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A concert like no other

Blending cutting-edge technology, spectacular lighting, and some of the most beloved songs ever written, ABBA take to the stage in a whole new way. In a stunning, purpose-built arena, one of the most popular groups in history appear as digital avatars in a ‘ground-breaking’ (Metro) concert that really ‘needs to be seen to be believed’ (BBC).

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How ABBA Voyage and other avatar or ‘hologram’ concert performances evoke fans’ real responses

Assistant Professor of Music, Ambrose University

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Alyssa Michaud receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and from the Ambrose University Research Fund.

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At ABBA Voyage, a 90-minute long digital concert event, ABBA’s Benny Andersson looks over the crowd and addresses them reassuringly: “ This is really me , I just look very good for my age.”

Andersson, of course, is not physically present in the arena, but rather is a digitally animated avatar.

ABBA Voyage is a new type of concert experience, where avatars of the pop stars are accompanied by live musicians . This performance is hosted in a 3,000-seat custom-built concert venue in London.

Unlike earlier digital avatar performances (sometimes referred to as “hologram” concerts ), ABBA Voyage plays out on 65-million-pixel LED screens . In previous shows featuring the likes of Roy Orbison and Whitney Houston, performers’ avatars were projected onto a band of translucent plastic. In both formats, an animated two-dimensional image on a screen gives the appearance of a lifelike, 3D performer.

Recent research on K-pop performances with digital avatars has shown that these digital performers can in fact create a sense of co-presence and immediacy with a live audience, and ABBA Voyage concerts do the same.

Voyage blurs the boundaries of what audiences understand as a live performance, contributing to a century-long conversation about the complex relationship between technology and performance in the arts. It raises questions about whether digital avatar concerts can meet audiences’ expectations in a live concert experience.

Read more: K-pop fans protest against treatment of Monsta X lead singer

Skeptical about aims

Many fans and critics were skeptical about ABBA’s virtual return, which was preceded by a new record release, also titled Voyage .

Reviews of the digital concert experience frequently use language that paint the experience as hyper-real and somewhat uncanny . Reviewer Niall Byrne of the Irish music site Nialler described the show as featuring ABBA “ cryogenically frozen as their younger selves .”

But 1.3 million ticket sales later, the show’s success speaks for itself.

However, the fixation on whether or not ABBA Voyage is a “real” concert takes attention away from a far more interesting conversation: how an avatar performance evokes very real responses from an audience sharing a physical space and an emotional experience.

Fans prepare and invest

In 2022, my research assistants and I conducted interviews with audience members ranging in age from their early 20s to their late 50s who had travelled to ABBA Voyage from five different countries in North America and Europe. One of the themes concertgoers were most eager to describe was their preparation for the concert.

Attendees discussed in detail the plans they had drawn up for their trip — sometimes nearly a year in advance. They described the long wait and anticipation they felt, the outfits they had prepared and the way they had re-listened to ABBA’s music — all in an effort to feel ready to participate in an event that they hoped would be meaningful and memorable.

Fears about technology, emotional payoff

Our interview subjects commonly experienced apprehension at the beginning of the show, owing to the amount of preparation they had invested as concertgoers.

For some, it was anxiety about the extensive use of technology and the ways it might hinder the experience. For others, it was simply a nervous hope that the show would live up to their expectations.

One interviewee from Bristol, England, found that they were unable to relax into enjoying the show until they had overcome these anxieties:

“You kind of invest so much into it and you so much want it to be brilliant and you’re kind of a bit worried that you might feel let down. So it wasn’t until the first 10 minutes was over that I found that like: ‘Oh, I can relax now. It is really brilliant so I can enjoy it!’”

Despite fears about technology and the show’s emotional payoff, every interviewee who expressed these reservations later affirmed that their expectations were exceeded by the concert.

Creating lasting memories

Audience members reported that they left the venue with a sense of connection to those with whom they shared the experience — a finding that echoes recent research into fan experiences at other digital concert events.

Some participants noted that they felt unexpectedly emotional participating in this group dynamic, including a middle-aged man:

“It’s kind of like shock and awe isn’t it? …. I felt quite emotional at times through the concert, and you’re thinking: ‘Well, why are you emotional? It’s technology that’s like, reproducing this for you….’ I know there were people around me that were feeling the same way as well, and how often does that happen, you know?”

Voyage works on an emotional level because it encourages audience preparation and anticipation, and then delivers a collective experience of live connection, surprise and wonder.

Human connection

Audiences bring a performance — holographic or otherwise — to life with their attention and investment , and ABBA Voyage serves as a clear demonstration of this effect.

These interviews demonstrated the ways that the audience’s preparation positions them to have a meaningful experience, and how the carefully designed elements of the show ease anxieties about potential disappointment or alienation during the pre-programmed concert.

The audience at Voyage can experience a sense of community and feelings of personal meaning, regardless of whether the performers are bodily present. As music researcher Christopher Small has argued, experiences of identity and meaning in a musical experience are co-created by all of its participants, including the audience.

The new performance practices at ABBA Voyage — and audience members’ responses to them — offer important insights into the inner workings of live audience engagement, particularly as we move further into an age in which human and technological elements are becoming increasingly intertwined.

Research assistants John Glanville and Anna Konrad co-authored this story.

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How ABBA Voyage and other avatar or 'hologram' concert performances evoke fans' real responses

by Alyssa Michaud, John Glanville and Anna Konrad, The Conversation

At ABBA Voyage, a 90-minute long digital concert event, ABBA's Benny Andersson looks over the crowd and addresses them reassuringly: " This is really me , I just look very good for my age."

Andersson, of course, is not physically present in the arena, but rather is a digitally animated avatar.

ABBA Voyage is a new type of concert experience, where avatars of the pop stars are accompanied by live musicians . This performance is hosted in a 3,000-seat custom-built concert venue in London.

Unlike earlier digital avatar performances (sometimes referred to as "hologram" concerts ), ABBA Voyage plays out on 65-million-pixel LED screens . In previous shows featuring the likes of Roy Orbison and Whitney Houston, performers' avatars were projected onto a band of translucent plastic. In both formats, an animated two-dimensional image on a screen gives the appearance of a lifelike, 3D performer.

Recent research on K-pop performances with digital avatars has shown that these digital performers can in fact create a sense of co-presence and immediacy with a live audience, and ABBA Voyage concerts do the same.

Voyage blurs the boundaries of what audiences understand as a live performance, contributing to a century-long conversation about the complex relationship between technology and performance in the arts. It raises questions about whether digital avatar concerts can meet audiences' expectations in a live concert experience.

Skeptical about aims

Many fans and critics were skeptical about ABBA's virtual return, which was preceded by a new record release, also titled Voyage .

Reviews of the digital concert experience frequently use language that paint the experience as hyper-real and somewhat uncanny . Reviewer Niall Byrne of the Irish music site Nialler described the show as featuring ABBA " cryogenically frozen as their younger selves ."

But 1.3 million ticket sales later, the show's success speaks for itself.

