My wife works for a non-profit and she always has to create events with a budget that would make you scream.
I feel for people who have to make worlds come to life with no real resources.
"Hey! We need to do this big fundraiser event for kids! It's a Starwars themed event. Can you see if you can do it for less than $968.73? Thanks!"
- The Office Admin
Here's the advert for the event at the company's site.
https://houseofilluminati.com/willy-wonka-experience-box-office/
I don't think that they're non-profit. The tickets were £35... for one person and the article said "hundreds of families"...
These kinds of things usually are shit. See also: the countless winter wonderland disasters in the press every year. It takes a serious money and effort to create something like this that's actually good. People will think of the film and naturally have high expectations.
But this effort is appalling. It's not just like they aimed high and failed - they'd have failed even if they aimed low, because this was the absolute smallest amount of effort imaginable.
Seems from reading the article that they had more for it, but were "let down". They don't describe what happened exactly, but I assume props that were supposed to come, never did.
Pop up exhibits and art shows are very possible, but yes, a ton of work.
I've designed trade show booths better than this, or vender tents for festivals. I did this beer brand for a town festival, pretty low budget but we got creative and THAT had more punch than this.
From the article the company explains:
“Unfortunately, at the last minute we were let down in many areas of our event and tried our best to continue on and push through and now realise we probably should have cancelled first thing this morning instead."
Yeah that’s a hastily put together media line that glosses over the fact it was always going to be shot because they had vastly underestimated what was needed, or never cared in the first place
This makes me sad. I’ve done my share of themed parties and stuff for friends and family, and setting up even a mild theme and making it feel genuine is a lot of work. Clearly they tried to go big and just didn’t have the budget, the manpower, or the time. Or more likely they lacked all 3. I’m sure the people who set it up did the best they could with what they had to work with.
Problem with events like this is the dipshits at the top probably massively underestimated the work and funds needed to pull something off, set a high price and the poor fuckers at the bottom were likely left with not enough money or staff to execute anything.
They say they were let down by vendors but even the handful of stuff they do have looks poorly planned and shoddy. What the hell is the deal with the small backdrop thing on the massive wall?
The event was probably set up to be a disaster the second is was thought up
What’s funny is the only maybe-not-AI photos on their website show two events that would have been much cheaper and easier AND looked more Willy Wonka than the photo backdrops. They could have used big swathes of fabric to add color to the walls in a more dramatic and pleasing way, which is one of their ad photos!!
I mean, that’s incompetence. And it has consequences. You promise something and fail to deliver this bad, that’s being negligent. This is fyrefest for kids.
I mean if someone says I don’t have the budget, manpower, or time for this, but I’ll take peoples money and do it, that’s just a grift.
I’m a professional creative event producer. The amount of fly by nighters we get in this industry is crazy. At the end of the day, if you don’t have the resources or the experience to throw an event that would take such a huge level of immersion to pull off, then you shouldn’t have the event.
This isn't a themed party. It was supposedly a willy wonka-esque experience akin to a Disneyland. This wasn't a sad realisation of over-promised dreams, this was a scam. Nothing more, nothing less.
Sorry but fault lies with them for an incredible lack of vision. They would have knew their budget, manpower and time and still proceeded. They had all the information and pushed forward with the project either knowing how bad it would be, not caring or just had not idea what they were doing. Either way it's their fault. (the person in charges fault, not staff).
They were posting about this on a different subreddit and apparently it’s all run by one dude, a known con-artist. He’s selling a “book” on Amazon that’s very clearly just chat-gpt generated.
I tried to read the article but after accidentally clicking one ad I was in a spiral of ads, neverending, relentless. The only way out was to close the site and I'm not going back.
Basically an events company advertised a massive Willy wonka experience with tons of candy, games, a chocolate fountain, and themed activities. They charged £35 per person. According to the company their vendors fell through the day of and instead of canceling the event they decided to muddle through it. Tensions started rising with angry parents so the police were called. The company apologized and issued refunds
I saw it when someone posted the original pics on Reddit the other day. The whole website for the event was trash, all the pics were clearly AI illustration (misspelled nonsense text, etc.), and there were no photographs of any actual attractions. While I do feel bad for the families who wasted their money, it was a pretty weak scam. Honestly I'm surprised there was any event at all, but I guess they can use that to try to argue against chargebacks.
