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February 27, 2024 1:03 PM Subscribe
Chaotic off-brand Willy Wonka pop-up exhibit ends with police intervention
Obviously, when the poor Charlie And The Chocolate Factory enthusiasts showed up at Box Hub Warehouse, the event looked nothing like what the event description suggested. Instead, they were confronted with a sad-looking, mostly empty warehouse with a bouncy house and some ramshackle decorations. Jack Proctor, a dad who took his kids to the event, told STV News that “we stepped inside to find a disorganized mini-maze of randomly placed oversized props, a lackluster candy station that dispersed one jelly bean per child, and a terrifying chrome-masked character that scared many of the kids to tears.” [...] "The Oompa Loompa from the knock off Wonka land experience looks like she’s running a literal meth lab and is seriously questioning the life choices up until this point."The face behind Willy Wonka 'scam': How Billy Coull 'conned' kids by using AI generated images to sell 'immersive' experience - More shocking pictures emerge of ‘shambles’ Willy Wonka experience - Employee contracts signed with "erasable ink" - Actor hired as Willy Wonka for cancelled event called it a place 'where dreams went to die' - 'Willy Wonka' chocolate experience boss 'truly sorry' after 'chaos' - Read the ChatGPT-generated event "script" [PDF]
So maybe now we have a word that explains how all of those people got their cats wedged into their scanners:
catgacating.
posted by nushustu at 1:20 PM on February 27 [6 favorites]
catgacating.
posted by nushustu at 1:20 PM on February 27 [6 favorites]
This is such a perfect storm of everything shitty around us. I know it sucks, and I'm angry, but I also am laughing my ass off because it is all so incredibly dumb. It is like a synecdoche of the past few years all in one sad children's experience.
posted by Literaryhero at 1:24 PM on February 27 [46 favorites]
posted by Literaryhero at 1:24 PM on February 27 [46 favorites]
Wow, this might actually be worse than the ball pit nonsense at Dashcon.
posted by loquacious at 1:32 PM on February 27 [17 favorites]
posted by loquacious at 1:32 PM on February 27 [17 favorites]
This reminds me of the sort of pathetic "fantastical amazing spectacle"-type events that were typical anywhere outside of larger cities in the 70's, because nobody had the kind of money it took to put on a real spectacle. Witness the probably-terrible-even-when-new "Enchanted Forest" park near Salem OR (Flickr album of a 2010 IRL outing), as a typical example.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:36 PM on February 27 [9 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:36 PM on February 27 [9 favorites]
Charlie and the Fyre Festival
posted by tclark at 1:43 PM on February 27 [45 favorites]
posted by tclark at 1:43 PM on February 27 [45 favorites]
Goddamit, Slugworth.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:47 PM on February 27 [11 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:47 PM on February 27 [11 favorites]
Banksy's Dismaland in 2015 is proving sadly prophetic.
A "premium" Christmas event from 2017: The reality was a grotto in a disorganised kitchenette, a Chris Kringle with a fake, elastic beard and an ice-rink made of plastic plates. The event, has now been cancelled and organisers have promised to give out refunds.
posted by Lanark at 1:52 PM on February 27 [4 favorites]
A "premium" Christmas event from 2017: The reality was a grotto in a disorganised kitchenette, a Chris Kringle with a fake, elastic beard and an ice-rink made of plastic plates. The event, has now been cancelled and organisers have promised to give out refunds.
posted by Lanark at 1:52 PM on February 27 [4 favorites]
The cops tazed Grandpa Joe and that made it all worthwhile.
posted by dr_dank at 1:54 PM on February 27 [3 favorites]
posted by dr_dank at 1:54 PM on February 27 [3 favorites]
As a geneticist, I've done my share of catgacating.
posted by Phssthpok at 1:58 PM on February 27 [23 favorites]
posted by Phssthpok at 1:58 PM on February 27 [23 favorites]
Yeah, I feel like this is the kind of thing where like, if you'd done this for a kid's birthday party, everyone would be fine about it - but when you're charging people 50-60$ USD apiece to enter such a thing, there's going to be riot.
And there's just no way these kinds of things can ever live up to the hype of them, with the cost differential and how much things cost now. It's the same thing with the 'X Experience' items that are popping up all over, just with the dial turned to 10. The only way they make money is by offering a really paltry experience and hoping there's enough razzle dazzle/hype that people don't complain about it afterwards. For example: people rave about the Bridgerton Experience, but if you look at reviews, people talk about it being rushed, there being no food, long lines, and it basically just being an expensive and short prom that people got to take selfies at. And they have actors that they're able to pay only because the main goal of it all is promotion.
I have no idea how an independent venue could offer enough value for people not to feel ripped off at those prices, starting out as a one-off.
posted by corb at 1:58 PM on February 27 [1 favorite]
And there's just no way these kinds of things can ever live up to the hype of them, with the cost differential and how much things cost now. It's the same thing with the 'X Experience' items that are popping up all over, just with the dial turned to 10. The only way they make money is by offering a really paltry experience and hoping there's enough razzle dazzle/hype that people don't complain about it afterwards. For example: people rave about the Bridgerton Experience, but if you look at reviews, people talk about it being rushed, there being no food, long lines, and it basically just being an expensive and short prom that people got to take selfies at. And they have actors that they're able to pay only because the main goal of it all is promotion.
