ABBA Voyage Tour Overview
The digital versions of ABBA have been created with motion capture and performance techniques with the four band members and the visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic, in what is the company’s first foray into music.
The ABBA Voyage concert is produced by Svana Gisla and Ludvig Andersson, director Baillie Walsh, co-executive producer Johan Renck and choreographer Wayne McGregor.
Pophouse, a Swedish entertainment company, is a co-developer of the project and its lead investor. Two Pophouse executives, Michael Bolingbroke and Per Sundin, both serve in leadership positions of the production company behind the show. According to multiple media reports, the project is one of the most expensive live music experiences in history, with a budget of $175 million. The show was nominated for two categories at the 21st Visual Effects Society Awards, losing Outstanding Virtual Cinematography in a CG Project to the science-fiction film Avatar: The Way of Water, but winning Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue Project.
About ABBA Voyage
ABBA had unofficially split up in December 1982, and despite renewed interest in the band from the 1990s onwards, following the worldwide success of their greatest hits album ABBA Gold, the musical Mamma Mia! and its film adaptation, the members had repeatedly refused to re-form. Reportedly, they turned down an offer of $1 billion in 2000 to perform again. In 2008, Björn Ulvaeus told The Sunday Telegraph, "We will never appear on stage again. There is simply no motivation to re-group."He repeated the statement in an interview in 2014 while promoting the publication of ABBA: The Official Photo Book.
In September 2017, Benny Andersson told Swedish newspaper Expressen that there were plans for ABBA to tour "virtually", using digital avatars of the group. Ulvaeus told the BBC that the idea had been proposed to the band by Simon Fuller. The idea of using representations of a singer backed by a live band originated with Elvis: The Concert in the 1990s, when Elvis Presley "sang" at concerts via old video clips accompanied by his live backup band. In April 2018, the four members issued a statement saying that during preparations for the tour, they had regrouped in the studio and had recorded two new songs, titled "I Still Have Faith in You" and "Don't Shut Me Down".
ABBA Voyage Facts
- They were deductible under Swedish law as long as they didn’t dress in the outrageous costumes they made a name for themselves wearing onstage. This undoubtedly encouraged the group to express their creativity to the fullest, but Björn would later acknowledge that things occasionally went a little beyond.
- The initial names of the band members—Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad—are all combined into the acronym ABBA, which is perhaps best known to fans as the group’s name.
- Benny’s horizontally flipped “B” during a photo shoot served as the inspiration for their official logo, which was later given a proper design by Rune Soderqvist. The band ABBA was finally given the name it is today, an acronym for the first letters of each member’s name. They also needed to obtain consent from the same-named popular Swedish fish canning company in order to use the rights.
- During the Cold War, currencies from behind the Iron Curtain were embargoed. However, ABBA was quite popular in the Soviet states. As they could not accept rubles, the band instead received royalty payments from the Soviet Union in oil commodities.
