Frankly, I think my Sims 4 staged portrait is a significant upscale from the real shitshow event. For more on this ridiculous exhibition which has captivated the internet by storm for its audacious, yet hilarious, rip off milking the equivalent of $45 out of hard-working Scottish parents pockets, to unfortunately, only make their kids very sad. Here's more about it. Oh and I'm not the only one to do my own recreation of this.
This does remind me of the Lake George trip I talked about in my Frontier Land or Frontiertown posts and video slideshow. During that trip, Ruth and Memere took my sister and me to other tourist trap attractions like the Haunted House of Horrors Wax Museum and some Moon Base space-themed exhibit that were decidedly sketchy. And of course, here in Florida, back in the day, there were plenty of cheaply designed, over-priced tourist traps, especially on I-Drive. Heck, even these days there are plenty of questionable attractions ripping Florida vacationers off.
It also reminds me of how bad planning and a desire to try to cut costs drastically can absolutely ruin the best intentions, especially if the coordinator of events is overconfident but without enough experience to merit that.
Back in the '80s when I worked as Recreation Coordinator at a Pawtucket, RI ARC, I held a semi-formal dance that I thought I would be able to run entirely alone with minimal help of staff and volunteers. I did pretty well, considering I was only 22 years old, in hiring a pretty good band (although many parents of the folks the event was held for complained it was too loud, of course), and the caterers did a fair job providing a pretty good meal. The venue as well was a Knights of Columbus Hall and I think even though I was very budget conscious, I did fairly well with decorating the place up. But the one area I all out failed with was the photo opportunity.
Like a lot of semi-formal dance events, I had an optional photo opportunity setup so that couples could get their portrait taken. Rather than swing the extra couple hundred bucks or so for a professional to do this, I decided I'd rent the equipment from a photography studio supply shop and do it myself. "What the heck," I thought, "I had half a semester of photography classes I took when I was in school for fine arts at my local community college. What more experience does one need?"
The rental place dude gave me a little rundown on how to use the light meter and how to set the F-stop and focus on my manual SLR camera for each shot. At the event, I saw that the photo op-booth was quite popular and there was a long line so I decided to save time by having my first couple stand on a masking tape line in front of the backdrop, using my light meter with them to set my F-stop, and setting my focus manually. I assumed that they would stay still during the duration of time it took for me to do all of that and that each and every couple there on out would be the same setting as long as they stood on my masking tape.
Well of course, every freaking shot was ruined. Horribly out of focus, over lit, or too dark, even totally off-center since people naturally moved a little off their mark. Sadly, I had to notify all the participants a few days later after I got the photos back from development that their $15 fee for the photos would be returned to them. Needless to say, many people were very upset with me. I didn't divulge the true reason why I returned their money, I think I just said something to the effect that there were technical difficulties, but I think people knew that I had bit off more than I could chew.
I think though, earnestly, if you see the cell-camera footage of the Glasgow event, that was a bit more than inexperienced coordinators biting off more than they could chew. They were trying to rip people off.