Willy's Chocolate Experience

The event was stated to take place over the weekend of 24–25 February 2024. Both the website and promotional material used poor-quality AI-generated images, which included several spelling errors such as "cartchy tuns" and "a pasadise of sweet teats" and nonsensical words such as "catgacating" and "exarserdray". The event was organised by House of Illuminati, a company registered to Billy Coull which claimed to offer "unparalleled immersive experiences". An investigation by Third Force News conducted after the event described Coull's previous "murky involvement in the charity sector." Coull had previously registered several other companies and claimed to work as a "consultant" for the now-defunct brand Empowerity, Another actor playing Willy McDuff was 18-year-old Michael Archibald; the experience was his first ever acting job, and he was given the script at 6 pm on Friday before the event began on Saturday. Kirsty Paterson, an actress who played one of the Oompa-Loompas (called "Wonkidoodles" in the script), said that the job offer had been posted on Indeed.com and offered £500 for two days of work. Paterson was given her costume an hour before the event opened, saying that "We were just handed an Amazon box that probably arrived that morning." == Script ==

The script for the event is titled ''Wonkidoodles at McDuff's Chocolate Factory: A Script'', and describes Willy McDuff leading an audience through the Garden of Enchantment and the Twilight Tunnel. McDuff defeats The Unknown by amplifying the power of the gobstopper and causing his enemy to be "gently swept up by a robotic vacuum, humorously ending the confrontation". == Event ==

The event was held at the Box Hub Warehouse event space in Whiteinch, an industrial area of Glasgow. and props which were "strewn about on bare concrete floors". The venue's windows were dirty and its air conditioning systems were left exposed. Paterson has stated that by the time she saw the venue, she had already signed her contract and "didn't want to disappoint the kids", and thus chose to proceed with the work. who wore a silver mask and a black cloak. Young children were frightened by the character, who appeared from behind a large rectangular mirror. Despite the script calling for The Unknown to be defeated with a vacuum cleaner, no such prop was provided, and actors were instead asked to improvise. After returning from a lunch break, Connell encountered a crowd of customers demanding refunds from Coull, and the other actors were unsure what to do next. After being told that the event was now cancelled halfway through its opening day, the actors left and went to a pub. Upon returning to the venue some time later, Connell said that he felt "the threat of violence had become quite high" and that there were two police vans and two squad cars at the scene. ==Customer reviews and response==

Willy's Chocolate Experience was widely criticised by those who attended it, many of whom demanded refunds. ==Fundraising==

In an interview with Wired magazine, Connell stated that he and the other actors were working with parents to provide a free show for the children who attended. while the Monorail Music record store in Glasgow auctioned two of the backdrops "rescued from the bin by a pal of the shop" for £2,250, with the proceeds going to the Medical Aid for Palestinians charity. ==In popular culture==

A photo of a dispirited Paterson playing a "Wonkidoodle" in the "Jellybean Room" (a table covered in chemistry equipment) became a viral phenomenon. The character of "The Unknown" was also featured in several memes, The event was spoofed on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in April 2024 in a skit called "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Part Two", featuring Freddie Highmore, who had played Charlie Bucket in the 2005 film adaptation of the novel. In February 2025, John Oliver compared the United States Department of Government Efficiency, then headed by Elon Musk, to the event due to their "stark disconnect between marketing and reality." Felicia Dawkins and one of the actors who played Willy also appeared in the "Glasgow Willy Wonka Experience Quiz and Game Experience" in April, a night hosted by theatre company Awkwardprods at the Clapham Grand in London, featuring performers including drag queen Kate Butch. On 6 March 2024, Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party and future Prime Minister, joked in the House of Commons that it seemed Jeremy Hunt, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, had been taking marketing lessons from the event, in reference to Hunt's promises regarding childcare. Similarly, Conservative MP Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the House of Commons at the time, joked that she was under the impression that the Scottish National Party had organised the Glasgow event given its "high cost, poor return, and the fact that the police were called", alluding to Operation Branchform. An hour-long documentary about the event, called Wonka: The Scandal that Rocked Britain, was commissioned by Channel 5 on 6 March 2024 and broadcast on 16 March 2024. The documentary received 2 stars out of 5 from The Guardian, which described it as having "the strong whiff of someone vastly overexplaining the joke" and that the "only real scoop" was the interview with Coull. The Guardian was positive in its review of the event, noting that Paterson was severely jetlagged during her performance but asked, "how can you complain when shoddiness is the point?" Richard Kraft produced a musical stage reading about the event for the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the director Andy Fickman, and Kirsty Paterson, who played herself and a narrator. Additionally, he recruited cast members from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory Paris Themmen, who had played Mike Teevee, and Julie Dawn Cole, who had played Veruca Salt. Multiple subsequent events have been compared to Willy's Chocolate Experience. These include the Detroit Bridgerton Themed Ball in September 2024, Christmas Spectacular Bury St Edmunds in December 2024, the A Million Lives Book Festival in Baltimore, Maryland in May 2025, and the Barbie Dream Fest in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. ==Legal issues==

In April 2026, the event organiser, Coull, was charged with sex attacks against a woman and two teenagers. == See also ==