However, the fixation on whether or not ABBA Voyage is a "real" concert takes attention away from a far more interesting conversation: how an avatar performance evokes very real responses from an audience sharing a physical space and an emotional experience .

Fans prepare and invest

In 2022, my research assistants and I conducted interviews with audience members ranging in age from their early 20s to their late 50s who had traveled to ABBA Voyage from five different countries in North America and Europe. One of the themes concertgoers were most eager to describe was their preparation for the concert.

Attendees discussed in detail the plans they had drawn up for their trip—sometimes nearly a year in advance. They described the long wait and anticipation they felt, the outfits they had prepared and the way they had re-listened to ABBA's music —all in an effort to feel ready to participate in an event that they hoped would be meaningful and memorable.

Fears about technology, emotional payoff

Our interview subjects commonly experienced apprehension at the beginning of the show, owing to the amount of preparation they had invested as concertgoers.

For some, it was anxiety about the extensive use of technology and the ways it might hinder the experience. For others, it was simply a nervous hope that the show would live up to their expectations.

One interviewee from Bristol, England, found that they were unable to relax into enjoying the show until they had overcome these anxieties:

"You kind of invest so much into it and you so much want it to be brilliant and you're kind of a bit worried that you might feel let down. So it wasn't until the first 10 minutes was over that I found that like: 'Oh, I can relax now. It is really brilliant so I can enjoy it!'"

Despite fears about technology and the show's emotional payoff, every interviewee who expressed these reservations later affirmed that their expectations were exceeded by the concert.

Creating lasting memories

Audience members reported that they left the venue with a sense of connection to those with whom they shared the experience—a finding that echoes recent research into fan experiences at other digital concert events.

Some participants noted that they felt unexpectedly emotional participating in this group dynamic, including a middle-aged man:

"It's kind of like shock and awe isn't it? …. I felt quite emotional at times through the concert, and you're thinking: 'Well, why are you emotional? It's technology that's like, reproducing this for you….' I know there were people around me that were feeling the same way as well, and how often does that happen, you know?"

Voyage works on an emotional level because it encourages audience preparation and anticipation, and then delivers a collective experience of live connection, surprise and wonder.

Human connection

Audiences bring a performance—holographic or otherwise—to life with their attention and investment , and ABBA Voyage serves as a clear demonstration of this effect.

These interviews demonstrated the ways that the audience's preparation positions them to have a meaningful experience, and how the carefully designed elements of the show ease anxieties about potential disappointment or alienation during the pre-programmed concert.

The audience at Voyage can experience a sense of community and feelings of personal meaning, regardless of whether the performers are bodily present. As music researcher Christopher Small has argued, experiences of identity and meaning in a musical experience are co-created by all of its participants, including the audience.

The new performance practices at ABBA Voyage—and audience members' responses to them—offer important insights into the inner workings of live audience engagement, particularly as we move further into an age in which human and technological elements are becoming increasingly intertwined.

Provided by The Conversation

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ABBA Take Trip to the Future With Virtual Live Show: Inside the Pioneering Production

The four members of ABBA made a rare public appearance to watch their 'ABBA-tars' perform in the highly technical stage show.

By Richard Smirke

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LONDON — After a 40-year wait, Swedish pop sensations ABBA made their eagerly-anticipated return to the live stage on Thursday. And although none of the real-life musicians were actually onstage performing, all four of them were present in London, making a rare public appearance at the premiere of their virtual live concert ABBA Voyage.

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Bjorn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Fältskog walked the red carpet and received a rapturous standing ovation when they appeared onstage together at the end of the much-hyped show, which features de-aged digital avatar versions of the band – or ABBA-tars, as the show’s producers insist on calling them – and takes place in a new purpose-built 3,000-capacity ABBA Arena in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London.

ABBA Partner Pophouse Enters Catalog-Buying Market With Swedish Mafia House Deal

Billed as a “Concert Like No Other,” the launch was attended by King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden, as well as several music stars and VIPs, including Kylie Minogue, Zara Larsson, Pulp singer Jarvis Cocker, Kate Moss and Keira Knightley.

Trending on Billboard

For lovers of ABBA, who broke up in 1982 and have continually resisted lucrative offers to re-form, ABBA Voyage delivers the type of jaw-dropping greatest hits live show that most fans thought they’d never get the chance to see again.

For the wider live music industry, it represents a fascinating glimpse into a potential future where the world’s biggest acts no longer have to travel or even physically appear onstage to pack concert venues and sell millions of tickets, theoretically extending an act’s touring career well into old age and, if demand allows, beyond death.

The concept is not new and versions of 3D hologram live music shows have been around for several years now: Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Whitney Houston, Tupac Shakur and Roy Orbison are among the artists that have been recreated digitally for audiences’ entertainment, with varying degrees of success and believability.

ABBA Voyage represents a seismic leap forward in terms of technology and sheer scale to sit at the cutting edge of what virtual concerts can now deliver. Breaking new ground comes at a high price, however, with the Swedish band reportedly needing to recoup around £140 million ($176 million) to cover production costs (a spokesperson for the production declined to comment on how much the show costs to stage).

Work on the production began in 2016 and went through several different guises as the thinking and technology behind it evolved. Early on, the show was envisaged as a hologram-type event, then a touring concert series, before settling on a London residency.

To create the digital versions of Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha and Frida, technicians from George Lucas’ special effects company Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) spent five weeks inside a Stockholm movie studio filming the four band members – now all in their 70s – performing their back catalog, while wearing figure-hugging motion-capture suits.

There were 160 cameras scanning their bodies, recording their every movement and facial expression, which the designers then used as the basis for the avatars that drive the live show. Body doubles were also used in the motion capture process to give the digital band – represented in their late 1970s prime, complete with glitzy sequined costumes and winged catsuit outfits designed by B Åkerlund and Dolce & Gabbana — a more youthful energy.

More than 1,000 visual-effects artists and one billion computing hours went into making the ABBA-tars as eerily realistic and human-like as possible. During the show, they appear on huge 65-million-pixel screens, often as life-sized versions of their younger selves. At other times, the four musicians are shown in photo-realistic close up on the large screens that loom over the dance floor and surrounding seats.

The boundaries between physical and digital realms are further blurred by a 10-piece live band that energetically performs the group’s hits onstage, merging seamlessly with recordings of Agnetha and Frida’s voices, Bjorn’s guitar and Benny’s piano.

A spectacular light show utilizing 20 lighting rigs and over 500 moving lights add to the visual spectacle, helping create the illusion that you have travelled back in time and the four members of ABBA are there, performing on stage in front of you.

The magic is temporarily broken whenever the avatars address the audience and their pre-recorded words are drowned out by the crowd (rather than pausing and milking the applause as any seasoned real-life performer would instinctively do). But the show moves at such a fast visually stimulating pace that these awkward moments are fleeting and soon forgotten.

There are also playful nods to the digital artifice on display with the four characters routinely joking about how good they look for their age or pretending to struggle to get into their costumes. Two animations by U.K.-based visual artists Shynola effectively act as big-budget intervals between the virtual avatar performances, while the production team – led by Ludvig Andersson, son of Benny, Svana Gisla and director Baillie Walsh — wisely steer clear of making the avatars’ dancing seem too slickly choreographed and synchronized, replicating the quirky homespun charm of the original performers.

