Arts + Entertainment | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh City Paper: At 11 a.m. on a Saturday, in a Downtown Pittsburgh storefront, I enter Wonderland. The Mad Hatter and White Rabbit are wearing masks, while the March Hare has on a clear face shield. Tables are set with porcelain teapots, clocks, and other knick-knacks, and fake vines cover the walls and ceiling. Overseeing it all is a giant, light-up Chesire cat face.
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I had the unfortunate experience of attending this event in Pittsburgh as well. As someone who is a fan of Alice in Wonderland, I was hooked and interested. All of the photos seemed to bring it justice and I didn't even think that they would be messing around with COVID guidelines. With all the news about the Delta variant on the rise and increase of case numbers, I thought they would have been smart about it. However, as the article states, they weren't. Most of the guests arrived unmasked and several of the staff took their masks off numerous times during the event. There was also nowhere near enough room to socially distance given the amount of people that were there. I stayed because I wanted to get my money's worth and having been fully vaccinated plus having COVID in the past, I felt safe enough to stay. What shocked me as I was reading this article is that the staff said they felt unsafe too. It makes me wonder how they're hired and if they have any way of safely and/or anonymously reporting unsafe COVID conditions.
COVID has created many hard positions for companies, specifically in entertainment, but Hidden seems to have already created a reputation prior to the pandemic. The problem is people like to think that things like theatre and arts always have good intentions, but in the end, they are still just companies trying to make money. We have such a love of the arts we forget how corrupt and capitalistic that they are. Especially in the recent attempts to shift out of quarantine times, people are more ready to get out than ever. So shiny promises of entertainment like Hidden seem better than ever. People haven’t been able to go do these things for a year, so they are more eager and willing to overlook mitigation techniques. People have grown tired of COVID, and they especially don’t want it to interfere in the places that they have fun, so they fall into companies such as Hidden that are in essence scams.
I have seen ads for this event all over my social media accounts. It looked to me like a very small venue which would be cramped if more than a dozen people showed up. It looked like it was in a basement, notorious for poor ventilation. I considered trying to get tickets but having read this article it sounded like I dodged a bullet.
This company looks like they are trying to sell a unique experience to people who enjoy large events like Meow Wolf or Otherworld in Ohio. I have been to Alice in Wonderland themed locations before which can easily cross from well done to over the top. It looks like everything this event wants to be seen as, they are missing the mark just enough.
That is all without thinking about the covid related stresses and acknowledgements of the new normal that we are living in. Some people are going out and acting as if the world isn’t still in the middle of a pandemic, while others are trying to be safe. A company cannot ethically promote an event that places sales over customer safety.
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