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An immersive disaster

Opinion on the recent Willy Wonka Experience
Graphic created in Canva by Anthony Capobianco
Graphic created in Canva by Anthony Capobianco
Anthony Capobianco

What was advertised as an “immersive experience” for kids turned out to be an actual nightmare. The Willy Wonka esc event advertised with fun, fantasy images was eagerly anticipated by many families in Glasgow, Scotland. The event promised treats, drinks and an overall fun time. Well it turns out the event was actually a bare warehouse, the images were made with AI and the only “treats” given to kids were one singular jelly bean and a half cup of lemonade. The event was so bad that parents eventually called the cops. 

This nightmare event was made by a company called “House of Illuminati.” They marked this with AI images galore, promising “a chocolate fantasy” and “optical marvels” sounding just as AI as those images. Parents expecting a chocolate fantasy ended up paying $44 per ticket. To make matters worse, in a deleted Instagram post the creator promised refunds, but people still aren’t getting any refunds. 

I genuinely feel bad because the actors were conned as well. They were also expecting something similar to the promo images and who knows if they even got paid. One of the Oompa Loompas went on to say that she’s scared her acting career will be tarnished. They were also told to memorize a script in two d

Screenshot from “aftermidnight””s TikTok page

ays, written by AI, just for them to be told to improv and make up their own lines once they got on set. 

As you may know, this made its way all over social media. With that Oompa Loompa picture, the video of the character The Unknown and just videos and pictures of the overall event, people are joking about this everywhere. I mean, I don’t really blame them. Other than the money, this is hilarious.

As of right now, according to Bloody Disgusting there is an indie-horror movie based on The Unknown character from the experience in the works and I don’t know how to feel. Hopefully the movie doesn’t take itself seriously, like that awful Winnie the Pooh movie, and they make it a horror-comedy. I mean, assuming it’s scary. And decent. 

Although this is funny, it’s also kind of serious. Hopefully in the future everyone gets refunds and the actors get paid. Although the chances of that seem pretty slim.

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About the Contributor
Anthony Capobianco
Anthony Capobianco, Multimedia Editor
Anthony Capobianco is serving his second year on staff as the Multimedia Editor. Capobianco likes to create films, or videos about real life or fiction. He mainly specializes in the editing and brainstorming of them. He likes to create films and videos to express himself in his favorite way possible.  Capobianco also likes to write articles, music and stories. He’s been writing for a large portion of his life and is excited to keep going for the Trail. He likes to write to bring light or awareness about issues that either are not talked about enough or are “taboo” subjects.  Capobianco plans on making high quality multimedia projects for the Trail. He hopes that The Trail can get the SNO multimedia badge and have another successful year.
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