Welsh Bollocks is Wales’s least reliable source of news, questionable history and things your uncle swears happened outside a Spar in 1973.
From independent puffin republics to luxury spas in someone’s front room, we celebrate Wales by making absolutely ridiculous things up about it. …. Luxury accommodation at the attraction. The sleeping bag is included. Nobody knows whose it is.
A new immersive visitor attraction is promising to recreate the thrills of the Royal Welsh Show 365 days a year, allowing visitors to drink sixteen pints of Strongbow before waking up in a horsebox wondering where their trousers are.
The Royal Welsh Experience has been developed for people who feel that four days in July simply aren’t enough time to lose a bank card, fall out with a cousin and agree to buy a quad bike.
“For too long, people have had to wait an entire year to experience this,” said a spokesperson. “Now you can pop in on a wet Tuesday in November and completely ruin Wednesday.”
The attraction promises an authentic journey through every stage of a day at the show, beginning with a forty-minute queue behind a livestock trailer while someone in the car announces that they should have left earlier.
Visitors then enter a vast exhibition hall, where they will spend £14 on a burger before being cornered by a man who knows their father.
“He’ll ask how your mother is, mention a farm you’ve never heard of and tell you that you’ve grown,” explained the spokesperson. “It doesn’t matter if you’re fifty-eight. You’ve grown.”
An agricultural section allows guests to stand beside a £180,000 tractor and nod thoughtfully while kicking one of the tyres.
No knowledge of farming is required.
“We’ve trained our staff to accept ‘hell of a machine, that’ as a complete conversation.”
The main attraction is a painstaking recreation of the show’s social scene, featuring sticky tables, increasingly loud conversations and a mobile phone that permanently displays one per cent battery.
Guests attempting to locate friends will receive a series of messages saying “by the beer tent”, “other side” and “where are you now?”, before all communication ceases.
The sixteen pints of Strongbow form what organisers describe as the experience’s “central narrative”.
“We did consider virtual reality headsets,” said the spokesperson. “But we found people were quite capable of losing all awareness of their surroundings without them.”
As the evening progresses, visitors will develop an intense friendship with someone from Lampeter, become briefly convinced they speak fluent Welsh and join a rendition of Calon Lân in which everybody knows a different amount of the words.
At some point, a fleece will go missing.
The grand finale takes place in a faithfully reproduced horsebox, complete with blue tarpaulin, a folding chair, one abandoned boot and a sleeping bag of uncertain ownership.
Guests regain consciousness to the sound of somebody hammering on the side and shouting, “Gareth! Your father’s here!”
This happens regardless of whether their name is Gareth.
The premium package includes waking up wearing a rosette, although staff will refuse to explain what class the visitor has won.
Early reviews have been enthusiastic.
“I went in with my wife and came out engaged to someone from Llandovery,” said one visitor. “The attention to detail is extraordinary.”
Another praised the accommodation.
“Lovely horsebox. Plenty of character. Something had definitely been in there before us.”
For those who prefer not to drink, a companion ticket offers an equally authentic experience: spending six hours holding everybody’s coats before trying to persuade eleven people that it is time to go home.
The attraction will also open on Christmas Day.
Organisers say this will allow families to enjoy the traditional combination of excessive drinking, missing relatives and somebody asleep in an outbuilding, with all the clearing up included.
A gift shop is planned, although visitors are already leaving with a traffic cone.
@Thinkerbell Apologies for any offence caused by appropriating a fine sounding personal name for a notorious brand of industrial strength apple cider 😬
I take it the venue is five miles and a furlong down a single-track, no-through-road from a tiny village Google Maps has never found, with a name completely unpronounceable to anyone from the wrong side of Offas's Dyke or the Bristol Channel....
I looke forwards to waking there on Boxing Day morning with a hangover to blame on that one last cocoa.
