There is no joy quite so pure, quite so grand, as the joy that comes from picking over pictures of a failed “immersive experience”. Even typing the words makes me slightly delighted. In the past I have enjoyed reports from various British “winter wonderlands” where open-hearted families bought tickets for what promised to be a magical tour of Santa’s grotto but, upon entry, was revealed in fact to be a nightmare made of forks and cotton wool. A cardboard cutout of a reindeer would appear to be bleeding from the eyes, a child would be lightly maimed by a fallen star made of rust, that kind of thing – festive, fun and full of spirit. £35.
The success of these Christmas experiences was so great that the teams behind them needed to work out a way to spread the joy all year round. The latest immersive experience to make the papers was based, loosely, on Roald Dahl’s story about Willy Wonka and his chocolate factory. Some might say, perhaps, that those buying tickets to a Willy Wonka experience might have cause to expect, or even be seeking out, a day of workplace accidents, child death and small beleaguered staff trafficked by a maniac but, nonetheless, visitors to “Willy’s Chocolate Experience” in Glasgow were so angry they called the police. They called the police!
Of course, I have pored over the footage. The word “liminal” has been overused to the point of absurdity, and yet this, I’m afraid, is the only word that correctly describes the haunting non-space created in a grey-floored warehouse for Willy’s Chocolate Experience, a space caught uncomfortably between life and death and something else, as if you have entered someone else’s déjà vu.
There was a trestle table and binbags. There were two desolate-faced women painted orange. There was a small bouncy castle, a masked figure hiding behind a mirror (later confirmed as “a villain called The Unknown, ‘an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls’”), and, for the grand finale (billed poetically on the AI-rendered website as “Encherining entertainment… a pasadise of sweet teats”) two jelly beans and a poster where livid visitors could take a selfie.
“Unfortunately,” said the organisers, “at the last minute we were let down in many areas of our event.” Which begs the question, who let them down? Were they let down by reality itself? Was it all a little AI joke – if robots had created the event for their own amusement, ordered the lemonade, invited the guests, as if an anonymous murderer in an Agatha Christie novel, preparing to pick off its enemies. Is this the future of imagination?
Putting aside joy for a second, the more of these glorious fiascos we hear about, the more suspicious I become of the “experience economy”. This was the term given to describe the sale of memorable experiences to customers. Instead of things, the thinking goes, we now want to buy memories or, at least, photos of ourselves performing these memories. The money is in “being”, rather than “having”. In the holidays we are compelled to take our kids to “bubble museums”, on summer nights we dress up for immersive cinema events. Luxury brands erect mirrored pop-ups on the high street designed to profoundly change your way of seeing, hopefully while purchasing a keyring.
At first, perhaps, there was a thrill in the promise of entering another world, but as time has passed and we consumers have been subject to more and more “curated experiences”, where sometimes we bought a product and sometimes we were the product, the thrill is increasingly threadbare. The worst of all the experiences has to be the “immersive art exhibition”. Sometimes they are so pedestrian you can walk through one without noticing. Sometimes they are so expensive you find yourself working out cost per second, while the actual paintings are on show, for free, half an hour down the road. Sometimes they are unimaginative to the point of offence, breaking down what makes something art until it becomes only an advert for itself. I like to primly tell parents these events should count as screen time.
I have come, though, to realise the value of Willy’s Chocolate Experience. Not simply for the rare glee it has brought to an international audience but for the way it has pulled back a curtain to reveal the defeated Oompa-Loompas. We had been merrily enjoying this experience economy, paying the money, popping the bubbles, distracted momentarily from real life grinding away outside. Which I am all for, don’t get me wrong – authenticity (as Tina Fey recently said) “is dangerous and expensive”, while nature is too green and badly lit.
But when the scene glitches, when we are gifted an uncanny glimpse into the Glaswegian warehouse, we’re suddenly reminded who we are. When the lights come on we are grounded once again, in human experience. Which is far less colourful, and less photogenic, and deeply uncomfortable, but also, often, hilarious.
Email Eva at e.wiseman@observer.co.uk or follow her on X @EvaWiseman