“With ABBA Voyage the band have created their own monument which is as brilliant and timeless as their music,” says Frank Briegmann , chairman & CEO Universal Music Central Europe and Deutsche Grammophon.

For now, the concert runs just over 90 minutes with 20 songs, spanning some of ABBA’s biggest hits (“Mamma Mia”, “Thank You For The Music”, “The Winner Takes It All”, “Knowing Me Knowing You”) alongside fan favorite album cuts (“The Visitors,” “Hole In Your Soul,” “When All Is Said And Done”) and two tracks from last year’s comeback album, also called Voyage (“Don’t Shut Me Down” and “I Still Have Faith In You”).

It’s a safe assumption that the set list will change over time with new songs dropped into the production at regular intervals throughout its run to encourage repeat visits. The model behind ABBA Voyage is expressly built to maximize those revenue generating opportunities, with the show booked to run in London for least the next 12 months, hosting between seven and nine gigs a week, including two weekend matinees. (In an interview with Variety earlier this week, Andersson said they had sold around 380,000 tickets so far).

Beyond that, the purpose-built venue — a futuristic-looking steel structure which loosely resembles a 70s spacecraft, houses 291 speakers and has LED lights spelling out the band’s name on its outer skin – has a four-year lease agreement with London council in place, meaning that more than four million people could pass through its doors by the time the show leaves the U.K. in late 2026 (based on full capacity shows running seven times a week).

Where ABBA Voyage goes after that is open to all possibilities with the band’s global popularity – enhanced by the two Mamma Mia feature films, spin off Mamma Mia! The Party dining experience and ongoing popularity of the group’s evergreen catalog – meaning they could theoretically pack up and transport the ABBA Arena, or even operate multiple versions of the same immersive concert experience, anywhere in the world.

“To be or not to be,” wise cracks Benny’s avatar during the show “That is no longer the question.” ABBA Voyage makes those words a reality.

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Abba Voyage review – a dazzling retro-futurist extravaganza

Abba Arena, London Stepping back in time and into the future, Abba astound with a mind-bending virtual comeback show of hits, uncanny dance moves and no-expense-spared Swedish class

I t starts with The Visitors , an icy, electronic track in which authoritarian agents hammer on the door of a fearful dissident – not the Abba you expected to come calling in this trailblazing, retro-futurist extravaganza of a show. The song’s lead singer, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, is, as we all know, not really on stage tonight either. She and her bandmates are 3D renderings created via the granular CGI of Industrial Light & Magic ( ILM ), which cut its teeth on Star Wars and the Marvel films.

Lyngstad’s verisimilitude is, however, off the hook. The swish of the hair, the dentistry, the believability of her 1979 dance moves all contribute to a desire to suspend your disbelief and cast off on this surreal Voyage, which delivers everything Abba fans expect – the hits and the outfits – but still manages to surprise.

In the middle of the set is Eagle , which plays out as an anime video quest that recalls Studio Ghibli and the 2012 video game Journey . It’s unclear what the animation is doing here beyond padding out the voyage theme while the “performers” allegedly “change outfits” – one of the many little pacing tics that makes this gig feel real-ish. But it is surely to do with Abba’s desire to be understood as contemporary audio-visual movers and shakers, which they achieve, and then some.

Shortly afterwards comes Lay All Your Love on Me , in which the four seventysomethings, too often misunderstood as a frothy Swedish light entertainment outfit, make a serious bid to out-robot Kraftwerk in 3D with their luminous Tron suits and commitment to electronics. Underneath Benny Andersson’s churchy organ work is a synth line that would make the very early Depeche Mode proud.

A big chunk of Abba Voyage is, of course, devoted to the Chiquititas, Fernandos, Mamma Mias and Waterloos of playlist overkill. It’s a theatre performance, with a 7.45 start and matinees, rather than a gig. Quite a lot of big numbers accompany this production, which really does recapture much of the essence of one of the biggest bands in the world in their prime, give or take a slightly glassy expression here and there. One thousand animators worked on digitising footage of the four, who were filmed performing their songs by 120 motion capture cameras, then projected on this 65m pixel screen. This purpose-built, collapsible 3,000-capacity venue was designed to be shipped elsewhere with a relatively smaller carbon footprint. The surround sound is terrific (291 speakers), the 10-piece band are lively, fleshing out the 70s and 80s-era vocals. The many descending ropes of light are not a million miles away from Four Tet’s mesmerising, immersive rave shows .

The biggest number, though, is the bottom line. This venture needs to rake back £140m to break even. It has been a deliriously expensive undertaking, in which corporate sponsors, branding and ads are conspicuous by their absence. Until now, the most futuristic ersatz gig I have seen was Billie Eilish’s augmented reality livestream of 2020, in which a giant luxury car “raced” around the stage, footing some of the bill, no doubt. There is one sponsor here: the shipping company that will, eventually, take this nostalgic, future-forward circus elsewhere.

It is only natural to muse which megastars might attempt to copy Abba’s 21st-century travelling show. But the group’s deep pockets – the Mamma Mia! millions? – and detail-savvy creative control have ensured that this quest is one that few will undertake, at least with such surefootednesss.

Because the most enduring pleasure of the whole endeavour is exactly how uncheesy Voyage is; how it is not a Madame Tussauds with go-faster stripes. A kind of Scandinavian classiness is built into everything from the building’s exterior pine construction on up to the tunes themselves, in which stoicism and good sense barely hide the unbridled misery of a series of leave-takings.

When All Is Said and Done and The Winner Takes It All deliver their bleak payload, even as they are sung by ghosts in the machine. And that misused Alan Partridge theme tune, Knowing Me, Knowing You , claws back much of its shard-like poignancy. The eye-popping treatment suggests a fracturing hall of mirrors, in which the members of Abba split up, embrace and fall apart again.

Abba Voyage continues at the Abba Arena, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London E20, until May 2024

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ABBA Voyage Review: A Jaw-Dropping Journey Of Discography

Head of Entertainment, HuffPost UK

This review contains major spoilers for the Abba Voyage live show.

If ABBA had ever accepted the rumoured offer of $1billion to reform for a reunion tour a few years back, the anticipation of seeing Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid back on stage for the first time in forty years would’ve been at fever pitch.

Walking into the multi-million pound, purpose-built ABBA Arena in East London for the very first night of the ABBA Voyage show, there is that heightened sense of anticipation, but it’s laced with an overwhelming feeling of ’what the hell am I about to experience?’

Shrouded in secrecy, despite months of hype and tantalising teasers, the band’s Björn and Benny repeatedly stated that it was definitely not going to be one of those posthumous hologram shows put on for the likes of Whitney Houston and Frank Sinatra.

They also struggled to truly explain what the difference would be, other than that instead of being holograms, each member of the group would be performing as digital avatars (or ABBAtars as they have become known), which sounded a lot like… holograms.

After witnessing the first ever performance of the show, I can see why Björn and Benny struggled to explain it. I can also understand why they kept their cards so close to their chest.

