The fallout to the disastrous Willy Wonka Experience, explained

The fallout from the 'disastrous' Willy Wonka Experience has continued after the event resulted in anger, refunds and even a police presence last weekend.

Parents paid out £35 per ticket for the 'shambolic' Glasgow event, centred around the Roald Dahl classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Children arrived dressed up on 24 February at a facility in the Scottish city, but were given an 'experience' alarmingly different to Willy Wonka's fantasy world.

What was promised as “a day of pure imagination and wonder” turned out to be anything but – and has left the organisers House of Illuminati issuing an apology and issuing hundreds of refunds to furious parents.

Police Scotland were called to the event at the desolate warehouse where it was meant to take place as parents demanded compensation. The experience was meant to last for two days but was cancelled just halfway into it first day.

The House of Illuminati was later forced to issue more than 800 refunds to disgruntled visitors. Writing on their social media page on Wednesday, the group said they would not be holding any event in the foreseeable future.

They said: “I am truly sorry for any upset and disappointment caused at the weekend. Refunds have been issued and will continue to do so. This was an event gone wrong, The House of Illuminati will NOT be holding any other events in the foreseeable future.”

Here, Yahoo News UK breaks down the fallout from the chaotic event – and what was said – and promised – by those involved…

The AI Facebook invite

The House of Illuminati posted an invite to the event on their Facebook page. Parents may have been swayed to buy tickets after the colourful picture accompanying the invite pulled them in.

But it appears that AI was responsible for the advertising, that appears both on Facebook and the official website for the event. The surreal pictures feature a generated image of Wonka with backdrops of psychedelic colours in cluttered art that are a struggle to look at for too long.

AI is also to blame for the wording, that promised “enigmatic sounds” in a “heart-pounding experience you’ve never experienced before”. Visitors were invited to “marvel at extraordinary props, oversized lollipops, and a paradise of sweet treats”, in text that was riddled with typos.

The site also invites guests to “navigate through peculiar but enchanting garden collecting delicious beans of all colours, shapes and sizes”. It then says visitors “might be able to grow your very own enchanting garden” – though the site doesn’t actually say what that would involve.

Based on what actually appeared at the event, none of the AI-written words actually represented the reality…

First images emerge and the event goes viral

The day of the event had finally arrived and hundreds turned up with excited children dressed up as their favourite book character. And it wasn’t long before the rest of the world caught a glimpse either, as parents started sharing the first look on social media.

Videos showed an empty warehouse space filled with a few decorations that included a bridge, a gate and some oversized chocolate bars. Full-length mirrors were seen hanging against curtains that looked hastily put up.

One particularly alarming picture from the event showed what was apparently an "evil chocolate-maker that lived in the walls of the factory”. Video showed children yelling “no” when the actor, dressed in a black cape and silver mask, appeared from behind a mirror. This particular character is all the more baffling as it doesn’t appear anywhere in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Although organisers said it would be a “paradise of sweet treats”, parents complained their kids were just handed out a few jelly babies – and the experience had lasted a matter of minutes.

The chocolate river, an important location in the book, was shown to be a “strip of brown carpet”, while one parent said one of the stations at the event looked like an “Oompah Loompa meth lab”. The pictures told a story and it captured the imagination – but not in the way intended as the ridiculousness of the event saw it go viral.

Parents ‘riot’ and police are called

With fury starting to grow over the decorations, the broken promises and the characters terrifying children, parents started confronting the organisers. Michael Archibald, who played one of the Willy Wonkas, said that people “started rioting”.

The 18-year-old actor, who was paid £500 to appear at the event, told The Independent that police were called and questioned him. He said: “I gave as much info to them as I could. The police took note of what I was saying and said it was good information… It was almost comical how everyone started rioting, throwing things about and really kicking up a fuss.”

It is not known on what basis officers from Police Scotland were called, with reports of a riot and parents demanding that officers order the organisers to issue refunds. One video showed Billy Coull, the director of House of Illuminati, attempting to calm down a furious crowd who had gathered demanding their money back. They could be heard accusing Coull of dishonesty as he stood with two security guards.

