Everything you need to know about the ABBA reunion

Take a chance on… digital avatars? Pop’s eternal super troupers, ABBA, have just announced a comeback tour with a difference. The difference, of course, being that Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad won’t be actually appearing in the flesh. Instead, they are sending “digital avatars” – which sound like holograms but are completely different (they insist) – to London to bash out the hits at a purpose-built arena.

But before these comeback shows next year, there will also be a new ABBA album, Voyage, arriving on November 5. This may strike fear into ABBA fans who just want to groove along to Dancing Queen and wipe away a tear to Chiquitita. But the good news, as revealed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus at a press conference in London, is that the bulk of Voyage came together too late to be included in the set-list.

So it will mostly be classic ABBA, beamed straight from the late 1970s and performed by virtual, “de-aged” versions of Sweden’s biggest exports since flatpack furniture. With the countdown for tickets underway, here is what you need to know.

Where will the concerts be?

Rather than touring, ABBA are in the fortunate position of being one of those acts to whom audiences will flock. The band will stage a residency at a specially built 3,000-capacity venue in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. In an ideal world this would be called the Abba-torium. Alas, they have instead named it the ABBA Arena.

The rather chunky-looking building will be made mainly of wood and is intended to be a temporary structure. It is to be located on a car park site on Barbers Road, next to Pudding Mill DLR Station and is designed by London and Hong Kong-based entertainment and concert specialist Stufish.

Why London over their native Stockholm?

“London is the best city to be in,” Ulvaeus told a visibly over-caffeinated Zoë Ball at the press conference on Thursday. “When it comes to entertainment theatre, musicals… It’s all here. It’s been here for years and years and years…Talent, technology, infrastructure – all of that is here in London”. He added that the UK had always embraced ABBA as “one of their own”.

When are the shows?

The gigs kick off on May 27 2022. The four members of ABBA will be present virtually. But they will be accompanied by a live 10-piece band. And given that the group are rendered from pixels rather than blood, sweat and 1970s shoulder-pads, there is the potential for the residency to run for as long as audiences demand it. ABBA could be singing until the end of time, for all we know.

Why can’t you call them ‘holograms’?

When is a hologram not a hologram? When it’s an “ABBAtar”!

The band were at pains to draw a distinction between the technology that will be showcased at their shows next year and the hologram replicas of stars such as Whitney Houston which have been doing the live circuit rounds. The key difference seems to be that these “digital avatars” were created with the cooperation of the artists – rather than assembled out of old footage following their deaths.

ABBA have already performed the entire concert in skintight motion-capture suits (Andersson even had to shave off his beard for the first time in 50 years). The gig was choreographed by Wayne McGregor, resident artist at the Royal Ballet. And the avatars were brought to life by an 850-strong team from Star Wars director George Lucas’s special-effects company, Industrial Light and Magic, marking its first foray into music.

“Holograms are an old technology,” said Ulvaeus. “The vision was there of having digital selves.”

Hologram concerts are notoriously creepy – especially when the artist you are watching is many years dead. Judging from the sneak peek granted at the press conference, the ABBA avatars will be less unsettling – though they still make the de-aged band members look like characters from a video-game cutscene.

Will they be performing smash hits such as ‘Mamma Mia’, ‘Waterloo’ and ‘Money, Money, Money’?

Ulvaeus and Andersson promised “all the hits”. “We will be doing Dancing Queen,” Ulvaeus confirmed. However, the band said they will also include some relative obscurities: “Songs that aren’t great hits but songs that we like.” And they will be bashing out a little of the dreaded “new material”.

However, as explained above, there will be space for just two new songs – as they hadn’t completed the rest of the Voyage album when the motion-tracking was recorded. These will be ‘I Still Have Faith In You’ and ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’ – both of which have received a mixed reception, including a two-star review from the Telegraph’s own Neil McCormick.

When can I get tickets?

Expect the internet to have a meltdown as tickets go on sale on Tuesday 7 September at 10am. ABBA absolutists can beat the queue by pre-ordering the new album, Voyage. This will give early access to tickets on Sunday 5 September at 10 am. (It also means you’ll have to listen to the new album. But who said life was fair?)

And if you register by midday on September 5, you can buy tickets the following day, Monday 6 September – again at 10 am.

Ticket prices have yet to be announced – but, given the maintenance costs of digital avatars nowadays, don’t expect them to be a steal.

How long will the shows be?

Because the gigs are pre-recorded, albeit with a live band, they will be the same duration every night. Björn and Benny promised a 90-minute concert. Not shabby – but hardly a marathon of Springsteenian proportions.

Why are they reuniting now?

Well it isn’t for the cash. Asked what the best thing about being in ABBA was, Andersson told this week’s press conference: “Not having to worry about the money. You are free to do anything, to keep on writing the music.” Which is why the new concerts will be free! (This is a joke – they will be very, very far from free.)

Ulvaeus had a straightforward answer when quizzed about the reunion tour. “We wanted to do it before we were dead.”

And will these gigs be as much fun as Pierce Brosnan trying to sing his way through Mamma Mia?

No.

ABBA Voyage, their comeback tour, will begin in London on May 27 2022