It is quite simply, awe-inspiring.

This👏is👏ABBA👏Voyage👏 pic.twitter.com/6kGQ2zu1TU — ABBA Voyage (@ABBAVoyage) May 26, 2022

“We’re playing tricks with people’s minds and they’re willing to let us,” Björn said ahead of the show’s premiere.

“For the time fans are in the arena, they believe we are real and are on stage. They’re at a concert with ABBA.”

He’s not wrong.

From the moment we get our first glimpse of the group - rising onto the stage as reimagined 21st century pop stars - it’s abundantly clear that this is definitely not a hologram show.

We are all instantly transported into a universe where the real and digital worlds collide. The entire arena is wrapped in swathes of light and sound. If the acoustics weren’t so impressive, I swear I would have heard 3000 jaws simultaneously hit the floor.

And just as I was popping my jaw back into place, it’s gone again at the realisation that the opening song is not one of the group’s mega-hits but the title track - and firm fan favourite - from their 1981 studio album, The Visitors.

“I have been waiting for these visitors,” Anni-Frid sings.

Not half as much as the adoring crowd have been waiting for them.

Then it’s into another deep cut, Hole In Your Soul, a nod to the group’s final tour in 1979, when it was last performed. That was ‘peak ABBA’, which is why the versions of the band we see on stage tonight are based on that era, albeit with 21st century hairstyles and wardrobes courtesy of Dolce & Gabbana, Manish Arora, Erevos Aether and Michael Schmidt.

Does Your Mother Know sees Björn get his solo moment, but after one verse he disappears to give the (real life) backing singers and excellent live band their moment in the sun.

Speaking of which, Chiquitita is performed in front of a giant eclipsing sun, perfectly timed to fully disappear as the song ends. The crowd go nuts.

If I had to nitpick at where some momentum is lost it would be the two songs that didn’t feature the ABBAtars. Instead, Eagle and Voulez-Vous were accompanied by an animated story.

Maybe I was missing something, but not having them perform these songs felt like a missed opportunity, especially after they’d just donned those futuristic Tron-like outfits seen in the promo pics to perform an explosive version of Lay All Your Love On Me, complete with choreography by the award-winning Wayne McGregor.

Did the ABBAtars need to catch their breath? Some of the audience certainly needed to freshen up as many opted to head to the bar at this point.

Unnecessary animation aside, there were some genuinely warm and humorous moments in between numbers when the band ‘interacted’ with the crowd. At one point Benny started playing the opening notes of the EastEnders theme tune (yes, really), which is when I genuinely thought I’d entered a parallel universe. It certainly felt that way in the arena.

Like the (super) troopers that they are, they saved the best to last .

There wasn’t a single bum on seat - including those belonging to Kylie Minogue, Kate Moss, Keira Knightley and the King and Queen of Sweden who were all in the audience - for the finale of Waterloo, Dancing Queen and The Winner Takes It All. At this point, the emotional connection between the group and the audience was palpable.

I walked into that arena thinking ‘what the hell am I about to experience?’ and walked out buzzing with an overwhelming sense of ‘what the hell have I just witnessed?’

The future, that’s what.

ABBA Voyage set list:

• The Visitors
• Hole in Your Soul
• Knowing Me, Knowing You
• Does Your Mother Know
• Lay All Your Love on Me
• Summer Night City
• Voulez-Vous
• When All is Said and Done
• Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)
• Thank You For the Music
• Don’t Shut Me Down
• I Still Have Faith in You
• Dancing Queen
• The Winner Takes it All

ABBA Voyage is now booking until 28 May 2023 with more dates to be released soon. For more information go to abbavoyage.com .

More In Entertainment

ABBA’s ‘Voyage’ Virtual Concert to Go on Tour ‘Around the World’

By Jem Aswad

Executive Editor, Music

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ABBA’s ‘Voyage’ virtual concer t — which opened in a specially built London arena last May and has sold more than 1 million tickets — will go on a global tour, Universal Music Group chairman Lucian Grainge confirmed during the company’s earnings call on Thursday.

“Plans are now in development to take ‘ ABBA Voyage’ around the world,” Grainge said on the call. Presumably, that means the show will be playing in specially modified arenas in major cities across the globe. Contacted by Variety, reps for ABBA and Universal, the group’s label, did not immediately have further information.

Popular on Variety

Reviewing “ABBA Voyage” opening night for Variety, Mark Sutherland wrote, “At first, the movements seem a little too jerky, the lines a little too obvious. But then, just as when you saw the initially-somewhat-unconvincing dinosaurs in ‘Jurassic Park’ for the first time, your eyes adjust, the willing suspension of disbelief kicks in, and they begin to feel like living, breathing musicians, rather than the product of 160 motion capture cameras and one billion computing hours by Industrial Light & Magic.”

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After 40 Years, Abba Takes a Chance With Its Legacy

How one of the biggest pop groups in the world secretly reunited to make a new album and a high-tech stage show featuring digital avatars of themselves — from 1979.

From left: Bjorn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Faltskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson of Abba. “We took a break in the spring of 1982 and now we’ve decided it’s time to end it,” the group said in a statement in September. Credit... Siegfried Pilz/United Archives, via Getty Images

Supported by

By Elisabeth Vincentelli

• Oct. 27, 2021

STOCKHOLM — The small, tranquil island of Skeppsholmen holds a handful of the Swedish capital’s artistic treasures: Moderna Museet, the theater group Teater Galeasen and the converted red brick warehouse just steps from a waterfront promenade where Benny Andersson has his personal studio. He tucked a packet of the oral tobacco snus in his mouth as Bjorn Ulvaeus sipped coffee in one of its sunbathed rooms earlier this month, the two musicians surrounded by a grand piano, a small selection of synths and an assortment of framed photographs that were perched behind a computer screen.

For the first time since the Reagan administration, the pair were discussing a new album by their band, Abba — an album one of the biggest international pop acts in history somehow made in secret, with all four of its original members congregating nearly four decades after giving their last public performance.

“We took a break in the spring of 1982 and now we’ve decided it’s time to end it,” the group said in a statement in September. The response was thunderous. “Abba is another vessel, isn’t it?” Ulvaeus marveled at the studio, just steps from the larger one where they completed their clandestine LP. “We did this thing and we are on the front page of every paper in the world.”

In a country known for producing towering figures in pop music (Avicii, the hitmaker Max Martin, Robyn, Roxette) Abba still looms the largest, and even has its own permanent museum . Between 1973 and 1981, the quartet — which includes the singers Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad — released eight studio albums filled with meticulously crafted melodies, harmonies and strings that have generated 20 hits on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart , sold tens of millions of albums around the world and built a passionate fan base.

But its paradigm-shifting impact can’t be measured only in numbers: The group was known for taking risks with technology and the use of its songs. Starting in the mid-1970s, it was among the first acts to make elaborate promotional mini-films — we’d call them music videos now — most of them directed by Lasse Hallstrom. Its 1981 album “The Visitors” is generally acknowledged as the first commercial release on compact disc. The 1999 jukebox musical “Mamma Mia!” paired the group’s hits with an unrelated plot, sparking a slew of imitators and two film adaptations that brought us the spectacle of Meryl Streep singing “Dancing Queen.”

