Let's talk about that Willy Wonka immersive experience fiasco in Scotland last weekend.
In case you missed it - and bless your ability to avoid toxicity online if you did - photos and videos posted online this week depicted what several people called the "Fyre Festival of immersive experiences."
"Willy's Chocolate Experience" promised fans who paid £35 [US$44] each "a place where chocolate dreams become reality." Fanciful promotion artwork suggested a boldly designed space with "giant sweets, vibrant blooms... and magical surprises."
What they got was this...
Actually in awe of how grim this is. Fucking outstanding https://t.co/Tz5AdEy3Mk pic.twitter.com/8sAeyfrDeG
— Nooruddean (@BeardedGenius) February 27, 2024
People who said that they were actors in the experience have posted videos to TikTok where they described being given nonsensical scripts that one actor suggested may have been written by AI. Indeed, viewers with experienced eyes might have suspected that the event's promotional artwork was created by AI, as well.
Rolling Stone dug into the background of the event's promoter and found that the Huckster Behind 'Willy Wonka' Event Also Sells AI-Written Vaccine Conspiracy Books.
This mess of an event offers some lessons for everyone in the business of creating immersive experiences - a craft practiced by many who, or someday will, create theme park attractions, as well.
"Willy's Chocolate Experience" demonstrates that while AI has lowered the barrier to entry into the publishing business to almost zero, creating beloved physical attractions IRL remains beyond the reach of people who with limited budgets and no more expertise than writing ChatGPT prompts. That's the good news for experience creators.
The bad news is that "Willy's Chocolate Experience" might - at least temporarily - poison public opinion about immersive experiences. Anyone promoting an immersive experience in the next few weeks or months is going to have to put some extra effort to convince the public that they're not getting Willy's 2.0 with their event. That means preparing full-scale, event-ready sets in advance for promotional photos, then inviting reporters and influencers with a reputation for honesty to preview the event and publish about it before its opening.
You know, like anyone in the attraction business figured out how to do years ago.
Warner Bros. and The Roald Dahl Story Company had nothing to do with "Willy's Chocolate Experience," whose website apparently disclaimed that it was not affiliated with the current "Wonka" film, even as the experience clearly was designed to cash in on the hit movie. The event promoter has promised refunds, which I hope that fans are able to collect before the inevitable lawsuit from the studio. Then again, Warner Bros. might decide that its best response to protect the Wonka brand is to hope that this fiasco disappears from public consciousness as soon as possible, rather than refreshing people's bad memories by filing suit against someone who probably does not have much money to hand over anyway.
Before "Willy's Chocolate Experience" fades from our collective memory, however, I would like to shout out to the actors who were charged with the impossible task of bringing this ill-conceived and poorly produced event to life for the hundreds of children who attended. Every experienced actor has their own personal horror stories of bad productions. At least these actors now have tales that will stun everyone who hears them in theater-adjacent bars, for their rest of their lives.
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Scrolling through the pictures all I could say / think was "oh no" lol
There's so much consternation about AI, but I've yet to see AI product that wasn't immediately recognizable as such. It inevitably turns out the high-school sophomore version of analysis: "The industrial revolution was a revolution of industry and resulted in many changes in society." You can see it from a mile away.
This is funny, but I feel bad for all the little kids and parents of little kids who were hyped up and get the shaft. It's kinda like Genie+, they promise greatness then screw you when you get there, a topic we rarely see discussed.
As a resident of Glasgow, I'm still shocked this made international news...
And just to make it more ridiculous, they're making a movie about the "Uknown" character from this.
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I have only ever done one of these traveling experiences before, Stranger Things Experience last summer in Seattle, but my overall impression is that they tend to be overpriced and cater almost exclusively to serious fans of the IP. Living near a major city (DC), I've seen so many of these installations come through - The Simpsons, Friends, Van Gough, Harry Potter, Ice, and others, but never had the desire to plunk down the $30+ to go to these temporary installations that have material/IP appealing to Gen X-ers and Millennials, but present those IPs in a very Gen Z way with a heavy lean into Instagramming and a YOLO attitude prevalent in the modern generation.
I think the Willy Wonka incident puts a stain on all of these traveling, temporary experiences, and shows that all of these experiences need to be careful at how they are marketed and the expectations from guests . In general, I feel that guests are paying more for the IP than they are for the actual experience, and the upcharges (VIP access, drinks, and souvenirs) make the already high cost of entry even more exorbitant. At some point, I think the customer will determine the fate of these experiences, and the ones that connect with guests (beyond being Instragram-able) will survive, while the duds will vanish. Ultimately, experiences like these that based themselves on social media feed off that attention, and if they're not good, or are a rip off, they will immediately feel the wrath. However, I do think guests are savvy enough to know the difference between the good and the bad, and the reliance of these experiences on social media will make it easy for people to know whether it's worth spending money on the newest one.