I have no idea how an independent venue could offer enough value for people not to feel ripped off at those prices, starting out as a one-off.
posted by corb at 1:58 PM on February 27 [1 favorite]
this makes me very sad but i can’t quite put my finger on why. it’s i guess the combination of lying (i hate lying!) and it being an event for kids (don’t lie to kids!!)
also the whole ai script thing, that’s bad and also full of lies that actors are supposed to tell children, lies that the author of the lies never even read.
i guess probably the core of the sadness for me is the knowledge that everyone everywhere all the time is heavily incentivized to do things that are as slapdash as possible and with a minimum of love because love costs time and money and lies are cheap and fast.
ugh.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:07 PM on February 27 [32 favorites]
also the whole ai script thing, that’s bad and also full of lies that actors are supposed to tell children, lies that the author of the lies never even read.
i guess probably the core of the sadness for me is the knowledge that everyone everywhere all the time is heavily incentivized to do things that are as slapdash as possible and with a minimum of love because love costs time and money and lies are cheap and fast.
ugh.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:07 PM on February 27 [32 favorites]
As a geneticist, I've done my share of catgacating.
oh! that's why they called it 'gattaca'
posted by logicpunk at 2:11 PM on February 27 [16 favorites]
oh! that's why they called it 'gattaca'
posted by logicpunk at 2:11 PM on February 27 [16 favorites]
"I thought we were going to get an authentic Wonka experience" says parent who apparently missed most of the horrifying plot of the Willy Wonka story.
posted by srboisvert at 2:25 PM on February 27 [50 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 2:25 PM on February 27 [50 favorites]
This is an extremely accurate recreation of the recent drab, gray Wonka prequel though.
posted by acidic at 2:34 PM on February 27
posted by acidic at 2:34 PM on February 27
I have no idea how an independent venue could offer enough value for people not to feel ripped off at those prices, starting out as a one-off.
Just personally, I was so jazzed after visiting "immersive experience" Omega Mart (by Meow Wolf) in Las Vegas that I'm kind of planning a road trip to visit the versions in Santa Fe and Denver. Vegas does weird things to your perception of cost, but at $50 a visit, spending a couple hours in Omega Mart is way more attractive to me than a couple hands of blackjack, and I barely scratched the surface of all the things going on in the back areas there.
I've also seen one of the immersive Van Gogh things, and that was interesting, but not compared to the price level for a ticket.
posted by LionIndex at 2:45 PM on February 27 [12 favorites]
Just personally, I was so jazzed after visiting "immersive experience" Omega Mart (by Meow Wolf) in Las Vegas that I'm kind of planning a road trip to visit the versions in Santa Fe and Denver. Vegas does weird things to your perception of cost, but at $50 a visit, spending a couple hours in Omega Mart is way more attractive to me than a couple hands of blackjack, and I barely scratched the surface of all the things going on in the back areas there.
I've also seen one of the immersive Van Gogh things, and that was interesting, but not compared to the price level for a ticket.
posted by LionIndex at 2:45 PM on February 27 [12 favorites]
The documentary series must already be in the works, which, if i'm being cynical, i'd say was the entire point.
posted by bookwo3107 at 2:49 PM on February 27 [2 favorites]
posted by bookwo3107 at 2:49 PM on February 27 [2 favorites]
I'm laughing that they thought they could get away with this by referring to the book instead of the movies - let's see how Netflix feels about that.
But please let us NOT compare this grift to Enchanted Forest! That place is delightfully deranged, at least it was when I visited in 2017. Renaming some of the Seven Dwarfs Dingy and Droopy because you don't have the IP rights to the Disney names is hilarious, and not in a "wtf is this" GenAI sort of way. And that ramshackle roller coaster! I totally felt like we got our money's worth.
posted by queensissy at 2:50 PM on February 27 [15 favorites]
But please let us NOT compare this grift to Enchanted Forest! That place is delightfully deranged, at least it was when I visited in 2017. Renaming some of the Seven Dwarfs Dingy and Droopy because you don't have the IP rights to the Disney names is hilarious, and not in a "wtf is this" GenAI sort of way. And that ramshackle roller coaster! I totally felt like we got our money's worth.
posted by queensissy at 2:50 PM on February 27 [15 favorites]
Here's the event planning organization's website. It looks like it only went up a few months ago (and before that the URL was owned by an actual old-men-with-pyramid-eye-regalia Illuminati group).
It's all "AI"-generated images except for a couple:
This page is the only one that appears to show a photo of any prior event they've put on. But...a reverse image search reveals it's from a 2015 event put on by a still-existing corporate events group called The Eventologists.
And then this page appears to show a craftsperson producing one of the few bespoke props visible in the news coverage of the Wonka event. Seems at first like evidence that he was really trying to put on an okay show -- he hired people to make giant mushrooms! -- but what I don't understand is: how do you possibly end up with such a low-res photo these days?
