, the character who played “The Unknown” has gained a lot of social media attention. Felicia, a sixteen-year old from Glasglow played this character. She explained how unorganized the event was, and that the actors never practiced what they were supposed to be doing that day. Not even once! She then added,  “At first I was really embarrassed about it. But when we went to the pub afterwards, we were just laughing about it” (BBC News). Although this event did not go as planned, the actors are being very optimistic about the experience. The event has achieved cult status, as it ended up going viral and grabbing the attention of people around the world.