Abba superfans are descending on London from all over the UK and beyond today to see the 70s supergroup’s new show – but many have been ‘priced out’ with tickets for tonight’s gig going for almost £500 each online.
The virtual concert launched last night with a star-studded event attended by the Swedish pop superstars themselves, who played their final live gig 40 years ago, as well as Kylie Minogue, Kate Moss and the king and queen of Sweden.
And tonight there will be a carnival atmosphere inside the purpose-built 3,000-capacity arena in east London because it is the first gig open to all fans, not just celebrities and fan club members.
Twitter, Facebook and Instagram is in a frenzy today with people travelling to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park this evening – with tickets on resale website Viagogo now reaching £475 if you want to stand on the dancefloor close to the stage.
Critics have blasted the ‘extortionate’ price of tickets just to watch a ‘bunch of bl**dy holograms’. One Scottish fan said: ‘You have no idea how much I would LOVE to go see Abba. But looking at the ticket prices, they are just wayyyyy out of my league. I would literally have to beg, steal, but doubt anyone would let me borrow lol. Just gutted the prices are so high’.
Five years in the making, the concert featured four 3D digital versions of the group’s younger selves singing and dancing to some 20 of their hits. The so-called Abbatars of Anni-Frid, 76, Björn, 77, Benny, 75, and Agnetha, 72, were created through months of motion-capture and performance.
The band, worth an estimated £800million, have already sold a staggering 380,000 tickets for the London residency, which is booking until May 2023, while the show is then expected to head on a worldwide tour that could make their combined net worth break £1billion.
Computer enhanced avatars of Björn Ulvaeus, 77, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, 76, Benny Andersson, 75, and Agnetha Fältskog, 72, transported the audience back in time as they performed 20 of the band’s greatest hits.
ABBA need digital concerts to make £140million to cover costs after they splashed out on ‘ABBAtars’ created by George Lucas’ special effects firm
Technology: The 95-minute high-tech concert was created by the pop group dressing up in motion-capture suits to pre-record the performance
ABBA needs to recoup £140million to cover the costs of their immersive digital concerts, which saw George Lucas’ special effects firm log one billion computing hours to create the flashy ‘ABBAtars’.
The Swedish pop group returned to stage after 40 years with an avatar-led show in a purpose-built arena at London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford, for a preview performance on Thursday.
Avatars of the band members – or ABBAtars as they have become known as – appeared on stage in 1970s silver sequinned ensembles to perform the band’s number one hits in an eerily realistic 95-minute stage show.
Bandmates Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad only appeared in the flesh as they took to the stage for the final curtain call, with their digital counterparts leading the show.
And it has been revealed that the band needs to recoup a staggering £140million to cover the costs of the high-tech concert, which saw motion capture technology used to create the avatar singers.
The band have already sold a staggering 380,000 tickets for the London residency, which is booking until May 2023, while the show is then expected to head on a worldwide tour, according to The Times.
After investing huge sums in the flashy technology to create the show, the band have shunned corporate sponsorship, working exclusively with Swedish firm Oceanbird.
Speaking ahead of the show Ulvaeus claimed that when the group reunited to record their latest album and plan the show ‘the energy and joy were back again’.
In an interview printed in the show’s programme he said: ‘The final years with Abba back in the early 1980s before we took a break were not as much fun any more.
‘We didn’t laugh as much as we had. But now the energy and joy were back again, 40 years later.’
His former wife, Miss Fältskog agreed it had been ‘very joyful’ while Miss Lyngstad added: ‘I was a little nervous, in a positive way.
‘But when we were all standing there in the studio looking at one another we fell right back into a dynamic that time hadn’t changed.
‘Our habits were the same as they have been before including the joy of creativity. It’s very special and probably somewhat unusual to experience.’
Abba Voyage used motion capture to create holograms of the group as 1979 versions of themselves.
It was the year Ulvaeus and Miss Fältskog announced they were getting divorced as well as the release of the group’s chart topping sixth studio album, Voulez-Vous and Greatest Hits Vol. 2, which featured Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight).
In the same year they kicked off their third and final tour before they disbanded in 1982.
On seeing her avatar for the first time, Miss Lyngstad said: ‘It’s hard to fully grasp that it isn’t really me and yet it is me.
‘I can certainly see myself in the digital figure. The gestures, the facial expressions, the eyes that express all sorts of feelings. It’s absurd but it’s real.’
Miss Fältskog added: ‘The results are outstanding and we’re once again fascinated by the technical wizardry.
‘I’m only a fourth of it but I’m humbled by it all and the fine people who have supported us all over the years.’
Last September the group announced the ‘weird and wonderful’ concert, admitting it was the ‘strangest and most spectacular concert you could ever dream of’.
The Abba Arena at London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, which has capacity for 3,000 fans, was specially built for the event.
The show will run for four years enabling fans around the world to travel to enjoy the experience.
Of the decision to launch Abba Voyage in London Ulvaeus said: ‘London means so very much to us.
‘We had the good fortune to win the Eurovision Song Contest in England of all places.
‘I mean there could not have been a better place to win and it rubbed off on the entire world.
‘Don’t forget England was even more the hub of pop music than it is now.’
He added: ‘England has always been ABBA market number one.’
The quartet, who won the Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo in 1974, have sold 400 million singles and albums worldwide and enjoyed success with hits including The Winner Takes it All, Dancing Queen and Money, Money, Money.
In 2018 Ulvaeus shut down any hope of a reunion on stage, telling the Evening Standard: ‘A new album, possibly. Or four songs or something like that – that’s possible. But for us to perform on stage that’s just not going to happen. That’s a definite.’