Oh, wait -- a reverse image search on that one reveals it to be a crop of the poster image you see before hitting play on this Sculpture Studios video from 2018. But that's still too high-res. But ctrl-f for "mushroom" on the Sculpture Studio's own webpage and you'll find the low-res version he probably swiped. Bizarre!
posted by nobody at 2:53 PM on February 27 [6 favorites]
It's all "AI"-generated images except for a couple:
This page is the only one that appears to show a photo of any prior event they've put on. But...a reverse image search reveals it's from a 2015 event put on by a still-existing corporate events group called The Eventologists.
And then this page appears to show a craftsperson producing one of the few bespoke props visible in the news coverage of the Wonka event. Seems at first like evidence that he was really trying to put on an okay show -- he hired people to make giant mushrooms! -- but what I don't understand is: how do you possibly end up with such a low-res photo these days?
Oh, wait -- a reverse image search on that one reveals it to be a crop of the poster image you see before hitting play on this Sculpture Studios video from 2018. But that's still too high-res. But ctrl-f for "mushroom" on the Sculpture Studio's own webpage and you'll find the low-res version he probably swiped. Bizarre!
posted by nobody at 2:53 PM on February 27 [6 favorites]
ukxpected twits
Can confirm that that is the usual xpectation in the uk these days.
posted by rory at 2:55 PM on February 27 [5 favorites]
Can confirm that that is the usual xpectation in the uk these days.
posted by rory at 2:55 PM on February 27 [5 favorites]
So now AI is coming for the jobs of the deranged people who create comedic horror?
posted by clawsoon at 3:06 PM on February 27 [2 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 3:06 PM on February 27 [2 favorites]
a lackluster candy station that dispersed one jelly bean per child
Here's hoping that he gets sued by the Onion.
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:17 PM on February 27 [9 favorites]
Here's hoping that he gets sued by the Onion.
posted by Halloween Jack at 3:17 PM on February 27 [9 favorites]
Back in the 90s when I was in college, a friend of mine who was big into comics decided he wanted to make a comics convention in our small-ish town. Comics and nerd culture were on the rise and conventions were starting to be big events. So he planned and planned, got some local businesses to sponsor the convention, and we got some celebrities to come. Just a few, but one was a big get, well known in nerd culture at the time.
So we basically took over all the rooms in the local Holiday Inn, but the huge festive convention, with hundreds of people milling about…just didn’t happen. I was there selling tickets, and long story short, it was very sparsely attended, and there weren’t that many people or booths or just things to do in the first place. I have a terrible memory of a huge convention room with a big screen TV playing some movie and a dozen or so mostly empty chairs…that was the big “movie event” room. Even on the first day, we got people complaining how there was nothing to this convention, and they wanted their money back.
My friend who organized the whole thing was running around constantly, but I think he was just trying to look busy. At one point I asked him about how things were going and for the first time I saw him kind of break, and on the verge of tears said this whole thing was a bust. And then we had to go through with a whole other day of it. It wasn’t a total fiasco; there was one panel that went quite well and even went far overtime because everyone was enjoying it. But overall I cringe at the memory of that weekend, and this event brought it all back.
posted by zardoz at 3:29 PM on February 27 [21 favorites]
So we basically took over all the rooms in the local Holiday Inn, but the huge festive convention, with hundreds of people milling about…just didn’t happen. I was there selling tickets, and long story short, it was very sparsely attended, and there weren’t that many people or booths or just things to do in the first place. I have a terrible memory of a huge convention room with a big screen TV playing some movie and a dozen or so mostly empty chairs…that was the big “movie event” room. Even on the first day, we got people complaining how there was nothing to this convention, and they wanted their money back.
My friend who organized the whole thing was running around constantly, but I think he was just trying to look busy. At one point I asked him about how things were going and for the first time I saw him kind of break, and on the verge of tears said this whole thing was a bust. And then we had to go through with a whole other day of it. It wasn’t a total fiasco; there was one panel that went quite well and even went far overtime because everyone was enjoying it. But overall I cringe at the memory of that weekend, and this event brought it all back.
posted by zardoz at 3:29 PM on February 27 [21 favorites]
a lackluster candy station that dispersed one jelly bean per child
Yeah. But did any of the children go all the way through the warehouse and then politely hand the jelly bean back. No? Well then everyone needs to go read a book…how obvious could it be that the only way to the real Willy Wonka Experience is to get into character. Amateur hour by the participants.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 3:35 PM on February 27 [9 favorites]
Yeah. But did any of the children go all the way through the warehouse and then politely hand the jelly bean back. No? Well then everyone needs to go read a book…how obvious could it be that the only way to the real Willy Wonka Experience is to get into character. Amateur hour by the participants.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 3:35 PM on February 27 [9 favorites]
Oh come on, those parents were lucky. I heard about a Willy Wonka event where a little girl had some kind of allergic reaction, turned purple and swelled up like an enormous beach ball. She wound up being "juiced" by a bunch of workers with no medical training. She never recovered, and ended up in prison after freaking out and nearly killing a UPS driver with dyed green hair.
posted by PlusDistance at 3:53 PM on February 27 [22 favorites]
posted by PlusDistance at 3:53 PM on February 27 [22 favorites]
But it promised “a pasadise of sweet teats"!!!
