Chocolate Fyre Festival? Inside the “Willy Wonka” event that had infuriated guests calling the cops

“The children got two jelly beans each…and then they got a half a cup of lemonade," one guest said of the event that was met with such negative responses that organizers canceled it midway through the day.

They expected a world of pure imagination. The reality was closer to a nightmare.

Guests at a Willy Wonka-themed fan experience in Glasgow, Scotland, were infuriated when they discovered that “Willy’s Chocolate Experience” was hastily thrown-together with no actual connection to Wonka or any other Roald Dahl property.

The website for the event, which is populated with eye-catching visuals presumably generated by artificial intelligence, promises, “Your journey begins in an enchanted garden, with giant sweets, vibrant blooms, mysterious looking sculptures, and magical surprises that add an extra layer of wonder to your Chocolatey Experience!”

It also tells prospective guests that they’ll be able to “Navigate through peculiar but enchanting garden collecting delicious beans of all colours, shapes and sizes. (who knows perhaps you might be able to grow your very own enchanting garden!).” Sounds like fun, no? Alas, in tiny print at the very bottom of the website, there’s text that reads, “This experience is in no way related to the Wonka franchise, which is owned by the Warner Bros. company.”

Indeed, there was no chocolate waterfall, or fizzy lifting drinks, or snozzberry-flavored wallpaper, or even any legally-distinct knockoffs of such attractions. Instead, the event was held in a warehouse in the industrial neighborhood of Whiteinch, and featured nothing more than a handful of cheap decorations, an inflatable bouncy castle, AI-generated backdrops for photo ops, and, according to some reports,exactly one Ompa Loompa (or “Wonkidoodle,” as they’re called in a script shared by someone claiming to be an employee).

Tickets cost up to £35 each (equivalent to around $45), and the event was met with such a negative response that organizers canceled it midway through the day, but failed to tell later arrivals that they wouldn’t be able to attend, according to The Guardian. Things got so out of hand that Scottish police were called and arrived at the scene.

The event was organized by a business called House of Illuminati, which has only existed since Nov. 2023, according to U.K. records. Billy Coull is listed as the director of the organization, and many noted that Coull appears to have “written” numerous novels using AI.

Reps for House of Illuminati did not immediately respond to EW’s request for comment. Coull also did not reply to a request for comment via his Instagram page.

In a Facebook group set up for targets of "the house of illuminati scam", Paul Connell, who says he worked at the event, said that the employees "were also conned by the event" and its organizer. “We knew we were unlikely to get paid for the event when we turned up on the Saturday morning but stuck around because we knew they would do it with or without us and we can at least try and make some aspect of it fun for the kids,” he wrote.

Attendee Mark Sinclair said he drove two hours to take his kids to the event. “There was maybe 20 chairs, a couple of tables and a half-inflated bouncy castle,” he told The New York Times. “The children got two jelly beans each…and then they got a half a cup of lemonade.”

Another guest, Alana Lockens, said that the event’s marketing changed partway through its campaign. “I originally booked the tickets when it was being marketed as ‘Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory Experience’ at £35 a ticket,” she explained in a Facebook post. “It was a week or so later I went back on to the website to send the link to someone and saw the site had changed to the A.I. nonsense and that it had been re-branded to ‘Willy’s Chocolate Experience’ and tickets were now £18 each."

“I was hired as an Oompa Loompa. I didn't get a costume until Saturday morning, about an hour before people started to arrive,” Jenny Fogarty told the Scotsman. "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."

House of Illuminati offered an apology on its Facebook page that has since been deleted. “We fully apologize for what has happened and will be giving full refunds to each and every person that purchased tickets,” the statement read.

It's safe to say that none of the lucky kids in attendance ended up inheriting the "factory." But hey, at least nobody fell into a chocolate river or turned into a blueberry.

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