The Glasgow, Scotland Charlie and the Chocolate Factory unlicensed event—”Willy’s Chocolate Experience—was an event promoted as an immersive family experience that was fun for kids and full of dream-like, Roald Dahl fun. Tickets cost around $45 (US dollars) per person, and, despite the AI generated advertisements being littered with nonsensical words and trademark-less items, many people drove hours or took the train in order to attend.
The reality of the February 2024 2 day even turned out to be less than the magical “pasadise of sweet teats” promised by posters; guests walked into an abandoned warehouse filled with limited set dressing, a small bouncy-castle, barely-trained and overworked actors, and props spread out and lost on a bare, concrete floor. What was promised to be a magical experience turned out to be disappointing, and, from the perspective of some children who experienced the event, frightening.
Particularly ridiculous highlights of the event include the script for the event, which was entitled “Wonkidoodles at McDuff’s Chocolate Factory: A Script,” a story entirely unrelated to Willy Wonka, “The Unknown,” a frightening and evil chocolate maker who lived in the walls, and the “Anti-Graffiti Gobstopper,” a candy so powerful that it allegedly made rooms sparkle through magic. Actors later described the script as gibberish that seemed to be generated by AI, despite this claim being denied by the event’s creators. Halfway through its opening day, the event was canceled after customers began demanding refunds and actors, who were given less breaks than promised and treated poorly, began to confront event planners. Soon after its cancellation, news of Willy’s Chocolate Experience in Glasgow, Scotland began to go viral across the internet.
When I first heard about this hot topic, I was not sure what to think. For some reason, I thought that it must have been an American enterprise—this sounds just like something that would happen in an American city with ambitious American con-men. Underpaid actors and a scrappily handled and planned event seemed right up the hustle and get-rich schemes common to our cities.This thought, however, turned out to be a stereotype about my own country! It turns out that events like this can happen anywhere—that the ridiculousness of life and unexpected hijinks of random con-artists can occur anywhere that people live.
The combination of all the event’s strange and off putting elements—from the poor treatment of the staff to the AI imagining to “the Unknown” as a character itself—culminate in a hard-to-describe and comprehend phenomenon.
