Glasgow Willy Wonka experience creator: my life is ruined, I lost all my friends
Last month, Kiddie Fyre Fest went down in Whiteinch, Glasgow. “Willy’s Chocolate Experience” was supposed to be an “immersive experience” into the world of Willy Wonka and his chocolate factory. It was marketed with AI images and advertisements that promised an “enchanted” day at the Candy Man’s factory. As we know now, it ended up being a scam. Families were charged more than $40 per ticket to tour a warehouse with low-budget decorations, dejected-looking performers, a terrible script, an evil chocolate-maker character that wore a black cloak and scary mask and randomly jumped out to scare kids for no reason, and, perhaps worst of all, NO chocolate! Attendees were pissed and ended up calling the police, leading to a thousand new memes and jokes being born online.
Well, now the event’s organizer, a man named Billy Coull, is speaking out to complain about just how much the bad publicity has “ruined” his life. Coull, who is the director of the House of Illuminati group, participated in a documentary about the whole incident. During his interview, he both complains and explains how it all went so wrong. According to Billy, the warehouse was too big, the projection equipment never arrived, and he ran the script through AI to check for any “grammar, spelling, and continuity” mistakes. Oh, and he also claims that thanks to the mob mentality that spiraled everything out-of-control, he’s lost all of his friends and his partner. Cry him a chocolate river, friends.
During the documentary, Billy Coull, who was the director of the company behind the ‘immersive event’, said he is not a scam artist and the event has ‘ruined his life’.
He added: “My life has been turned upside, my life is ruined.”
He then went on to say he has had hundreds of messages of hate, with people even telling him to ‘kill himself’. He added: “It’s not a nice feeling to be under the microscope. I was getting hundreds and hundreds calling me the most awful names saying I’m a villain, I’m a horrific dad, I’m better off dead, I should kill myself. I was devastated and I was sick to the pit of my tummy, I had a whole host of emotions.”
As parents are still out of pocket following the event, Billy said he is in the process of refunding and is going through many emails. He said: “I am not a scam artist, I am not a con man or anything like that. I have gone through the transactions individually, they are still ongoing, if people haven’t received a refund, I have gone through many emails and said to people if you’ve not had your refund, contact your bank as they may have processes in place to be able to help it. I genuinely done what I can.”
He broke down in tears as he said he has ‘lost everything’.
Billy added: “Because of everything that had happened it ran into my personal life, I have lost my friends and the love of my life. I was made out to be the face of all evil. When genuinely that is really not the case.”
Billy said the event had been going well the first few run throughs until he was approached by parents. He continued: “It started going wrong when I had been approached by a very angry parent and before I knew it, it was just absolute chaos and an absolute nightmare. I did not even see where the anger had come from… and before long I was engulfed with angry parents, it was more like a mob mentality it was absolute carnage and at that point I was like ok enough is enough, I need to shut this down.
Billy said he started to have concerns before the event even started, he added: “The venue itself was too large for what I wanted to do. At the time although I wasn’t happy with it I didn’t think it would make that big of an impact.”
He went on to say that projector equipment to make a ‘fully immersive space’ didn’t arrive, leaving him gutted, however he still wanted to ‘push on’ and make it work. Billy said the script was written by himself but admitted that due to suffering from dyslexia, he ran it through AI to ‘check spelling, grammar and continuity’.
However, after the backlash, Billy decided to cancel the event. He said: “The last thing I wanted to see was children being upset by frustrated parents.”
A video of Billy dealing with angry parents is then shown in the programme and Billy is asked if he has watched it. He says: “I have. I’m not confrontational and I don’t deal well in those sort of situations. It shows me as someone who is not compassionate and as someone who doesn’t care. It shows the worst versions of myself.”
He then added: “I was hoping for an event that was joyful, happy and wanted people to experience happiness.”
The documentary makers stated that Billy was not paid during filming.
Woof. Where to start? Billy saying that he thought it was going well until parents began complaining directly contradicts what some of the actors have said about what they experienced. To them, it was a sh-t show with no guidance from the start. I used to work for a membership-based organization that routinely provided luncheons, meetings, and other events for its members. We were always well-prepared ahead of time, but of course there were times when we’d run into unexpected situations! We came up with contingent plans and on-the-spot solutions. Billy never thought to even ask a production member to run over to the Glasgow Costco to buy more lemonade and pick up some chocolate?
You know how when a child knows they’re going to get in trouble for something and starts loudly crying about something else to make you feel badly for them in an attempt to distract you from the wrongdoing? That’s my first impression of how Billy is coming across right now. My dude, you f–cked up. Own it, apologize, and move on. I’m sorry you lost your friends and partner, but if they left you over that one disastrous incident, then they either weren’t really there for you to begin with or this isn’t the first time you’ve behaved this way and they were over it.
Photos via Twitter and screenshots from Channel 5 via Metro.co.uk
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7pLHLnpmirJOdxm%2BvzqZmcW5ibYZ4e8almKyfn6ysuLXLpbCYr5%2BjuKKrxLGnnqqZmruksb6cqZ6ZpKS%2FoLnYmKOinpWUtrSr0a6gp52UlLaguM6sq5iZnKGsrsW%2Bn6minZ6ZwHA%3D