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
I detest people like this who refuse to own their mistakes. There was a super easy solution to this fiasco, if it happened the way he presents. It’s called a CANCELLATION. Cancel the event, refund pre purchases , explain why and reschedule when you get your sh!t together! Yes, people will be disappointed the event was cancelled – but they won’t be mob angry at being deceived.
FAFO – if it was going that badly he should have postponed it until it was all setup properly. He tried to do it on the cheap cause it was on an industrial estate in a run down part of the city and thought he’d get away with it. His excuses don’t wash.
Its Glasgow mate – he’s lucky one of the parents didn’t smack him as its not a place that takes kindly to being ripped off. Sometimes I really love my home city.
Well, now the whole thing seems like it was designed for a Fyre Festival Failure-style Documentary from the get go. It’s a lot easier to get attention with a big, creepy bomb than from a moderate success.
I could see that, but I think he’s just hopping on the documentary angle after a huge failure he didn’t see coming. One of his side gigs is AI generated novels based around conspiracy theories (deep state, anti-vax, etc). I don’t think he was prepared for a real life confrontation about one of his scams.
Oh poor poor him, poor him. Poor poor him and his missing Temu projectors. And even AI let him down!
I hope that Oompa Loompa girl writes a book about this, it would be hysterical.
This is so ripe for parody – the scam and / or a mock-u-mentary based on the scam. I wish this could have been a failed business venture by Gob Bluth on Arrested Development.
@Hillary-with Gob Bluth trying to escape on his Segway:) I’d dedicate a weekend for watching
And Tobias Funke popping up with orange face paint dressed as an Oompaloompa. Please, someone call Mitchell Hurwitz. This could be a Bluth family come back film on Netflix.
Why is it so hard to just say “I f’ed up, I’m sorry. I had big dreams and good intentions, but didn’t make it happen. Everyone will get a full refund.”
All this hand wringing about people calling him the “face of evil” ? Dude, come on. You messed up, own it, make it right, and do better.
Good on his partner for exiting this relationship because yikes that man sounds like a big liar. I would say “just give the money back and go away” but he seems like the kind of person who will thoroughly use his five minutes of “fame”.
If what he says is true about what people emailed and messaged him, that is f’ed up and he doesn’t deserve to be demonized like that nor told to kill himself. My goodness. Other than the parents who were out $40 and a few hours of a Saturday, this was entirely hysterical for the rest of us. If he’s refunding the money then it’s made right whether or not he knows how to properly apologize.
People fuck up shit like this all the time. If it hadn’t been Wonka, it never would have gotten the attention. People think “how hard can this be” and just jump right in. This is why I get so angry about all the BS over “follow your dreams and don’t listen to anybody who says it can’t be done.”
Reminds me of a co-worker who kept talking about sailing around the world. Asked her about the sailing she’d done. She hadn’t done any! Or taken any lessons! And didn’t intend to! There are fools born every day.
I had a boss who always shot for the stars. We got a lot done, but we also fell short on a lot of stuff and lived with an undue amount of stress under their leadership. Sometimes you need to shoot for what you know you can pull off!
So which one is it, Billy boy?
“Billy said the event had been going well the first few run throughs until he was approached by parents.”
“Billy said he started to have concerns before the event even started.”
Was it going well until suddenly parents, for no reason whatsoever, started getting angry, or were you concerned about it going badly before it even started?