posted by Kitteh at 4:10 PM on February 27 [7 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 4:10 PM on February 27 [7 favorites]
> My friend who organized the whole thing was running around constantly, but I think he was just trying to look busy. At one point I asked him about how things were going and for the first time I saw him kind of break, and on the verge of tears said this whole thing was a bust.
my takeaway here is that as a rule one should do a small thing and make sure that it works — and is ideally way too crowded so you know there's lots of demand — before moving on to doing a big thing.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 4:41 PM on February 27 [5 favorites]
my takeaway here is that as a rule one should do a small thing and make sure that it works — and is ideally way too crowded so you know there's lots of demand — before moving on to doing a big thing.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 4:41 PM on February 27 [5 favorites]
okay but also i literally have to not think about this cluster anymore because it makes me me maximally sad, just sad top to bottom, that the world incentivizes doing big things sloppy and then running off with the cash and it incentivizes it so hard that it takes a unique type of blinkered narcissistic bad-at-things for someone doing the stupid sloppy big thing for cash to fuck it up so hard that they get embarrassed for it and then have to give back the cash that they stupided out of kids who deserved to have a wonka experience with lots of candy and grass that giggles and actors who are happy to be reading good scripts instead of having to come up with stuff on the fly because the ai script they were handed was full of lies and badness and who are sad and want to leave but they can't leave because if they left the children who deserve to have good things would get an even worse thing than they're already getting.
like one of the linked articles has a picture of a little kid in a pretty great oompa-loompa costume and that picture makes me so sad because that kid and all the other kids deserve grownups who are smart and non-venial enough to put as much love and smarts and cares into their big event as that kid put into a little costume.
people of the world: when you're making stuff for kids please make that stuff good. kids deserve good things. like, sheesh, this is not something i should have to make bombastic lowercase pronouncements about, but here we are.
this has been your bombastic and very sad lowercase pronouncement for the day
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 4:42 PM on February 27 [27 favorites]
like one of the linked articles has a picture of a little kid in a pretty great oompa-loompa costume and that picture makes me so sad because that kid and all the other kids deserve grownups who are smart and non-venial enough to put as much love and smarts and cares into their big event as that kid put into a little costume.
people of the world: when you're making stuff for kids please make that stuff good. kids deserve good things. like, sheesh, this is not something i should have to make bombastic lowercase pronouncements about, but here we are.
this has been your bombastic and very sad lowercase pronouncement for the day
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 4:42 PM on February 27 [27 favorites]
I know it's cliche to bring everything back to capitalism, but it's literally true that you can't charge people enough to do the good version of this because people just don't have it.
All the billionaires have it, and that's why we can't have nice things like Santa's Village anymore.
posted by Horkus at 4:46 PM on February 27 [5 favorites]
All the billionaires have it, and that's why we can't have nice things like Santa's Village anymore.
posted by Horkus at 4:46 PM on February 27 [5 favorites]
I will not tolerate this Enchanted Forest slander. Roger Tofte is a genius outsider artist and his park is awesome. I can't say I enjoyed the summer I worked there, though—so much kiddie barf.
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 5:14 PM on February 27 [6 favorites]
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 5:14 PM on February 27 [6 favorites]
The spiritual successors to Tofte and the Enchanted Forest are these delightfully deranged teenagers in Northeast Oregon.
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 5:21 PM on February 27 [7 favorites]
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 5:21 PM on February 27 [7 favorites]
Kamp Krusty!
posted by avocet at 5:39 PM on February 27 [6 favorites]
posted by avocet at 5:39 PM on February 27 [6 favorites]
Thinking about the attendee who described himself as a “devoted Wonka fan” and what that could mean.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:42 PM on February 27 [2 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 5:42 PM on February 27 [2 favorites]
All the billionaires have it, and that's why we can't have nice things like Santa's Village anymore.
Not to reverse slander capitalism, but Santa's Village is actually alive and well. Now, Six Gun City...
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 6:07 PM on February 27
Not to reverse slander capitalism, but Santa's Village is actually alive and well. Now, Six Gun City...
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 6:07 PM on February 27
oh! that's why they called it 'gattaca'
I don't know if it's ever been confirmed but I know when that movie came out I searched through the sequence I was working on and found it. So yeah, the CPSase III sequence of X. laevis contains 'GATTACA' despite being slightly, statistically improbable.
(It sounds boring and technical but in the big picture it's kind of cool: for sea creatures to move onto land they had to not only figure out how to breathe in oxygen and out co2, but figure out a way to "breathe out" ammonia to replace what their gills/skin had been doing in the ocean. On land, that meant converting ammonia into urea, concentrating it with kidney-like organs, and peeing out their wastes. How that process evolved is complicated and interesting, and apparently based on how they learned to regulate the osmotic balance of their tissues to switch between salt water and fresh, just like modern sharks, salmon, and amphibians. It's an evolutionary lateral capture of function, the enzymes responsible for using urea to balance osmosis in brackish tidal waters repurposed into making dry land life possible by peeing out excess ammonia. The next time you use the bathroom, think of Carbamoyl Phosphate Sythetase and your ancestor Tiktallik who made it all possible!)
posted by traveler_ at 7:08 PM on February 27 [31 favorites]
I don't know if it's ever been confirmed but I know when that movie came out I searched through the sequence I was working on and found it. So yeah, the CPSase III sequence of X. laevis contains 'GATTACA' despite being slightly, statistically improbable.
