An Irishwoman who became instantly recognisable thanks to her appearance at the Willy Wonka Experience reveals her side of the story.
If you’ve been on social media over the last week or so, chances are you have seen a story or some pictures related to the recent Willy Wonka Experience event in Glasgow.
While initially billed to be an extremely professional and premium event, customers who bought tickets and brought their kids with them were quickly disappointed upon discovering what very much appeared to be an amateur-organised event.
One of the performers, Jenny Fogarty from Dublin, described the ill-fated event as the “most ‘winging it’ of projects”.
Willy Wonka Experience – a bizarre event
The Willy Wonka Experience was advertised as “the place where chocolate dreams become reality”.
However, when hundreds of families showed up expecting a grand and well-executed show, they instead found a barely decorated warehouse with cheap props that anyone could buy in a discount shop.
Disgruntled parents quickly took to the internet, and as they did so, images of the poorly organised event went viral.
Among the most popular pictures were those of Irish actor Jenny Fogarty dressed as an Oompa Loompa and a strange, scary-looking character called The Unknown, which funnily enough has nothing to do with Willy Wonka in any shape or form.
Jenny Fogarty – one of the event’s Oompa Loompas
Jenny Fogarty, from Dublin, played an Oompa Loompa at the event. She revealed to JOE.ie that she didn’t know much about the job when she took it, noting that she was “looking for production design jobs” in Glasgow at the time.
“I just thought it would be dressing up as a character handing out sweets, a pretty easy gig for a weekend. But that wasn’t the case,” Jenny revealed.
Jenny also explained how there had been some red flags before the event started, such as arriving for a costume fitting to be greeted with no costumes.
“I just assumed like there’d be a lot more done. So they’re going to be here all night. God bless them,” Jenny said, explaining that she gave the organisers the benefit of the doubt at the time. However, when Jenny first saw the warehouse, she realised there would be a big problem with the event.
“We got told the Twilight Tunnel was going to have projections through it. When we showed up in the morning, it just had some mirrors put up and some curtains. It was bad.
“It was the most ‘winging it’ of projects. I think we all just thought, ‘look, we’ll just try our best, get on with the day, see what happens, and then never speak of this again’”.
House of Illuminati – organisers of the now viral event
The organisers of the now infamous event are a company known as the House of Illuminati. The company has faced backlash from customers online for advertising their event to be better than it was.
House of Illuminati describes itself as a company that doesn’t just organise events, but instead crafts extraordinary experiences that will linger in your memories.
In that regard, they may have inadvertently succeeded, as we’re sure the experience will remain with all of the unfortunate attendees of the Willy Wonka Experience for years to come. But perhaps not for the right reasons!
