Before Wonka: the original rip-off events that left children in tears
Willy’s Chocolate Experience is a challenger for the worst immersive off-brand experience of all time. But Fortnite Live Norwich and Santas Winter Village were the pioneers
Stuart Heritage
If we get to the end of 2024 with a better news story than Willy’s Chocolate Experience in Glasgow, I will be absolutely staggered.
Glasgow Willy Wonka experience called a ‘farce’ as tickets refunded
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It’s the perfect story. You’ve got high expectations versus miserable reality. You’ve got an organiser who – if his reams and reams of apparently AI-generated self-published books are any indication – has a samurai-level expertise when it comes to parting people from their money. You’ve got the fact that he runs a company called House of Illuminati. You’ve got police involvement. You’ve got peripheral figures going viral on TikTok. Best of all, you’ve got a website so lazily constructed that it promises nonsense including “catgacating” and “exarserdray lollipops”. It’s perfect. It’s perfect. It might be the greatest thing ever to bear Willy Wonka’s name.
However, it is important to remember that no hilariously disappointing scam event exists in a vacuum. To hit this virtuoso level of abject dreadfulness, House of Illuminati had to build on the work of several brilliant pioneers; pioneers who thought nothing of charging innocent strangers incredible amounts of money to traipse around a sparsely decorated warehouse full of sullen minimum-wage employees and crying children. So, while it’s only fair and proper that Willy’s Chocolate Experience receives its day in the sun, let’s also take a moment to reflect on some of the hideous rip-off immersive experiences that have gone before.
Virtuoso level of abject dreadfulness … Willy’s Chocolate Experience.
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Virtuoso level of abject dreadfulness … Willy’s Chocolate Experience. Photograph: Jenny Fogarty/SWNS
Obviously when discussing this, the bulk of the offenders will be festive in nature. Christmas in the late capitalism era is entirely geared towards forcing people to spend more money than they’d like on things they’ll never need. When it comes to Christmas events, it is remarkably easy to wildly over-promise and then get out of town before the locals start coming for you. Sometimes, though, organisers can overreach.
In 2020, the Colannades Shopping Centre in Adelaide charged the public A$60 (£31) to experience Santas Winter Village, which variously promised a “snowy trail through an enchanted forest”, a “Santa’s workshop” and a “polar express train”. However, once their money was taken, ticketholders were led to an abandoned industrial unit containing several ratty nylon Christmas trees, a grotto that was clearly made from unpainted cardboard boxes complete with visible shipping stickers and, best of all, a mobility scooter as Santa’s sleigh. “The Santa they had was so poorly dressed and an actor that my six-year-old began questioning if he was Santa,” said one guest.
A furious mum posted today about how a ticketed 'Santa's Winter Village' event in Noarlunga, South Australia is a scam, warning other parents away.
She's right. Check her photos. It looks like the Fyre Festival of kid's Santa events. pic.twitter.com/6F4tHrZLsj
— Tom Tanuki (@tom_tanuki) December 16, 2020
There was also a 2022 event in East Lothian, where ticketholders were charged an extra £15 to meet St Nicholas, only to be confronted by a shop mannequin in a Santa outfit. There were rides here but, as one man who claimed to have spent £100 on tickets reported, they weren’t very good. “My daughter went on the bungee ropes and the staff member in charge of the area disappeared and was gone for 10 minutes. When she came back my daughter was just standing there wanting off,” he said.
But as Willy’s Chocolate Experience proved, you can scam people out of their money at any point of the year. In 2019, the Rialto Theatre in Montreal hosted an adult Harry Potter-adjacent event for 600 people at C$50 (£29) a time. The event promised “boozy butterbeer”, “Luna Love’s pudding”, a “cornhole snitch toss” and the famous “cobblestone alley”. The reality, however, was even more disappointing. Visitors discovered that the “baguette magique” attraction, where ticketholders could decorate their own wands, simply consisted of some disposable chopsticks dumped on a table. Meanwhile, the Platform 9 and 3/4 attraction was a standee of a blank brick wall.
It’s also worth mentioning the 2018 Mario Kart event held in Melbourne, offering gamers a chance to dress up as their favourite Nintendo characters and race go-karts. The event promised “costume hire, snack (mushroom style appetizer), CBD pick up and drop off, up to 20 laps, DJ and after party and games room activities and more.” In reality, however, the costumes were dirty, the snack consisted of a single cupcake and the games room consisted of two Nintendo Wiis. Tickets cost A$100 (£51) each.
Perhaps my favourite, however, was the unofficial Fortnite festival that was held in Norwich in 2019, if only for its sheer scale. The organisers sold 10,000 tickets at between £13.52 and £22.14, but would charge extra for further attractions. These included a climbing wall that could only accommodate three people at a time, an “ultimate Fortnite battle royale!” which turned out to be small stage upon which children could floss, and a “cave experience”, described by the Daily Mail as “a tunnel through a trailer with a slide”. It’s also worth pointing out the merchandise stand, which sold beanie hats with “cocaine and caviar” stitched on to the front. The first event went down so badly that further events were cancelled, and the company that organised it was wound up after the makers of Fortnite brought a claim against them in the high court.
But this all happened in the past. Willy’s Chocolate Experience has set an incredible new level of crappiness for this sort of thing. The future of rip-off events is here. Hold on to your exarserdray lollipops, everyone.