(It sounds boring and technical but in the big picture it's kind of cool: for sea creatures to move onto land they had to not only figure out how to breathe in oxygen and out co2, but figure out a way to "breathe out" ammonia to replace what their gills/skin had been doing in the ocean. On land, that meant converting ammonia into urea, concentrating it with kidney-like organs, and peeing out their wastes. How that process evolved is complicated and interesting, and apparently based on how they learned to regulate the osmotic balance of their tissues to switch between salt water and fresh, just like modern sharks, salmon, and amphibians. It's an evolutionary lateral capture of function, the enzymes responsible for using urea to balance osmosis in brackish tidal waters repurposed into making dry land life possible by peeing out excess ammonia. The next time you use the bathroom, think of Carbamoyl Phosphate Sythetase and your ancestor Tiktallik who made it all possible!)
posted by traveler_ at 7:08 PM on February 27 [31 favorites]
Here's the event planning organization's website.
I especially like the black-on-black 'terms and conditions' page that you've already agreed to just by visiting the site.
posted by dg at 7:49 PM on February 27 [1 favorite]
I especially like the black-on-black 'terms and conditions' page that you've already agreed to just by visiting the site.
posted by dg at 7:49 PM on February 27 [1 favorite]
Will this kind of thing mean that that kind of smooth, pretty, colourful AI imagery that's in the event website gets associated with cheap-and-nasty?
posted by Zumbador at 8:12 PM on February 27 [8 favorites]
posted by Zumbador at 8:12 PM on February 27 [8 favorites]
okay but also i literally have to not think about this cluster anymore because it makes me me maximally sad, just sad top to bottom, that the world incentivizes doing big things sloppy and then running off with the cash
It is so, so, so sad to sit and really think about what it means that we live this way now?? I mean this type of "immersive experience" tends to be a bunch of instagram set pieces created on blank walls with projected images & animations (see: all the Van Gogh crap of the last few years), or some popular film/television props and sets recreated for people to take selfies in front of. Even murals in community spaces are catering to this model--how many giant angel and/or butterfly wingspans have you seen on the sides of downtown buildings in [any town at all]?
That such a "Wonka experience" would be advertised is predictable. But the cynical and frankly mean-spirited execution of it? It's just so bleak.
posted by knotty knots at 8:17 PM on February 27 [5 favorites]
It is so, so, so sad to sit and really think about what it means that we live this way now?? I mean this type of "immersive experience" tends to be a bunch of instagram set pieces created on blank walls with projected images & animations (see: all the Van Gogh crap of the last few years), or some popular film/television props and sets recreated for people to take selfies in front of. Even murals in community spaces are catering to this model--how many giant angel and/or butterfly wingspans have you seen on the sides of downtown buildings in [any town at all]?
That such a "Wonka experience" would be advertised is predictable. But the cynical and frankly mean-spirited execution of it? It's just so bleak.
posted by knotty knots at 8:17 PM on February 27 [5 favorites]
> Will this kind of thing mean that that kind of smooth, pretty, colourful AI imagery that's in the event website gets associated with cheap-and-nasty?
🌎 🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:23 PM on February 27 [18 favorites]
🌎 🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:23 PM on February 27 [18 favorites]
Witness the probably-terrible-even-when-new "Enchanted Forest" park near Salem OR (Flickr album of a 2010 IRL outing), as a typical example.
Sorry, no- that looks amazing. Clean, functional, well maintained, small scale forest theme park.
Not to reverse slander capitalism, but Santa's Village is actually alive and well.
Not my Santa's Village, sadly. I went there a bunch I was a kid- it was actually pretty low rent. There was one ride that had a rusty metal horse pulling a chariot, on a track around a castle. As the motorized chariot chugged around the castle and the back came into view it was just a bunch of plywood boards with other pieces of wood holding it up- not a single decorative effort whatsoever. So janky. I loved it.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:23 PM on February 27 [2 favorites]
Sorry, no- that looks amazing. Clean, functional, well maintained, small scale forest theme park.
Not to reverse slander capitalism, but Santa's Village is actually alive and well.
Not my Santa's Village, sadly. I went there a bunch I was a kid- it was actually pretty low rent. There was one ride that had a rusty metal horse pulling a chariot, on a track around a castle. As the motorized chariot chugged around the castle and the back came into view it was just a bunch of plywood boards with other pieces of wood holding it up- not a single decorative effort whatsoever. So janky. I loved it.
posted by oneirodynia at 10:23 PM on February 27 [2 favorites]
This gives me flashbacks to a certain "Haunted House" in San Francisco a few years back (pre-Covid, and probably pre-Fyre Festival as well) that had a similar set-up (a lotta thrills and chills were promised) and a similar outcome (a lackluster, low-effort, disappointing execution and angry, ripped-off customers). Blanking on the name, otherwise I'd provide a link. (We had tickets for it but then had to bail because I got sick. Needless to say we didn't get our money back).
