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The ‘Willy’s Chocolate Experience‘ event, the ‘immersive’ experience inspired by Wonka’s eccentricities, which invited visitors to immerse themselves in a ‘chocolate fantasy like never before’, would end up becoming a real-life nightmare. One that would traumatize children and open one of the biggest internet viral cases so far this year.
In their web ad, backed with artificial intelligence-generated images, they promised families to taste chocolate treats, witness performances by Oompa Loompas and observe ‘optical wonders’. The harsh reality was that the children received only a couple of jelly beans, a brief walk through a virtually empty warehouse, and a subsequent visit from police officers who projected the plot’s outcome.
All of this, of course, has also triggered a wave of interpretations and memeifying reactions to the situation. Now, the cast involved in the case has also spoken out.
First, the organizer of ‘Willy’s Chocolate Experience’, Billy Coull, apologized for his ‘vision of an artistic interpretation of a well-known book that failed to materialize’, beyond offering the 850 people their money back before closing the experience on Saturday afternoon.
Coull expressed that he was ‘sincerely and deeply sorry’ and added that the shortcomings of the event were due to ‘technical problems’. He told STV News: ‘I’m really surprised that the event didn’t live up to people’s expectations on paper.’
‘From the photos, despite not being in the best condition, I hope you can see that there was every intention to hold the event. Unfortunately, there were unforeseen circumstances and the event did not take place.’ To which he added: ‘We had ordered a holographic paper that did not arrive in time. The holographic technology itself is absolutely fabulous and unfortunately there was a delay in shipping.’
Paul Connell, the actor who played Willy Wonka in the production, also wanted to talk about his experience and all the ‘red flags’ he would see even before the event. Connell said he was given the role of Wonka only a few days before and was handed a ‘gibberish’ script and told to ‘do whatever he wanted’.
In any case, the event didn’t have any chocolate in it despite being titled ‘Chocolate Experience.’ ‘We were told to give [the kids] a jelly bean and a quarter cup of lemonade,’ Connell said. ‘There was no chocolate in the chocolate experience. There was supposed to be a chocolate fountain somewhere, but I never saw it.’
Connell was also supposed to use a vacuum cleaner at the end of his monologue to suck the evil ‘Unknown Man’ out of the factory walls, but there wasn’t even a vacuum cleaner at the event, so he was forced to frantically improvise.
The actor ended up playing Wonka for nearly four hours straight without a break, as organizers urged him to move the kids around the warehouse faster. ‘I didn’t know where I ended and Wonka began,’ he said. ‘I was losing my mind at that point.’
