Vanity Fair: If you stop and think about it, Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory is an absolutely terrifying place. A lunatic millionaire lures a group of children and their unwitting parents to his massive estate, where they are expected try his non-FDA approved concoctions—and, one by one, are horribly disfigured in the process.
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This is an absolutely wild story from start to finish and I wonder how in the world it even happened. There were definitely many designers and managers working on this (though probably not nearly as many as there should have been) and I'm just surprised this wasn't stopped before it was too late. It is feeling almost like a less extreme version of the Fyre festival. Looking at the videos of the event, I found it almost hilarious how bad it was. The article made it seem pretty bad, but in actuality it was even worse. I feel very bad for the people who paid lots of money looking for a fun day with their family, but I am glad that the organizer made a statement apologizing and is (hopefully) refunding the money of everyone who paid. This is far below the standard they advertised and they were charging for, and the organizers don't deserve business in the future.
After reading the article about the script I am interested to read a little more in detail about the event. Honestly I am not sure it helped at all, Except to make me more confused and disappointed in the company who produced this. However, why anyone would buy tickets to this is beyond me based on the images I’ve seen and the things I’ve read. A poorly AI generated image coupled with some misspelled bad grammar text is exactly what screams a good time to me and not at all like a scam. It is interesting to me that the company said “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 and now realize we probably should have canceled the first thing this morning instead.” Because after all the advertising you’d think they’d have a little more than 2 jellybeans and some photos. Also, I thought it was interesting that that statement had a few typos in it… I just can’t fathom how this show came about as a creator. I am so disappointed.
Until this article, I hadn’t looked into the whole Willy’s Chocolate Experience chaos. Videos kept popping up over the past week, but I hadn’t stopped to watch any of them. I’d also seen a few pictures here and there. Now, I have so many questions about what happened, and that anonymous statement that was released left me flabbergasted. Also, what wedding? Who was getting married? Curious minds want to know. The performers questioning what they were getting themselves into when they saw the script and the costumes, I just don’t know how they were able to keep straight faces. Or even if they were. I’m glad I didn’t look into it too much. Honestly, this might be something that fuels my nightmares. The original movie scared me as a kid, especially that scene in the tunnel, and now this is more fuel to add to those nightmares. I’ll be staying far away from this.
I think that this event proves why AI would never fully work in a performance capacity. everything was so shoddily managed, designed, and executed because it wasn't designed by actual human beings with lived experience, and individual tastes. I've really enjoyed watching the shitstorm that came from this horrible, horrible event because it's really cathartic too see all of the people who are so eager to ditch actual artists for AI have this sort of moment of realization where they realize that the air may look okay, may look passable, but it can never be translated as well, and that especially when it comes to things like performance, there are so many people that are required in order to make the performance look good and happen. I believe that the people who organize this event have no prior event or production experience. at best, they just got way in over their heads and didn't realize till too late. I think I'm more likely case is that they are scam artists though.
This is honestly so goofy. I do not understand why everyone wants to experience certain things that we have seen in movies in real life. As a child I never thought that I wanted to go to the chocolate factory because of how many uncertainties there were and how many plot twists there were in the movie. I never felt comfortable with any of the characters so I think this experience is kind of pushing its limits with making this experience worthwhile. The angry that stemmed from the guests honestly makes sense because if the performers are not given good quality of work people can see right through that and will get upset if they had to pay for their entry, which I am assuming they did. I think that the apology that was unsigned is so pathetic and honestly makes the company look worse. Since it is written in a first person point of view it honestly is so funny.
I believe it is easier to name the things that went right at “Willy’s Chocolate Experience” than the things that went wrong. For starters plunging an event in a warehouse with minimal decorations and advertising it as a “a celebration of chocolate in all its delightful forms” is just false advertising and although I am not familiar with the laws in Scotland I am sure this experience violates som consumer protection law. This article made it clear that this experience was a disappointment all around both to the actors and the audience. I had heard the script was AI generated but reading a segment of the script used was just another example of why AI should not write scripts. The cherry on top of this mess was the apology from “House of Illuminati” the production company behind this experience which was superficial half baked and also sounded as if it was written by AI. My main question walking away from this is who thought this was a good idea?
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