You have to wonder how many similar scams have occurred (pre- and post-Fyre, but mostly the former) with little notice aside from a wave of one-star reviews on Yelp.
posted by gtrwolf at 10:52 PM on February 27 [1 favorite]
You have to wonder how many similar scams have occurred (pre- and post-Fyre, but mostly the former) with little notice aside from a wave of one-star reviews on Yelp.
posted by gtrwolf at 10:52 PM on February 27 [1 favorite]
The organiser of the event seems to a chap called Billy Coull. Who is no stranger to using AI to create shoddy products if his fiction output is any indication
https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Billy-Coull/author/B0CDJY7SBC?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true
posted by gnuhavenpier at 12:18 AM on February 28
https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Billy-Coull/author/B0CDJY7SBC?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true
posted by gnuhavenpier at 12:18 AM on February 28
that's just no coull, Billy.
I can't tell what kind of Glasgow wide-o Mr Coull will become. There are two kinds: the kind that gets caught then disappears into obscurity forever, usually after a severe beating by creditors, and the kind that doubles down and becomes immensely successful while everyone knows they're bent af.
posted by scruss at 1:05 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]
I can't tell what kind of Glasgow wide-o Mr Coull will become. There are two kinds: the kind that gets caught then disappears into obscurity forever, usually after a severe beating by creditors, and the kind that doubles down and becomes immensely successful while everyone knows they're bent af.
posted by scruss at 1:05 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]
Aussies of a certain age will fondly recall that the D-Generation nailed this phenomenon thirty years ago.
posted by rory at 1:43 AM on February 28 [2 favorites]
posted by rory at 1:43 AM on February 28 [2 favorites]
for sea creatures to move onto land they had to not only figure out how to breathe in oxygen and out co2, but figure out a way to "breathe out" ammonia to replace what their gills/skin had been doing in the ocean.
It's a tangent, but is there a reasonably-educated-average-person writeup of this evolutionary process somewhere? It sounds fascinating.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 3:08 AM on February 28
It's a tangent, but is there a reasonably-educated-average-person writeup of this evolutionary process somewhere? It sounds fascinating.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 3:08 AM on February 28
Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish
There's also a PBS show
posted by hydropsyche at 3:51 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]
There's also a PBS show
posted by hydropsyche at 3:51 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]
"off-brand willy" is the name of my next band
posted by graywyvern at 4:29 AM on February 28 [4 favorites]
posted by graywyvern at 4:29 AM on February 28 [4 favorites]
Behold, the Screamatorium of Dr. Frightmarestein!
posted by Servo5678 at 7:05 AM on February 28 [4 favorites]
posted by Servo5678 at 7:05 AM on February 28 [4 favorites]
Not AI-generated, but in being an event that deeply disappointed 7-year-old lego maniac HeroZero Jr., seems appropriate to share here: Brick Fest Live, in its Chicago-area incarnation, was a mostly-empty event hall with scattered buckets of bricks little more enticing than what you'd find at a modern public library kids' section these days.
I had mistaken it for Brick Bash, an amazing Ann Arbor event that we'd gone to when we lived there.
posted by HeroZero at 7:44 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]
I had mistaken it for Brick Bash, an amazing Ann Arbor event that we'd gone to when we lived there.
posted by HeroZero at 7:44 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]
This is a sad decline for the city that brought us the excellent Alien Wars at the beginning of the nineties.
"The organisers even had to beef up security after a succession of local young teams attempted to take on the Aliens in hand to hand combat."
posted by thatwhichfalls at 8:22 AM on February 28 [4 favorites]
"The organisers even had to beef up security after a succession of local young teams attempted to take on the Aliens in hand to hand combat."
posted by thatwhichfalls at 8:22 AM on February 28 [4 favorites]
I have no idea how an independent venue could offer enough value for people not to feel ripped off at those prices, starting out as a one-off.
First off, don't get into immersive experience design, events, and production unless there is a part of your brain that lights up and says "this is what I was meant to do, I literally can't do anything else." You will not make buckets of money doing this. You will not get rich quick. You will probably lose money.
Secondly, you start small. Very small. You playtest a lot. You prototype. You invite test audiences in. You do pop ups at larger events. You get feedback. You iterate over and over. One of the most successful escape room designers I know did paper prototypes and pop ups in art galleries for years before actually opening his first physical escape room and is now one of the most sought after people in the industry to do consulting, client projects, and more.
You also deliberately choose an art style/aesthetic that matches your budget. So many interesting immersive experiences can be done in an empty pool, a tugboat, an old church, a historic home, a weird old museum, outdoors in a park, etc. etc. If the space already has a personality, you need to do less heavy lifting on your end. This is why so many LARPs are in an old castle in Eastern Europe!
You figure out how to decorate your space with the most bang for your buck with things you own, things you can borrow, things you can buy for cheap. Orgs like Materials for the Arts in NYC will loan out props, for example. You take photographs that are representative of the final product (ideally the cast in their costumes, inside the actual built set). Not AI generated BS like this.
You set your immersive experience in a more budget friendly theme/era. It can be a historical drama, a fantasy, Shakespeare, Victorian England, WWII, 1970s/1980s, whatever etc. Don't choose a maximalist Candyland unless you can actually pull off a maximalist Candyland.
