Did the huge, unfilled warehouse vibe of the Rhode Island Convention Center feel familiar? Well, it may be because similar images have been flooding your timelines this past week.
That’s right: we’re talking the Willy Wonka immersive experience. And we’re talking Gala.
The Willy Wonka experience in Glasgow was run by House of Illuminati, the same people who clearly took the lead on organizing last night’s beloved dance.
Were you curious about why we moved into a venue that we could only fill to 15 capacity%? So were we! That’s why we asked Oompa Loompa 4, last night’s event manager, to explain:
“Yea, well partially decorated vastly open spaces are kind of our thing”, he said. “That’s why there were only five tables to sit at in the entire room. God I love an open concept”.
“We could’ve fit the entire student body in that room twice over. But we’re just having the Willy Wonka itch, ya know? Like not everyone could get a Golden Ticket, lol”, Wonka himself–or sorry, we mean non-trademarked Willy McDuff–told us, donning an all too familiar deep red trench coat and winking (and wonking) conspicuously with his response.
And what the hell was going on with those sad water dispensers in the back of the room, which looked like the water coolers in the back of every gray, joyless office building–you know, the ones you try to avoid using because weird Richard from Sales will try to converse with you as soon as you do?
“The last people to book that room were the United Accountants of Rhode Island,” a representative from the Rhode Island Convention Center (whose black, floor length costume made us think that the Unknown might no longer be, well, unknown), told us. “They said the dispensers made them feel at home, so we decided to keep them for later events.”
Between the sparse decor and DJ malfunction, you might wonder where Brown’s $6.6 billion endowment money is going.
“It was definitely the crab cakes,” said a representative from CCB. “House of Illuminati really wanted to step up from jellybeans and single shots of lemonade.”
Regardless of whether the Gala was a Willy-win or an oompa-flop, what this week has showed us, from Glasgow to Providence, is that people can and will laugh over uncannily open spaces and disappointment.
BREAKING: Gala a shocking follow-up to Willy Wonka experience