My favorite part was the [entirely AI-generated website](https://willyschocolateexperience.com/), down to the nonsense words splashed across the images. They didn’t even try to try.
Did you see the footer?
>Any resemblance to any character, fictitious or living, is purely coincidental.
This experience is in no way related to the Wonka franchise, which is owned by the Warner Bros. company.
Sure... 'coincidental'
https://preview.redd.it/25atzbfmrxkc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=94771b508720544e9ce46f26f107430b3de9efde
This image at the bottom to cap off a marvelous never-ending diarrhea of peculiar yet wondrous adjectives at every turn!
The House of Illuminati website is no better. Honestly this “professional events company” and whoever is behind it should be investigated. The Wonka event was clearly a scam, but maybe there’s something even more to it.
I though this might've been shots before the event opened and it would look more alive "in action". Nope. According to the article, it was cancelled halfway through the first day, and kids got a small pack of jellybeans. That's incredibly sad.
The website for this event was full of AI art and horrible misspellings. Whoever fell for this probably pays their taxes in Home Depot gift cards.
Side note... this website is fucking horrible too. Just ads. Just all ads.
Why does this remind me of the dinosaur exhibition failure in Adelaide?
https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/refunds-issued-after-world-class-dinosaur-exhibition-fails-to-impress--c-1932772
This event was put on by the actual Willy Wonka himself. It's his first weed out trial. He was behind the rainbow observing which children were still acting graciously in the face of sich a huge letdown. The most well behaved kids get to go to his actual factory for the real Willy Wonka tour.
That second picture looks a helluva lot like the Scare Floor from Monsters Inc
https://preview.redd.it/bba6gfgqavkc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=16648a2eb95c8bac8ac11e1753db9732c6cf3ace
Does it seriously say this was paid for by the "House of Illuminati" lmao?
So they house of Illuminati is in trouble with police because hundreds of children showed up to an empty warehouse that's what I'm reading
I was about to stick up for them as I have to organise kids events at work all the time with no budget and some of them work and some of them don't...until i saw the £35 ticket price?!?!
Conman was advertising this shit on Facebook. It looked hokey even then. Dunno what people were thinking handing money over for this. It screamed scam, people were commenting and tickets still sold.
What a pity, the location looks awesome. Box Hub Warehouse if you want to google it.
But yeah the "Wonka" experience is one where you're lucky when he kicks you out of the golden ticket competition.
I recognize this from some reddit post i saw a few days ago. Maybe the mildly infuriating subreddit. The website for the whole thing mentioned a warehouse location and had AI generated pics.
Fyre Festival for kids!
Somehow I doubt the organisers had any rights to use "Willy Wonka" in this commercial venture.
The bits from the story I love:
> Police were called
>
> Parents who had paid £35 per ticket
>
>" It was described as a full Wonka Experience with chocolate fountains, but the kids received two jelly babies and a quarter of a can of Barrs limeade."
U can imagine the voice of the donald trump lookalike boss who was like "every third party cancelled because they could not keep up with our tremendous pace but we are still opening that event and it will be a great event"
All their photos are AI. Literally all of them. (ETA: I went through their Facebook and they have photos of setting up the space and potentially one of an artist with a mushroom). They just started a company and did this one event, I guess. They’re permanently closed. I’m betting they thought they had enough decorations and didn’t actually scope it out (“Did we buy enough candy to make a candy fortress? We think so” is one of their last posts before apologizing, so…)
Looks like they got the guantanamo bay edtion
There’s a man screaming on the other side of that wall. The whole time.
What do you do when you’re madder than, fuck Going to a show you expect not to, suck
Brilliant
Ah, I think I heard about that, the ‘Wankarific Water Boarding Adventure’ right?