One mum, Paula Graham, said: "In my eyes I thought it was going to be some kind of light show with actors. I felt it was going to have sweets and they were taking about a chocolate river. But it was a big warehouse with some props in it and some sheets.

”The actual experience took two minutes to walk though because there was nothing there. When we arrived so many people had complained that they shut it down. You couldn't even call it an event – it was terrible.”

She added: "There was a wee girl with an Oompa Loompa outfit who was bawling. Everybody was kicking off – it was terrible. They put out a bit of cardboard saying 'event cancelled'."

Oompah Loompa actors speak out

After the event descended into chaos, the actors hired for it had their say on the build up to the day, as well as the disastrous day itself. One of those, Jenny Fogarty, 25, was hired to play an Oompa Loompa and said she was given a 15-page “script” to learn the evening before the event was set to begin.

Fogarty revealed that her costume arrived one hour before the event was due to begin. She said: "I noticed that the costumes we were given – all of them were female, and we were given the sexy version as opposed to the traditional ones… The wigs were very cheap. We were just handed an Amazon box that probably arrived that morning.”

Fogarty said the actors were told to disregard the script they had been sent and to improvise instead – without any time to rehearse. She added: “It was shocking. It was embarrassing to be pretty honest. We were trying our best, all the actors, to make it work.

Kirsty Patterson appeared in a photo of her looking downbeat in costume that went viral as the “sad Oompah Loompah”. Her downcast expression summed up the whole experience and she revealed that she was “shocked” by seeing inside the warehouse for the first time.

She told Vox that it “wasn’t a finished production” and that the abandoned script appeared to be written by AI. Patterson said that children were “quite upset” when they arrived.

She said: “I think they were confused. But it was more the parents. I just looked at them, and I think they must have known when they looked at me... I was going around and feeling really embarrassed.“

Patterson said that the photo of her that went viral was taken as she was rationing jelly beans to three per child after organisers ran out. She added: “It was just humiliating. I was starting to get angry… You know how they talk about ‘me contemplating my life’? This is me contemplating my life.”

Lead Willy Wonka ‘saw red flags’

Paul Connell, who played the part of Wonka, said he was forced to “hide” as visitors vented their anger at the organisers, adding it was one of the “most embarrassing things” he had ever witnessed.

He said: “I really hope that everyone gets their refunds that they deserve. It was an absolute mess. And the fact that I was a part of it is one of the most embarrassing things that’s ever happened to me.”

Connell also spoke about the “AI generated gibberish” that was the 15-page script. While he had dutifully memorised it, he said it had barely made any sense.

He revealed: “One of my favourite lines was: ‘There’s is a man who lives here, his name is not known, so we call him the unknown. The unknown is an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls.’ I had to perform that line with gusto and validity - and that was a challenge as an actor.”

Connell was told to give kids attending the event a single jelly bean each and a quarter of a glass of lemonade when they arrived. He said the actors, who accepted at the start of the day they were unlikely to get paid, had decided to keep going in the interests of the children who visited.

The dangers of AI marketing – what the experts say

David Emm, principal security researcher at Kaspersky, said that there are tell-tale signs for people to be aware of when it comes to marketing created using AI. He said that “AI offers remarkable capabilities, enhancing creativity and efficiency across various domain”, but added that “it possesses the potential for producing over-inflated materials, for what in reality amounts to a hoax”.

While deepfakes are now a genuine problem, they take time, effort and money to put together. But pictures and texts for marketing an event are the opposite.

Emm added: “Unlike most deepfakes, image-based AI lures can be incredibly cheap to put together, in a short amount of time.”

The Wonka Experience is not the first time that misleading pictures have been used to advertise an event. In 2008, scammers generated images of a “winter wonderland” in the New Forest that turned out to be an empty field with a poorly-designed grotto.

Emm said that modern technology enabled the Wonka organisers to use AI to generate “convincing - yet entirely fictional - visuals and narratives”. He said that they can be exploited to “engineer scams with unprecedented sophistication”.

Emm warned: “As the boundaries between the authentic and the artificial begin to blur, the need for critical assessment of digital content has never been more pressing. Individuals must exercise caution and seek verification before acting on information sourced from social media or any other digital platforms.”