Even Punchdrunk -- the juggernaut of indie immersive theatre and creators of Sleep No More -- does things in their set design like giant piles of salt, walls full of old letters, a room filled with hundreds of thimbles or dried flowers. Their aesthetic leans into the abstract and surreal as a design choice and also as a way to use their budgets smartly. Instead of creating an actual carnival for a past show, they hung spiraling tubes from the ceiling to create a dizzying effect. The result they wanted at a fraction of the cost. This is also why cardboard box mazes are so popular in immersive work.
See also: immersive experiences in people's homes/apartments, unused coworking spaces (on the weekends), faux medical offices, and evil corporations.
Also: turn the lights down - so many sins can be hidden with dark lighting.
If you look at the history of Meow Wolf, they were a dumpster-diving punk rock art collective started in 2008 that used literal trash to make art (one of the artists even tried to use mold as a tool to make art) and staged several gallery shows. So they had an eight year history of doing installation art before House of Eternal Return opened in 2016. This first permanent exhibition was only possible with the help of George R.R. Martin who purchased a disused bowling alley for them. There's a documentary about it called Origin Story, which I recommend. I love their work. It's important to note that building up to something like House of Eternal Return took lots of people's time, effort, and hard work.
(So as mentioned: an understanding benefactor or landlord can really aid in the creation of this work. Meow Wolf had George R.R. Martin. A benefactor also purchased the building for Albany Park Theatre group's show Port of Entry in Chicago. Bottom of the Ocean in Brooklyn had a sweetheart deal with their landlord in exchange for fixing up the basement and getting rid of all the accumulated trash/rodents/etc.)
posted by kathryn at 8:24 AM on February 28 [43 favorites]
First off, don't get into immersive experience design, events, and production unless there is a part of your brain that lights up and says "this is what I was meant to do, I literally can't do anything else." You will not make buckets of money doing this. You will not get rich quick. You will probably lose money.
Secondly, you start small. Very small. You playtest a lot. You prototype. You invite test audiences in. You do pop ups at larger events. You get feedback. You iterate over and over. One of the most successful escape room designers I know did paper prototypes and pop ups in art galleries for years before actually opening his first physical escape room and is now one of the most sought after people in the industry to do consulting, client projects, and more.
You also deliberately choose an art style/aesthetic that matches your budget. So many interesting immersive experiences can be done in an empty pool, a tugboat, an old church, a historic home, a weird old museum, outdoors in a park, etc. etc. If the space already has a personality, you need to do less heavy lifting on your end. This is why so many LARPs are in an old castle in Eastern Europe!
You figure out how to decorate your space with the most bang for your buck with things you own, things you can borrow, things you can buy for cheap. Orgs like Materials for the Arts in NYC will loan out props, for example. You take photographs that are representative of the final product (ideally the cast in their costumes, inside the actual built set). Not AI generated BS like this.
You set your immersive experience in a more budget friendly theme/era. It can be a historical drama, a fantasy, Shakespeare, Victorian England, WWII, 1970s/1980s, whatever etc. Don't choose a maximalist Candyland unless you can actually pull off a maximalist Candyland.
Even Punchdrunk -- the juggernaut of indie immersive theatre and creators of Sleep No More -- does things in their set design like giant piles of salt, walls full of old letters, a room filled with hundreds of thimbles or dried flowers. Their aesthetic leans into the abstract and surreal as a design choice and also as a way to use their budgets smartly. Instead of creating an actual carnival for a past show, they hung spiraling tubes from the ceiling to create a dizzying effect. The result they wanted at a fraction of the cost. This is also why cardboard box mazes are so popular in immersive work.
See also: immersive experiences in people's homes/apartments, unused coworking spaces (on the weekends), faux medical offices, and evil corporations.
Also: turn the lights down - so many sins can be hidden with dark lighting.
If you look at the history of Meow Wolf, they were a dumpster-diving punk rock art collective started in 2008 that used literal trash to make art (one of the artists even tried to use mold as a tool to make art) and staged several gallery shows. So they had an eight year history of doing installation art before House of Eternal Return opened in 2016. This first permanent exhibition was only possible with the help of George R.R. Martin who purchased a disused bowling alley for them. There's a documentary about it called Origin Story, which I recommend. I love their work. It's important to note that building up to something like House of Eternal Return took lots of people's time, effort, and hard work.
(So as mentioned: an understanding benefactor or landlord can really aid in the creation of this work. Meow Wolf had George R.R. Martin. A benefactor also purchased the building for Albany Park Theatre group's show Port of Entry in Chicago. Bottom of the Ocean in Brooklyn had a sweetheart deal with their landlord in exchange for fixing up the basement and getting rid of all the accumulated trash/rodents/etc.)
posted by kathryn at 8:24 AM on February 28 [43 favorites]
Craig...oh I mean Wonky Willi...doesn't GAF.
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 8:40 AM on February 28 [3 favorites]
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 8:40 AM on February 28 [3 favorites]
kathryn, omg thank you for sharing all that. now I'm fascinated! I remember there was a LARP article posted on the blue a while ago that showed how the European groups were more intense than the U.S. based groups, and in part it was just the ability to stage everything in a bonafide castle.