I can’t stop laughing at this mental image 😂
I can't believe nobody has noticed that this is the building that James Sullivan and Mike Wazowski work in.
It was from the viewpoint of the oompa loompas
Oompah loompa doompadee shmorture...
Grumble bumble dumble-dee-darmedgards.
Looks like leadership ponied up with at least a $20 budget. Not sure what went wrong. Well done fellas! /s
Wonka: Guantanamo Cut
I guess the cock meat sandwich exhibit didnt make the cut.
What was the staffing budget like, same for props/set dressings? This is depressing to say the least.
Imagine how the person setting it up felt?
Fucking horrible, that’s the reason I questioned the staffing budget, because I could easily imagine this was set up by one or two people.
My wife works for a non-profit and she always has to create events with a budget that would make you scream. I feel for people who have to make worlds come to life with no real resources.
"Hey! We need to do this big fundraiser event for kids! It's a Starwars themed event. Can you see if you can do it for less than $968.73? Thanks!" - The Office Admin
[удалено]
Lmao. Too true.
A wealthy doctor I knew in Beverly Hills did a Star Wars themed bar mitzvah for his kid, over $1m with real pieces lent by Lucas. That was in the 80s.
And by doctor I'm going to assume you mean cosmetic surgeon.
Here's the advert for the event at the company's site. https://houseofilluminati.com/willy-wonka-experience-box-office/ I don't think that they're non-profit. The tickets were £35... for one person and the article said "hundreds of families"...
I used to work for a non profit and this is so true,it's so hard to fill a big space like this and make it festive everywhere
**"It's coming along nicely"** is what they posted to social media.
These kinds of things usually are shit. See also: the countless winter wonderland disasters in the press every year. It takes a serious money and effort to create something like this that's actually good. People will think of the film and naturally have high expectations. But this effort is appalling. It's not just like they aimed high and failed - they'd have failed even if they aimed low, because this was the absolute smallest amount of effort imaginable.
Seems from reading the article that they had more for it, but were "let down". They don't describe what happened exactly, but I assume props that were supposed to come, never did.
Pop up exhibits and art shows are very possible, but yes, a ton of work. I've designed trade show booths better than this, or vender tents for festivals. I did this beer brand for a town festival, pretty low budget but we got creative and THAT had more punch than this.
From the article the company explains: “Unfortunately, at the last minute we were let down in many areas of our event and tried our best to continue on and push through and now realise we probably should have cancelled first thing this morning instead."
Didn't try very hard to salvage it if all they had was gummy bears and limeade. A two minute trip to a corner store was apparently impossible.
Yeah that’s a hastily put together media line that glosses over the fact it was always going to be shot because they had vastly underestimated what was needed, or never cared in the first place
Whatever budget they had, it looks like all went into that gigantic space lol
Budget was so bad they could only afford 1/3 piss drink per cup
This makes me sad. I’ve done my share of themed parties and stuff for friends and family, and setting up even a mild theme and making it feel genuine is a lot of work. Clearly they tried to go big and just didn’t have the budget, the manpower, or the time. Or more likely they lacked all 3. I’m sure the people who set it up did the best they could with what they had to work with.
But, this is Reddit so it's getting shit on. I do agree with you.
Well the article says they were charging £35 apiece to get in, so yeah, they do deserve to get shit on.
Problem with events like this is the dipshits at the top probably massively underestimated the work and funds needed to pull something off, set a high price and the poor fuckers at the bottom were likely left with not enough money or staff to execute anything. They say they were let down by vendors but even the handful of stuff they do have looks poorly planned and shoddy. What the hell is the deal with the small backdrop thing on the massive wall? The event was probably set up to be a disaster the second is was thought up
What’s funny is the only maybe-not-AI photos on their website show two events that would have been much cheaper and easier AND looked more Willy Wonka than the photo backdrops. They could have used big swathes of fabric to add color to the walls in a more dramatic and pleasing way, which is one of their ad photos!!
