Had a look at the script, and I thought, "There's no way. There's no way this is going on tomorrow." It was 15 pages of nonsense.
— Jenny Fogarty, interview with LJ
Willy's Chocolate Experience became infamous in part for everything that went wrong behind the scenes.
- Billy Coull, the organizer, apparently threw the event together in little time, as the script and promotional artwork were AI-generated and the actual venue was very sparsely decorated with scenery hired from a local prop rental company, with little effort taken to hide the fact it was held in a warehouse.
- Even the cast had wrongly assumed that things were much more organized than they really were. According to Paul Connell and Michael Archibald, two of the three actors hired to play Willy McDuff, they were given one day to learn the AI-generated script (a tall order for a competent script, never mind AI-generated word salad), and according to The Unknown's actor Felicia Dawkins, no rehearsals took place.
- Kirsty Paterson (the memetic "depressed Oompa Loompa") saw the sparse decorations the day before the event, but figured that there'd be a team of set decorators working through the night to build things out. When Paterson saw the venue in the same state on opening day, she elected to continue with her job to avoid disappointing children.
- Paterson and fellow Wonkidoodle actress Jenny Fogarty were given their costumes an hour before the event opened from an Amazon box that "probably arrived that morning", and they were "sexy" Oompa-Loompa costumes inappropriate for family-friendly events instead of normal ones; the Wonkidoodle actresses wore clothes underneath to try to make their costumes more modest. Meanwhile, the three actors cast to play Willy were given a single generic ringmaster costume to share, with no breaks or laundering between wearings; one actor stated that the costume was soaked with persperation by the time it was handed off to him.
- The cast was instructed to hand out two or three jellybeans and a quarter cup of lemonade. Even with the ration, they still ran out quickly, and limeade had to be substituted for lemonade.
- As the script was entirely generated by AI, it included some very bizarre moments that would've been near-to-outright impossible to do with practical effects — and some even with CGI — especially with the practically non-existent budget they had. The intent was that Willy and The Unknown would have a laser battle in the Imagination Lab that ended with Willy defeating The Unknown with "a wave of sparkling cleanliness", before sweeping him off the stage with a robotic vacuum cleaner. No attempt was made to adapt that into a form that the actors could actually do; so as a result, huge portions of the story were just ignored. This rendered The Unknown as even more of a Diabolus ex Nihilo than he already was.
- After the first three performances, Coull had the cast abandon the script and let the guests walk through the event on their own, which only lasted two minutes compared to the 45-minute performances. This also left The Unknown, who was originally an antagonist, scaring children for no reason. Coull also started scolding the actors for spending too much time with the kids and not going through them fast enough to make more money.
- Connell was promised 15-minute breaks every 45 minutes, but wound up having to play McDuff for over three hours, uninterrupted.
- After a lunch break, Connell saw a crowd of angry parents violently demanding refunds from Coull; once the event closed during its opening day, the actors all went to a nearby pub, and came back to find police at the scene.
- Paterson and Fogarty stated that they were only compensated half of the £500 they were promised.
