One year ago today, eager families turned up at an industrial estate in Glasgow for Willy’s Chocolate Experience – billed as the place “where chocolate dreams become reality”.
Ticket-goers promised an “enchanting” day out were instead greeted with a room sparsely decorated with plastic props, a small bouncy castle, and AI-generated backdrops pinned to the walls.
Within hours of opening, tempers rose among angry parents, multiple police officers were called to the scene, and the event was abruptly cancelled.
FacebookNews of the botched experience went viral and introduced characters like the sad Oompa Loompa and The Unknown to audiences worldwide.
The event was spoofed on the Jimmy Kimmel show, brought up in the House of Commons, featured in an hour-long documentary on Channel Five – titled Wonka: The Scandal that Rocked Britain, was recreated in Los Angeles and became an Edinburgh Fringe show.
So, how did a simple family fun day out turn into an international disaster?
Jack ProctorActors speak out
Kirsty Paterson, who went viral after featuring in a defining image as an Oompa Loompa standing behind a table adorned with faux-scientific equipment – which was compared to a “meth lab” by social media users – has claimed she still hasn’t been paid since the disastrous experience.
“I left that day not expecting to get paid since it was such a shambles”, she told STV News.
“I’m not expecting to get paid now, a year down the line, so I’m just going to cut my losses.”
The 30-year-old’s life was turned upside down after pictures as one of the orange-faced helpers circulated worldwide and the actress became an internet meme.
Kirsty went on to reprise her role at an event in Los Angeles last year, in an experience that mimicked the Glasgow event.
“I’ve done quite well and there has been a positive story out of this,” she added.
“When I initially took the job a year ago, I just took it on for a bit of fun as I was going through a rubbish time in my life.
“But it was as bad as what it was perceived to be on the day.
“I didn’t know how the picture looked so bad. I didn’t take it well at all at the start and I didn’t have my phone on for three days.
“I thought what am I doing with my life? I was worried it was going to tarnish me working as an actress again.
“But I got put in the industry full force.
“I didn’t expect it to go as life changing as it has done for myself to be honest. It just went on and on.
“I’m now working on a documentary with an Emmy-winning filmmaker.
“It’s been crazy, I can’t doubt its been good but it’s been hard work. I’m proud of myself to get to this point
“People see something that makes them smile, they appreciate it. I think that’s why it went so viral.”
STV NewsAlso present at the LA event was the local actor playing “The Unknown” – a villain of the Glasgow set who famously and creepily emerged from behind a mirror scaring the children who attended.
Felicia Dawkin’s silver-masked protagonist, an evil rival chocolate maker to the event’s Willy Wonka rebrand Willy McDuff, was said to live inside walls and appeared from behind a mirror to terrify young visitors.
SuppliedMs Dawkins, who is based in Glasgow and went on to be cast as an actor in the London Dungeons, said it was “so funny” to think about the viral production in hindsight, but at the time she felt embarrassed to be part of it.
“When I was in the moment, I was just really, really embarrassed, like oh my gosh, I’m a part of this really bad acting thing, I was so embarrassed,” she said.
“People were coming up to me and being like, where do I get a refund? And I was like, I don’t know. I’m so sorry. I don’t know.
“Looking back on it, I’m so, so glad that I was a part of it, because I’ve got so much more reflection now as well and I think I’ve grown so much from it.”
New The Unknown video just dropped!! Pull a scary face, scare the great unknown!! pic.twitter.com/zxSv6FgQ4I
— Tiana Biscuit (@TianaBiscuit) February 29, 2024
‘Technical failures’
The website for “Willy’s Chocolate Experience” – held in Glasgow across the weekend of February 24, 2024 – featured vivid and colourful images of sweetie-themed fantasy worlds.
Inspired by the Roald Dahl character and the 2023 Wonka movie, hundreds of parents were persuaded to pay up to £35 a ticket to see the “Enchanted Garden”, a “Twilight Tunnel” and an “Imagination Lab”.
However, the experience was cancelled hours after opening due to frustration from visitors who branded it a “farce” and said their children were left upset by the quality of the attraction which had been advertised using AI-generated imagery.
At the end of the experience, children received half a cup of lemonade and a ration of jelly beans.
SuppliedJack Proctor, who attended with his family, was promised “giant sweets, vibrant blooms, mysterious-looking sculptures, and magical surprises”, but instead described it as “mini-maze of random props, a candy station that dispersed one jelly bean, and a terrifying character that scared kids to tears”.
Promotional material used AI-generated images, which included several spelling errors such as “cartchy tuns” and “a pasadise of sweet teats” and words such as “catgacating”.
Organisers House of Illuminati apologised to customers and said it should have cancelled the event as it was “let down last minute” by suppliers, adding the attraction “did not take shape as planned”.
The boss behind the event later posted a video in which he apologised for the “shambolic” day and pointed to “technical issues” for its failure.
SuppliedGoing viral
Despite taking place at Box Hub in Whiteinch, the story piqued the interest of news outlets across the globe.
This included the likes of The New York Times, The New York Post and Rolling Stone, and The Hollywood Reporter.
The story garnered attention from the popular X account Culture Crave, which has more than 400,000 followers, and became widely circulated across the globe down to social media.
The event went on to be spoofed on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in a skit called “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Part Two”, which featured actor Freddie Highmore, who had played Charlie Bucket in the 2005 film adaptation of the novel.
Keir Starmer even joked in the House of Commons that it seemed Jeremy Hunt had been taking “marketing lessons from the event”.
Box Hub/EbayAn hour-long documentary was aired, a cocktail and performance evening titled “Willy’s Chocolate Experience” was staged in LA, and Richard Kraft produced a musical about the event for the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Props from day raised more than £2,000 at auction for a Palestinian aid charity, while an auction for the hand-painted ‘Event Cancelled’ sign raised £1,140, with profits going to the Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity.
Despite being a disaster, the internet’s fascination with all things awful gave the event a profile organisers and actors could never have imagined.
As for the future of the Willy Wonka experience – there has been rumours of a potential film based on the story of the debacle – something that Scottish actress Karen Gillan stated that she would “love” to be cast in.
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