Now Abba is risking perhaps its most valuable asset — its legacy — by not only releasing a fresh addition to its catalog, but creating a stage show that features none of its members in the flesh. Starting in a custom-built London venue next May, the group will perform as highly sophisticated avatars (or in this case, Abbatars) designed to replicate their 1979 look — the era of feathered hair and flamboyant stage wear.

Andersson, 74, and Ulvaeus, 76, two of the most low-key men in a high-stress industry, said they were genuinely surprised, and possibly a little relieved, by the excitement that greeted the new album’s announcement. (The 10-track “Voyage,” which shares its name with the forthcoming live show , is out Nov. 5 on Capitol.)

“We had no idea it would be so well received,” Ulvaeus said. “You just take a chance, you risk a thumping.” It was hard to tell if he was echoing the title of one of Abba’s most famous songs on purpose; these guys have a way with dry humor.

Still, they might have had an inkling a reunion would spur interest. Since it went offline in 1982, Abba has continued to thrive. Conversations about pop have shifted over the decades, helping the group overcome the “cheesy Europop” tag that often stuck to it during its 1970s prime — “We have met the enemy and they are them,” the American critic Robert Christgau wrote in 1979. Abba is now widely respected as a purveyor of sophisticated pop craftsmanship, and its enduring popularity transcends generations and borders.

“Abba is simply one of the biggest groups in the history of popular music,” Michelle Jubelirer, president and chief operating officer of Capitol Music Group, wrote in an email. “They are truly a global phenomenon, and have been so since they won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 with ‘Waterloo.’”

And every decade or so, something has rekindled interest, starting with the 1992 compilation “Abba Gold,” which is still on the British charts more than 1,000 weeks after its release (I wrote the liner notes to a 2010 reissue). The band’s classic songcraft and studio wizardry continues to bridge musical allegiances, drawing fans as diverse as Elvis Costello, Carly Rae Jepsen, Jarvis Cocker, Kylie Minogue and Dave Grohl. Just ask Madonna, who directly appealed to the group for a sample of “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” for her 2005 hit “Hung Up.”

Andersson and Ulvaeus could easily have just sat on their piles of kronor, with the knowledge that their place in the record books was secure: “What is there to prove?” Andersson said. “They’ll still play ‘Dancing Queen’ next year.”

Ulvaeus chortled. The duo still complement each other almost comically perfectly: Andersson is a musician’s musician who goes to his studio almost every day (and drives an ultracompact Toyota). Ulvaeus, who has always had an entrepreneurial bent, continues to pursue various projects with his production and hospitality company Pophouse Entertainment (and pilots a red Tesla).

Because there was no pressure to reunite, the pair say there was no grand plan for an album: It just kind of happened when four friends realized they still enjoyed making music together.

It all started about five years ago, when Simon Fuller, the producer behind the “Idol” franchise and the Spice Girls, pitched a show starring 3-D reproductions of the group’s members “singing” the original vocal tracks backed by a live band.

“It was an easy choice (for me) to empower them to be the first important group to truly embrace the possibilities of the virtual world,” Fuller said in an email. “Abba’s music appeals to all generations unlike any group since the Beatles.”

The project also had appealing practical benefits for people unwilling to submit to the grind of big concerts.

“What interested us was the idea that we could send them out while we can be at home cooking or walking the dog,” Andersson said.

The pair traveled to Las Vegas to check out the hologram used in the Cirque du Soleil show “Michael Jackson ONE,” and their main takeaway was that they would have to do roughly a million times better. The visual-effects company Industrial Light & Magic, of “Star Wars” fame, assured them it could happen. (Fuller is no longer involved in the project.)

Naturally, “the girls,” as seemingly everybody in the band’s close circles good-naturedly calls Faltskog, 71, and Lyngstad, 75, had to be onboard, especially since the process would involve weeks of motion capture. “They said ‘OK, if that’s it,’ ” Andersson recalled. “‘We don’t want to go on the road. We don’t want to do TV interviews and meet journalists.’” (They kept their word and didn’t participate in this story.)

Andersson and Ulvaeus decided that the Abbatars should have some fresh material because that’s what would have happened before a tour back in the day. In 2017 Faltskog, who lives outside Stockholm, and Lyngstad, who lives in Switzerland, traveled to RMV studio, a hundred yards from Andersson’s base on Skeppsholmen. There, they put down their vocals on the ballad “I Still Have Faith in You” and the string-laden disco of “Don’t Shut Me Down.” The two singers, who have been out of the music business for several years, picked up right where they left off.

“They come in and they just, you know, ‘Here you go guys, we can still do this,’” Andersson said. “Amazing.”

Faltskog and Lyngstad weren’t the only ones beckoned to work. “Benny called me saying something like, ‘Can you come to the studio, we’re thinking of making one or two songs with the old band?’” the guitarist Lasse Wellander , who has been working with the group since its self-titled album from 1975, wrote in an email. “At first I didn’t understand what he meant, then I realized he actually meant Abba!”

The original plan was to do just those two tracks, but they kept going. “We said, ‘Shouldn’t we write a few other songs, just for fun?’” Andersson recalled. “And the girls said, ‘Yeah, that will be fun.’ So they came in and we had five songs. And we said, ‘Shouldn’t we do a few others? We can release an album.’”

There were conversations about how the new LP would fit into a beloved discography. “Part of it was, is this in any way harming the history of Abba, the music of Abba?” said Gorel Hanser, who has been working with the band members since 1969, before they called themselves Abba, and is integral to the group’s management team. She said she thought Andersson addressed those concerns when the idea first arrived for “Mamma Mia!”: ‘“Are we doing it the right way? Are we destroying what we have?’” she said. “But I think it’s been very well taken care of. We don’t leave anything without doing it as best as we possibly can.”

The new songs feature some of Ulvaeus’s most poetically bittersweet lyrics, with references to the difficulty of relationships and separation. “I’ve been through that myself,” he said. “It’s fiction but you know exactly what it’s like.”

For Andersson, coming up with fresh Abba material was a welcome shift. “I think it’s sort of boring to only work on recycling,” he said, inadvertently sparking a back and forth with Ulvaeus — their only disagreement of the day — over his choice of words.

“You call it recycling, I call it transcendent storytelling,” Ulvaeus said. “You can lift, you can do things on other platforms, which is what ‘Voyage’ is: it’s telling a story on another platform. That’s what ‘Mamma Mia!’ is, too,” he continued, referring to the musical. “It’s not recycling. ”

In a way the exchange was pure Abba: easygoing, but undergirded by serious concerns. Another chance for debate came up when the two men were discussing their Abbatars. Andersson remarked that Ulvaeus had requested a change to his digital alter ego’s hair because there is only so much 1979 realness anybody can take. When I remarked that it was a great way to rewrite a little bit of history while still being faithful to its spirit, Ulvaeus replied, with a slight smile, “Yes, it’s such an interesting existential question.” (Ulvaeus, known in Sweden for his commitment to atheism and humanism , enjoys such questions, later asking, “So, do you think the American constitution is strong enough to withstand another Republican president?”)