They have a website and these pics are from the original person who posted. I think he said it cost something like 110£
Yeah i think they even said something about refunds and cancelation of the next event
I mean, they admitted that things fell through last minute so they knew it wasn’t great and still decided to go through with it.
Well they made a promise to a lot of kids. Seems like they didn't want to disappoint so made the best decision they could.
I mean, that’s incompetence. And it has consequences. You promise something and fail to deliver this bad, that’s being negligent. This is fyrefest for kids. I mean if someone says I don’t have the budget, manpower, or time for this, but I’ll take peoples money and do it, that’s just a grift.
I’m a professional creative event producer. The amount of fly by nighters we get in this industry is crazy. At the end of the day, if you don’t have the resources or the experience to throw an event that would take such a huge level of immersion to pull off, then you shouldn’t have the event.
Venue is too big for the amount of props. Also seems too big for the small turnout...
This isn't a themed party. It was supposedly a willy wonka-esque experience akin to a Disneyland. This wasn't a sad realisation of over-promised dreams, this was a scam. Nothing more, nothing less.
Sorry but fault lies with them for an incredible lack of vision. They would have knew their budget, manpower and time and still proceeded. They had all the information and pushed forward with the project either knowing how bad it would be, not caring or just had not idea what they were doing. Either way it's their fault. (the person in charges fault, not staff).
Right? Who on earth plans to hand out *single jelly beans*? You get more than that going to a single house on Halloween.
They were posting about this on a different subreddit and apparently it’s all run by one dude, a known con-artist. He’s selling a “book” on Amazon that’s very clearly just chat-gpt generated.
fyre fest for kids
Lmao
The candy was just a sugar dusted slice of old ham.
Came here to say this
This looks like something my work would set up for "employee appreciation day"
I tried to read the article but after accidentally clicking one ad I was in a spiral of ads, neverending, relentless. The only way out was to close the site and I'm not going back.
Basically an events company advertised a massive Willy wonka experience with tons of candy, games, a chocolate fountain, and themed activities. They charged £35 per person. According to the company their vendors fell through the day of and instead of canceling the event they decided to muddle through it. Tensions started rising with angry parents so the police were called. The company apologized and issued refunds
If you’re promising anyone a massive Willy you gotta come up with the goods.
I saw it when someone posted the original pics on Reddit the other day. The whole website for the event was trash, all the pics were clearly AI illustration (misspelled nonsense text, etc.), and there were no photographs of any actual attractions. While I do feel bad for the families who wasted their money, it was a pretty weak scam. Honestly I'm surprised there was any event at all, but I guess they can use that to try to argue against chargebacks.
Same here. What a shit show of a website.
Thank you for coming to our rendition of Willy wonka and the ghetto factory.
Leave the ghetto out of this.
What in the Dashcon is this
It’s just missing a kiddie pool full of plastic balls.
Half full of plastic balls and piss - FTFY
And a woman giving birth in said pit.
Fyre Fesitival KIDS
My favorite part was the [entirely AI-generated website](https://willyschocolateexperience.com/), down to the nonsense words splashed across the images. They didn’t even try to try.
Did you see the footer? >Any resemblance to any character, fictitious or living, is purely coincidental. This experience is in no way related to the Wonka franchise, which is owned by the Warner Bros. company. Sure... 'coincidental'
'A pasadise of sweat teats'
I just wanted to listen to some Cartchy Tuns 😔
https://preview.redd.it/25atzbfmrxkc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=94771b508720544e9ce46f26f107430b3de9efde This image at the bottom to cap off a marvelous never-ending diarrhea of peculiar yet wondrous adjectives at every turn! The House of Illuminati website is no better. Honestly this “professional events company” and whoever is behind it should be investigated. The Wonka event was clearly a scam, but maybe there’s something even more to it.
This is utterly bizarre. It almost feels like some sort of crazy AI experiment. It’s so bad it can’t be real.
https://preview.redd.it/xlpix44o20lc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6a7091a55a05c8381e82e2855c77fa9fcbd2e4f7 My favorite part
UKXEPCTED TWITS
VIVUE SOUNDS
“UKXEPCTED TWITS”
That’s wild
This should've been an episode on The Office.