I was going to say that the lesson is never do immersive theater in a warehouse, but actually I saw a cool theater piece staged (partially) in a hangar that used that vibe super successfully: HOME/LAND. The premise was that you were a newly arrived refugee being processed into a kind of timeless alienating bureaucratic system.
posted by spamandkimchi at 8:42 AM on February 28 [2 favorites]
I was going to say that the lesson is never do immersive theater in a warehouse, but actually I saw a cool theater piece staged (partially) in a hangar that used that vibe super successfully: HOME/LAND. The premise was that you were a newly arrived refugee being processed into a kind of timeless alienating bureaucratic system.
posted by spamandkimchi at 8:42 AM on February 28 [2 favorites]
How do we know this wasn't some dystopian dadaist prank executed as part of the anti-colonial struggle of the Oompa Loompas?
posted by jonp72 at 8:45 AM on February 28 [3 favorites]
posted by jonp72 at 8:45 AM on February 28 [3 favorites]
The organisers even had to beef up security after a succession of local young teams attempted to take on the Aliens in hand to hand combat.
I'd be totally there for a Weegie re-imagining of Attack The Block with wee neds & a Mogwai soundtrack...
posted by aeshnid at 8:49 AM on February 28 [3 favorites]
I'd be totally there for a Weegie re-imagining of Attack The Block with wee neds & a Mogwai soundtrack...
posted by aeshnid at 8:49 AM on February 28 [3 favorites]
Yeah, just to echo Kathryn's excellent post, there ABSOLUTELY are wonderful immersive experiences out there. Sturgeon's Law applies to this art form, just like it does to all others: 90% of immersive art is crap.
My addition to Sturgeon's law is that, of the remainder, 9% is solidly crafted and 1% is genuinely inspired. I think the big IP-linked immersive installations are going to be in mostly the competent 9%. If you want the inspired 1%, you have to look for the quirkier stuff.
Here in London, I recommend Phantom Peak, which is funny, charming, and weird in lots of good ways.
posted by yankeefog at 9:26 AM on February 28 [2 favorites]
My addition to Sturgeon's law is that, of the remainder, 9% is solidly crafted and 1% is genuinely inspired. I think the big IP-linked immersive installations are going to be in mostly the competent 9%. If you want the inspired 1%, you have to look for the quirkier stuff.
Here in London, I recommend Phantom Peak, which is funny, charming, and weird in lots of good ways.
posted by yankeefog at 9:26 AM on February 28 [2 favorites]
spamandkimchi: I suppose one could also argue that "timeless alienating bureaucratic system" is a flavor of "evil corporation" as a design aesthetic?
yankeefog: And what's great about Phantom Peak is that one of the leads on it was the creative director on Time Run first (and shipped two games) and then Sherlock: The Game Is Now and brought all that escape room and game design experience with them to PP. And they've been able to build a career on making this kind of stuff.
posted by kathryn at 9:39 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]
yankeefog: And what's great about Phantom Peak is that one of the leads on it was the creative director on Time Run first (and shipped two games) and then Sherlock: The Game Is Now and brought all that escape room and game design experience with them to PP. And they've been able to build a career on making this kind of stuff.
posted by kathryn at 9:39 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]
Absolutely! Sherlock: The Game Is Now is the rare IP-based immersive experience that actually felt inspired to me.
I'm disappointed that I never got to experience Time Run. Supposedly it is coming back at some point. We shall see.
In the meantime, I gather they're trying to franchise Phantom Peak to various cities in America, so American mefites might get the chance to experience it. May Jonas make it so!
posted by yankeefog at 9:46 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]
I'm disappointed that I never got to experience Time Run. Supposedly it is coming back at some point. We shall see.
In the meantime, I gather they're trying to franchise Phantom Peak to various cities in America, so American mefites might get the chance to experience it. May Jonas make it so!
posted by yankeefog at 9:46 AM on February 28 [1 favorite]
I use the CATGACATE constantly in SQL.
posted by slogger at 1:33 PM on February 28 [1 favorite]
posted by slogger at 1:33 PM on February 28 [1 favorite]
Glasgow’s Sad Oompa Loompa Isn’t Gonna Sugarcoat This
posted by Artw at 7:04 AM on February 29 [3 favorites]
posted by Artw at 7:04 AM on February 29 [3 favorites]
Glasgow Wonka Experience tourguide doesn't give a fuck
posted by mbo at 1:12 AM on March 1 [2 favorites]
posted by mbo at 1:12 AM on March 1 [2 favorites]
BBC: Willy Wonka experience: How did the viral sensation go so wrong?
posted by Lanark at 2:17 AM on March 2 [1 favorite]
posted by Lanark at 2:17 AM on March 2 [1 favorite]
"That is not a chocolate river running past the warehouse, that is the result of Tory sanitation policy." Truly this event is the gift that keeps on giving.
posted by corb at 11:26 AM on March 2 [2 favorites]
posted by corb at 11:26 AM on March 2 [2 favorites]
Mod note: [btw, this post and Kathryn's comment have been added to the sidebar and Best Of blog!]
posted by taz (staff) at 3:13 AM on March 5 [1 favorite]
posted by taz (staff) at 3:13 AM on March 5 [1 favorite]
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posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:09 PM on February 27 [12 favorites]