The Andersson-Ulvaeus songwriting bond has withstood intraband divorces and the pressure brought on by critical scorn. (For those who have forgotten: Andersson used to be married to Lyngstad, Ulvaeus to Faltskog.) They have been writing together nonstop since meeting in 1966, and their post-Abba collaborations include songs for Andersson’s band as well as the musicals “Chess” and “Kristina from Duvemåla,” an epic about 19th-century Swedish immigrants to America that includes the rare showstopper about lice.

While the division of labor used to be fluid in the 1970s, it is now much more clear-cut: Andersson comes up with melodies and records demos in his Skeppsholmen lair then sends them to Ulvaeus, who writes the lyrics. Asked how elaborate those demos are, Andersson volunteered to play “Don’t Shut Me Down,” and walked over to his computer. Then he couldn’t find it among his dozens of files, searching “Tina Charles” since the Abba song has a slinky vibe like one of the British singer’s hits.

He eventually unearthed not the demo but the finished backing track, and cranked it up on the immaculate sound system, providing a great example of how crucial Faltskog and Lyngstad’s voices are to Abba’s sonic tapestry.

“All the various successful groups since the ’70s have had more than one singer,” Andersson said, mentioning Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, alongside Abba. “You hear Frida sing one song and then you hear Agnetha sing — it’s like two bands. The dynamics are helped immensely by the fact that there are two. And then when they sing together …”

Their harmonies on the “Voyage” album bear the unmistakable Abba stamp, even if the register is a bit lower than it used to be. Age alone does not account for the difference: “We used to sort of force them to go as high as they could on most of the songs because it gives energy,” Andersson said.

“We urged rather than forced,” Ulvaeus interjected.

A lot has changed in pop in the past 40 years, but “Voyage” makes no attempt to sound like anything other than Abba. “You listen to new records, it’s always so slick,” Andersson said. “There’s nothing moving aside of the exact rhythm. I don’t do that — I do it by free hand.”

The approach helps makes the new album feel timeless. “Nowadays you can edit anything, but they didn’t,” the drummer Per Lindvall, who has been collaborating with Andersson and Ulvaeus since the song “Super Trouper” in 1980 and plays on the new album, said on the phone. “They also haven’t been pitching the vocals to death. It’s part of the unique Abba sound.”

The new show — in which the two men have invested “a big chunk,” according to Andersson, whose son Ludvig is one of its producers — did require a bit more 21st-century technology, including five weeks of motion capture. That involved squeezing into tight suits covered in sensors, and required Andersson and Ulvaeus to shave their beloved beards.

As more pieces of the “Voyage” project fell into place over the past couple of years, the former Klaxons frontman James Righton was enlisted to recruit the Abbatars’ live backing band. Its 10 members include Victoria Hesketh, 37, who performs as Little Boots. In early 2020, she practiced with the newly formed ensemble in Stockholm, under Andersson’s tutelage.

“It was a strange combination of being pushed technically so hard, but at the same time being so full of joy in every moment,” she said in a phone interview. “I could see Benny chuckling to himself behind the mixing desk.”

Four decades ago, this long, improbable journey was unimaginable for four Swedes. “You have to understand how impossible it seemed right before Abba to have hit records in England and the U.S.,” Ulvaeus said of the pop landscape before the internet globalized it. “It was absolutely not in the cards.”

Yet not only did Abba break down barriers for musicians around the world, it did it with the matter-of-fact pragmatism of artisans — which is what its members remain at heart. “The thing is, it has always been like day-to-day work, even then,” Andersson said. “We would write the songs, hope that something good will come out, go to the studio, record those songs. And then we wrote some more. Exactly the same as now: It’s not about anything else than trying to come up with something good, and see what happens.”

An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misidentified two of Abba’s members. Bjorn Ulvaeus is at left, not right, and Benny Andersson is at the right, not left. 

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All four ABBA members publicly reunite for first time in 40 years at Voyage launch

26 May 2022, 19:06 | Updated: 27 May 2022, 07:54

By Tom Eames

It was an incredible moment for ABBA fans, as the foursome finally reunited in public for the first time in decades.

Tonight (May 26) saw the launch of ABBA Voyage in London, the special concert that features virtual 'ABBAtars' alongside a live band and orchestra.

To open the live concert residency at the specially-built ABBA Arena, all four ABBA stars were in attendance.

• ABBA Voyage concert begins in London: Tickets, dates, setlist and more facts revealed
• ABBA unveil super-realistic virtual 'ABBAtars' ahead of Voyage live shows
• ABBA reveal hopes and fears for Voyage show: 'Making ABBA-tars was like filming Top of the Pops'

Agnetha Faltskog , Benny Andersson , Bjorn Ulvaeus and Anni-Frid Lyngstad all appeared together on stage, to the delight of fans in attendance and around the world.

ABBA Voyage feature ABBA as virtual avatars, showing the group as they appeared in 1979. The concerts take place at the venue at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London.

The digital versions of ABBA were created with motion-capture and performance techniques using the four band members, and the team from Industrial Light & Magic, the company founded by George Lucas.

Abba reunite in London for first time since 1982 for Voyage concert

The arrival we've all been waiting for! #ABBAVoyage pic.twitter.com/M2I1nyCvex — ABBA Voyage (@ABBAVoyage) May 26, 2022

They👏 Are👏 Here👏 #ABBAVoyage pic.twitter.com/J15ciHsHS3 — ABBA Voyage (@ABBAVoyage) May 26, 2022

The last time ABBA were seen together in public was on a British TV appearance back in late 1982, 40 years ago.

Apart from performing a Swedish song as a birthday party surprise for manager Stig Andersson in 1986, the group would not be on stage together again for over 30 years after that.

In 2016, the four members of ABBA reunited on stage for an impromptu performance of 'Me and I' at a private gala in Sweden. But this was the first time they were seen in public together.

ABBA also reunited for their long-awaited comeback album Voyage , which was one of the best-selling albums of 2021.

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ABBA Shares First Look into Virtual ‘Voyage’ Concert

by Tina Benitez-Eves November 4, 2021, 10:14 am

ABBA revealed the first look at their 2022 Voyage concert series. The 20-second trailer shows the digital avatars of the Swedish pop quartet of Agnetha Faltskog, Bjorn Ulvaeus, and Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid (Frida) Lyngstad, dancing to their 1978 song “Summer Night City,” donned in futuristic garb in a digitized setting with neon pyramids and other vivid imagery. The trailer comes days before ABBA releases their new album, and first in 40 years, Voyage (Universal Music Group), on Nov. 5.

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The group first revealed their reunion in September along with a new website, upcoming concerts beginning spring 2022, and new singles “I Still Have Faith in You,” “Don’t Shut Me Down” and a recent third “ Just a Notion ,” a song the group originally recorded in 1978 for their sixth album  Voulez-Vous  in 1979 that never made the cut.