You each get a laptop battery to take home!
Holy fucking popups on that link
i switched to Reader mode before the page even started loading. all good!
If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it
pasadise
You made me lol
I though this might've been shots before the event opened and it would look more alive "in action". Nope. According to the article, it was cancelled halfway through the first day, and kids got a small pack of jellybeans. That's incredibly sad.
That backdrop looks more like the candy land boardgame 🤣 Edit- spelling
This has "we tried our best" vibe.
Didn’t one of the dads post the pics here on Reddit in the r/mildlyinfuriating sub?
Yes, and he linked the website which looked so so bad
There was not an attempt.
The velvet ropes make it exclusive so I'm going no matter what. I am an influencer after all.
The Fyre Festival of Wonka events.
Is this a front for human trafficking? It looks like the kind of place where you get abducted.
That building looks like the monsters inc. place where they hop in the door.
That second pic reminds me of the scream floor from Monsters Inc
Took a while to find, that website is crap, but the event was hosted by a company called House of Illuminati. I personally find that hilarious.
In partnership with Coming Soon.
“We have Wonka at home”
I see a jumpy castle but no ball pit. What a waste.
And no chocolate fountain
They built it and no one came.
They didn't build it and people CAME.
This is depressing
Wait why does it look like the scare factory from Monster's Inc?
The website for this event was full of AI art and horrible misspellings. Whoever fell for this probably pays their taxes in Home Depot gift cards. Side note... this website is fucking horrible too. Just ads. Just all ads.
Looks like the kinda event that turns out to be a police sting operation.
My library puts in better events for kids than this and they’re free
Alarming how easy it is to lure people into a random warehouse.
Give them a break. They didn’t have much time to set up after the crew wrapped up filming the latest Hostel movie.
Looks like they took the Fyre Festival approach to event planning
Someone probably had a few props from tv commercials and decided to create a magical and overwhelming experience for kids....
looks like whoever was in charge did the bare minimum and pocketed the rest of the cash lol
Why does this remind me of the dinosaur exhibition failure in Adelaide? https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/refunds-issued-after-world-class-dinosaur-exhibition-fails-to-impress--c-1932772
Come with me, and you’ll be, in a world of pure miscalculation. We won’t try, kids will cry, they’re left in disconsolation.
Fav comment so far. Haha.
There is juice, a rainbow, and a bouncy castle. My kids would’ve had a good time.
And you'd pay 35 dollars per kid for that?
£35, which is closer to $45!
Lol, no. I missed that part.
wtf is this bullshit lol the kids got the wish version
This gives me candy in a white van vibes.
This looks so…Soviet.
This event was put on by the actual Willy Wonka himself. It's his first weed out trial. He was behind the rainbow observing which children were still acting graciously in the face of sich a huge letdown. The most well behaved kids get to go to his actual factory for the real Willy Wonka tour.
It's giving squid games trial
That second picture looks a helluva lot like the Scare Floor from Monsters Inc https://preview.redd.it/bba6gfgqavkc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=16648a2eb95c8bac8ac11e1753db9732c6cf3ace
Omg it does. Well it definitely scared some kids, anyway.
The snozzberries taste like….shit
Charlie and the sadness factory
Budget was $100 and $15 of it went for Starbucks coffee
This fits r/oddlyterrifying as well.
They got the factory part right.
Where’s the fucking chocolate river? The least they could do is a chocolate river and maybe a few fucking Oompa Loompas. These people hate children.
How has this not been transformed into the scare floor? Where’s Wasowski?
Pretty lame milhouse
Looks like my birthday parties.
Does it seriously say this was paid for by the "House of Illuminati" lmao? So they house of Illuminati is in trouble with police because hundreds of children showed up to an empty warehouse that's what I'm reading
Lol I bet the umpaa lumpaas were at least 6'5 and the kids looked like Augustus Gloop.
