5 months ago
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Willy Wonka event shut down in Scotland
Earlier this year, a botched "Willy Wonka" exhibit in Glasgow, Scotland, went viral – because what was promised to be an immersive experience filled with fun and candy was far from that. Instead, it was a largely barren warehouse with lackluster decorations and no chocolate. Now, the experience – which outraged some attendees enough to call the cops – is being turned into a musical.
"Willy's Candy Spectacular," a musical parody, will premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August. Several songs from the musical have been released on YouTube ahead of the premiere – including one featuring John Stamos, who sings a song "that traces the downfall of civilization back to the disastrous event in Glasgow."
Billed as the "Fyre Fest of Fudge" – referring to the botched 2017 musical festival in the Bahamas – the musical will uncover how the AI-influenced experience came to be an outrage-inducing flop.
Earlier this year, a botched "Willy Wonka" exhibit in Glasgow, Scotland went viral – because what was promised to be an immersive experience filled with fun and candy was far from that. Instead, it was a largely barren warehouse with lackluster decorations and no chocolate.
Stuart Sinclair
According to the actor hired to play Willy Wonka at the failed experience in Glasgow, the actors were given scripts of "AI-generated gibberish" to learn just days before the experience opened.
"It was very disappointing to see how many people turned up at this event and found basically me dressed up as Willy Wonka in a half-abandoned warehouse," Paul Connell told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland.
He said the actors were furious and they felt conned. "[It] did turn quite scary at one point because people were angry," he said. "There was lots of shouting and groups of people getting very, very irate."
Some visitors even called the police and Glasgow City Council's Trading Standards department received at least one complaint about the event, according to BBC News,
One attendee told CBS News his 4-year-old daughter, who was dressed as Willy Wonka for the occasion, was really disappointed. "She was telling all her teachers beforehand how she was going to meet Willy Wonka and it didn't really pan out like that," Stuart Sinclair told CBS News' Anne-Marie Green.
The dad of three drove two hours and paid $44 a ticket for the event. "It was all described as a massive immersive experience, great idea for the kids, chocolate fountains ... Just sounded really, really good, a nice day for the children and the family," said Sinclair. "And when we got there, as you can see by the pictures and stuff, it just was not that at all. There were four or five props, a few jelly beans for the kids. Half a cup of lemonade. Just was not what was promised whatsoever."
Sinclair said the actors at the experience were professional.
House of Illuminati, the company that ran the experience, promptly canceled the experience and originally said people would receive refunds – but deleted the social media post announcing that. CBS reached to House of Illuminati for comment at the time and did not receive a response.
CBS News is awaiting response from House of Illuminati in regards to the musical.
The new musical production comes from Tova Litvin and Doug Rockwell, a songwriting and production team from Los Angeles who are behind projects like the Marvel Rising franchise, Netflix's "Julie & the Phantoms" and the "Sneakerella" musical on Disney+.
Kraft-Engel Productions, which has produced a "Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory" musical and several other productions, is also behind the show.
Caitlin O'Kane is a New York City journalist who works on the CBS News social media team as a eenior manager of content and production. She writes about a variety of topics and produces "The Uplift," CBS News' streaming show that focuses on good news.