“We took a break in the spring of 1982 and now we’ve decided it’s time to end it,” said ABBA said in a statement in September.

Along with the release of Voyage, ABBA’s concert series kicks off in London on May 27, 2022, and features the foursome in their avatar forms, or “ABBAtars” (circa 1979), along with a 10-piece live band, at the custom-built “ABBA Arena” at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Producer Ludvig Andersson (Benny’s son) recently explained how the avatars “came to life.”

“Agnetha, Frida, Benny, and Björn got on a stage in front of 160 cameras and almost as many VFX geniuses and they performed every song in this show to perfection over five weeks, capturing every mannerism, every emotion,” said Andersson. “When you see this show it is not a ‘version of’, or a ‘copy of’, it is actually them.”

Photo by Baillie Walsh / Universal Music Group

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ABBA tease forthcoming avatar tour: “It still sounds very much ABBA”

The band are set to record five new songs to take on the long-delayed tour

ABBA ‘s Björn Ulvaeus has teased the band’s forthcoming avatar tour, promising that it “still sounds very much ABBA.”

• READ MORE:  ABBA are the best band in the world – no contest

Back in 2017, it was announced that the band would reunite in digital form in 2019 , performing as “Abbatars” for the first time since they split in 1982.

When the reunion tour was then delayed, the Swedish pop icons announced back in 2018 that they would be sharing two new tracks : ‘I Still Have Faith In You’ and ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’, which was then expanded to five new tracks as a reward to fans waiting for the reunion tour due to COVID -related delays.

In a new interview with The Times , Ulvaeus discussed how Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad’s vocals were now in a lower pitch – “about one tone lower, perhaps” – but promised that the sound fans would hear on the tour would still be “very much Abba.”

Discussing the process of creating the avatars, Ulvaeus said the band were “photographed from all possible angles” and made to “grimace in front of cameras”.

“They painted dots on our faces, they measured our heads.”

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Back in 2018, Ulvaeus spoke about the direction of the two original new songs , which has now been expanded to five..

“One of them is a pop tune, very danceable,” he said. “The other is more timeless, more reflective, that is all I will say. It is Nordic sad, but happy at the same time.”

Elsewhere, Ulvaeus has this week slammed the streaming economy , saying that songwriters are “last in line for streaming royalties”.

Writing in  The Guardian , Ulvaeus said a new royalties model is needed if the industry is to see any kind of “risk-taking” or “creativity” from artists whose writing, he says, is being affected by the pressures of the “dysfunctional” current model.

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International Edition

Kiss Sell Music Catalog, Publishing, and Imagery to Company Behind ABBA Voyage

By Daniel Kreps

Daniel Kreps

Kiss are the latest artists to sell off their music catalog — and, in this case, their well-known onstage personas and makeup — for big money.

The band — which closed out its (alleged) farewell tour in December 2023 — announced they have sold the rights to their music and imagery to Pophouse, the Swedish company that created the ABBA Voyage hologram show and is working on a similar project involving Kiss. 

While the price wasn’t revealed in a joint press release, Fortune reports that Kiss raked in upwards of $300 million in the sale. A rep for the band did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone ‘s request for comment.

The deal involves all of Kiss’ master recordings and publishing rights, and in a unique addition to other catalog acquisitions, also includes the band’s characters — Gene Simmons ’ God of Thunder, Paul Stanley ’s Star Child — and their distinct makeup.

“Life happens while you’re busy making important plans,” he added. “We were planning our respectful, proud walking off into the sunset, because we’ve been touring, we had been touring for half a century.”

During the band’s final End of the Road Tour show at Madison Square Garden , Kiss revealed that the band would live on as digital avatars in the Pophouse-produced hologram shows beginning in 2027; Pophouse’s ABBA Voyage show, currently presented in London, makes $1 million a week, Fortune reported.

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“We have always been breaking new ground in popular culture, and this partnership will ensure that we continue to do so for years to come,” Simmons said of the catalog dead in a statement. “Because what Pophouse is doing, is breaking rules. We already have several plans in development, where the avatar show is one, a biopic another and a KISS themed experience a third. The future could not be more exciting!”

Stanley added, “Our journey with Pophouse is fueled by the desire to eternally resonate across diverse facets of global culture. As we embark on this venture, we aim to weave our legacy into the tapestry of different worlds, ensuring that the KISS experience continues to captivate both our devoted fans and those yet to discover the thrill. This partnership is not just a chapter; it’s an eternal symphony of rock ‘n’ roll immortality.”

Pophouse CEO Per Sundin  said in December that the company is still in the process of figuring out how best to use the Industrial Light and Magic-created avatars, which are enormous, fire-breathing versions of the Kiss members in full regalia. “Is it a Kiss concert in the future? Is it a rock opera? Is it a musical? A story, an adventure? These four individuals already have superpowers. We want to be as open as possible.”

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“We’ve all seen boxers and artists who will stay in the ring too long and get knocked out by some amateur,” Simmons said. “You don’t want to do that, you want to go out on top. And we did it the right way, out of respect and love for the fans.”

This story was updated at 8:35 p.m. ET to include comment from Gene Simmons to People.

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Pophouse, the Swedish company behind ABBA Voyage buys KISS’ music catalog for $300 million

The rock band KISS is selling its song catalog, as well as its name, image and likeness, to Pophouse Entertainment Group AB, the Swedish company behind the popular ABBA Voyage live avatar performance.

Pophouse is paying more than $300 million, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing the terms of a private deal. The agreement includes master recordings and publishing rights.

Pophouse wants to turn KISS into an act that remains popular in culture long after its members stop making new music and performing. The company has announced plans to make a biopic about the group, as well as a live music show featuring avatars of its members.

Pophouse has already made a live show featuring the members of ABBA, the legendary Swedish pop group. That show, called ABBA Voyage, is making more than $1 million a week in London. Tens of thousands of fans flock to an arena purpose-built for the show to watch avatars of the group perform hits like  Dancing Queen  and  Chiquitita . ABBA’s Bjorn Ulvaeus founded Pophouse with Swedish investor Conni Jonsson.

Bassist and KISS co-lead singer Gene Simmons and his band mates started talking to the team at Pophouse a couple of years ago in the midst of their final tour, the  End of the Road  World Tour. The rock band, formed by Simmons and Paul Stanley in the early 1970s, has sold more than 100 million albums worldwide, and their final tour stretched over five years. 

KISS and Pophouse and have spent many months working through future projects, and the members of KISS have already flown to Walt Disney Co.’s Industrial Light & Magic to put on bodysuits and have cameras capture their performances for the avatar show.

“Kiss the touring band is over — we’ve stopped touring after 50 years,” Simmons said in an interview. “What Pophouse will do with our images, our music and our personas is unlike anything anyone has ever seen.”

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Kiss Sells Catalog, Name, Likeness and More to Pophouse Entertainment for $300 Million

Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Kiss have sold their music catalog, name, image and likeness - including their iconic makeup designs - to Pophouse Entertainment, the Sweden-based music investment firm behind ABBA's "Voyage" hologram show . While terms of the deal were not officially announced, Bloomberg and Associated Press said it was worth upwards of $300 million.