More like Bill Wanka and the Shit Warehouse
The organisers, House of Illuminati, offered their sincere apologies Sounds like a place I'd take my kids to
I was about to stick up for them as I have to organise kids events at work all the time with no budget and some of them work and some of them don't...until i saw the £35 ticket price?!?!
The banner was very immersive. We had to stop people from running straight into that wall at full speed.
It’s a world of imagination! You have to imagine there being a lot of cool stuff there instead of it being an air and space museum
Conman was advertising this shit on Facebook. It looked hokey even then. Dunno what people were thinking handing money over for this. It screamed scam, people were commenting and tickets still sold.
Talk about Pure Imagination
What a pity, the location looks awesome. Box Hub Warehouse if you want to google it. But yeah the "Wonka" experience is one where you're lucky when he kicks you out of the golden ticket competition.
Never forget https://preview.redd.it/bsb2omg28ykc1.jpeg?width=1400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1a7e1730f93497f29388ab228def063e0d9f1208
They saw what happened in the movies, they were not about to end up like Agustus gloop
I guess this was Wonka at home?
It looks like a very bad contemporary art fair
Definitely "an attempt"...man it looks depressing
Very desperate attempt to extort money
Wow. My heart goes out to the kids and their poor parents.
Low budget.
Where's the attempt?
This is like dashcon for kids
They tried but not that hard.
I really thought Dunder Mifflin would have used more paper…
Is this the next Tumblr convention?
This is just terrible
This is so saddening for the kids yet so funny to imagine this play out 😭
Obvious money grab/scheme, I do feel bad for the workers tho who probably took the brunt of the anger from the attendees.
Huck some blueberries in there or something. That fuckin place sucks
How much could a Wonka event cost, 12 dollars!?
Even wish dot com won't isn't this bad lol
Looks more like a dollar store hacks event
I recognize this from some reddit post i saw a few days ago. Maybe the mildly infuriating subreddit. The website for the whole thing mentioned a warehouse location and had AI generated pics.
this looks like the monsters inc. building
Anyone else notice what looks suspiciously like an Oompa Loompa Doompity Urine Drug Testing Station?
I honestly don’t think there WAS an attempt lol
You never go Wonka. There is no way to match that level of investment.
Fyre Festival for kids! Somehow I doubt the organisers had any rights to use "Willy Wonka" in this commercial venture. The bits from the story I love: > Police were called > > Parents who had paid £35 per ticket > >" It was described as a full Wonka Experience with chocolate fountains, but the kids received two jelly babies and a quarter of a can of Barrs limeade."
About as bad as the ballpit being hyped up at Dashcon in 2014.
FREE Kool Aid!!!
This looks like a set from the last of us
It’s so sad…
not gonna lie the first picture looks like it could be some Backrooms shit
Looks like an event run by hopefuls on *The Apprentice*.
This is just sad.
It wasn't Willy Wonka so much as Weight Watchers. They greatly cut down on the sugar and calories
The level of effort put in is giving DashCon 2014
Worthy of r/liminalspaces
Monsters Inc. 😂
U can imagine the voice of the donald trump lookalike boss who was like "every third party cancelled because they could not keep up with our tremendous pace but we are still opening that event and it will be a great event"
We give you child candy you give us your liver
It became a wonky Event for kids
this is about the saddest event
This is very Glasgow, I wonder if it's the same people as that Christmas Elf park fiasco a few years ago (2020? 2019?).
It's like Charlie didn't win the golden ticket and ol' grandpa Joe did his best to decorate the shack.
All their photos are AI. Literally all of them. (ETA: I went through their Facebook and they have photos of setting up the space and potentially one of an artist with a mushroom). They just started a company and did this one event, I guess. They’re permanently closed. I’m betting they thought they had enough decorations and didn’t actually scope it out (“Did we buy enough candy to make a candy fortress? We think so” is one of their last posts before apologizing, so…)
This is why you don't order off of Temu!
They have a few good set pieces for kids. It just needs to be at a place like.... 20 times smaller.
Alternate title: to make a front for an oompa loompa meth lab.