In a statement, Pophouse plans to promote the group's "iconic music, enigmatic personas, and expressive imagery for generations to come." Indeed, news of the deal arrives just four months after Kiss unveiled plans for an avatar concert similar to ABBA's with digital versions of the group.

"Our partnership will fuse the rich history and iconic status of KISS with cutting-edge technology, allowing fans – now and in the future – to experience the band like never before," said Pophouse CEO Per Sundin at the time of that deal.

Since its launch in London in July of 2022, "ABBA Voyage" has grossed more than $1 million per week and last year Universal Music chairman Lucian Grainge announced plans to take the show around the world, with Las Vegas recently rumored as a destination. ABBA's Bjorn Ulvaeus is a co-founder of Pophouse, which over the past two years has also acquired catalogs by the late Swedish DJ-artist Avicii, the electronic music group Swedish House Mafia and American singer Cyndi Lauper.

Kiss teased their forthcoming digital show at the final concert of their "End of the Road" tour in New York last year when avatar versions of the band closed the show. The first digital Kiss show is scheduled for 2027.

Kiss co-founder Gene Simmons said, "We have always been breaking new ground in popular culture, and this partnership will ensure that we continue to do so for years to come. Because what Pophouse is doing, is breaking rules. We already have several plans in development."

Per Sundin said of the deal, "Kiss has sold more than 100 million records worldwide and has throughout their 50-year career continued to push the boundaries in popular culture. The band's enigmatic personas, unparalleled band attributes, and iconic imagery have made them a cultural force and a legendary act with multigenerational appeal.

"We will safeguard and enrich this legacy through future global endeavors, by breathing new life into their characters and personas while also leveraging and elevating the visual world of KISS."

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ABBA fans the world over yesterday celebrated the 50 th anniversary of the Swedish supergroup’s Eurovision victory in 1974, and one crowd were treated to a surprise appearance by band member Bjorn Ulvaeus .

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On stage in London, the cast celebrated the 25 th anniversary of the Mamma Mia! musical, and then had one more treat for the audience – with the appearance of Bjorn Ulvaeus – one quarter of ABBA, and one half of the band’s songwriting duo (along with Benny Andersson).

When Ulvaeus took to the stage at London’s Novello Theatre , introduced by producer Judy Cramer, he was typically understated. In a TikTok video posted by theatre-goer Kelly Allen, he is seen telling the audience:

“About this time in the evening, exactly 50 years ago, I was standing on another stage here in the UK. It was the second time I entered the stage that night because me and my three bandmates had been called back to perform our song a second time. Because the juries of the Eurovision Final had delivered their verdicts. Nul points from the UK!

“Despite that, we won, and by the thinnest margin in the history of Eurovision… On a night like this, it’s strange to think that, if we hadn’t won… I most probably wouldn’t be standing here today… so I’ve got to thank Waterloo for. But, in this room, I can admit that when I relax at home, put on some music, it is not Waterloo .”

He mused on the band’s success over the past 50 years:

He expressed his gratitude for “the sheer existence of music, because what kind of world would we have without music? I think one of the finest examples of how you can use music in an uplifting way to make people happy, it is Mamma Mia! ”

And he finished:

“I might not be here for the next big anniversary, but my avatar will.”

ABBA have sold more anywhere between 150million and 385million records in their stellar career, Mamma Mia! continues to play to full theatre crowds across the world, and ABBA Voyage – where the avatars of Bjorn, Benny, Agnetha Faltskog  and Anni-Frid Lyngstad perform all their biggest hits in a specially made East London arena – continues to play to full houses two years after its arrival.

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Kiss sells catalog, brand name and IP. Gene Simmons assures fans it is a ‘collaboration’

It’s never really the end of the road for Kiss. The hard rock quartet have sold their catalog, brand name and IP to Swedish company Pophouse Entertainment Group in a deal estimated to be over $300 million, it was announced Thursday. (April 4)

FILE - Gene Simmons, from left, Tommy Thayer, and Paul Stanley of KISS perform during the final night of the “Kiss Farewell Tour"at Madison Square Garden in New York on Dec. 2, 2023. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

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It’s never really the end of the road for Kiss . The hard rock quartet have sold their catalog, brand name and IP to Swedish company Pophouse Entertainment Group in a deal estimated to be over $300 million, it was announced Thursday.

This isn’t the first time Kiss has partnered with Pophouse, which was co-founded by ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus. When the band’s current lineup — founders Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons as well as guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer — took the stage at the final night of their farewell tour in December at New York City’s famed Madison Square Garden, they ended by revealing digitized avatars of themselves.

The cutting-edge technology was created by George Lucas’ special-effects company, Industrial Light & Magic, in partnership with Pophouse. The two companies recently teamed up for the “ABBA Voyage” show in London, in which fans could attend a full concert by the Swedish band in their heyday, as performed by their own digital avatars.

The ways in which Kiss’ avatars will be utilized has yet to be announced, but Pophouse CEO Per Sundin says fans can expect a biopic, a documentary and a Kiss experience on the horizon.

An avatar show is scheduled to launch in the second half of 2027 — but don’t expect it to look anything like “ABBA Voyage,” Sundin told the AP. And fans can expect it to kick off in North America.

Sundin says the goal of the purchase is to expose Kiss to new generations — which he believes sets Pophouse apart from other acquisitions of music catalogs .

“The record companies, the three big ones that are left, they’re doing a fantastic job, but they have so many catalogs and they can’t focus on everything,” he says. “We work together with Universal (Music Group) and Kiss, even though we will own the artists rights, and we’re doing it in conjunction with Kiss. But yes, we bought all rights, and that’s not something I’ve seen that clear before.”

“I don’t like the word acquisition,” Gene Simmons tells the AP over Zoom, assuring the band would never sell their catalog to a company they didn’t appreciate.

“Collaboration is exactly what it’s about. It would be remiss in our inferred fiduciary duty — see what I just did there? — to the thing that we created to abandon it,” he continued. “People might misunderstand and think, ‘OK, now Pophouse is doing that stuff and we’re just in Beverly Hills twiddling our thumbs.’ No, that’s not true. We’re in the trenches with them. We talk all the time. We share ideas. It’s a collaboration. Paul (Stanley) and I especially, with the band, we’ll stay committed to this. It’s our baby.”

And within that: no more live touring, for real. “We’re not going to tour again as Kiss, period,” he says. “We’re not going to go put the makeup on and go out there.”

Kiss are Pophouse’s second investment outside of Sweden: In February, Cyndi Lauper entered a partnership with the company which including the sale of the majority share of her music and a new immersive performance project she’s calling an “immersive theater piece” that transports audiences to the New York she grew up in.

The aim is to develop new ways to bring Lauper’s music to fans and younger audiences through new performances and live experiences.

“Most suits, when you tell them an idea, their eyes glaze over, they just want your greatest hits,” Lauper told the AP at the Pophouse headquarters in Stockholm in February. “But these guys are a multimedia company, they’re not looking to just buy my catalog, they want to make something new.”