ABBA Voyage takings ‘more than $2m a week’

The smash-hit ABBA Voyage virtual concert residency has created a new model for ageing legends after grossing more than $2 million (€1.87m) a week, according to a new report.

Held at the purpose-built 3,000-cap ‘ABBA Arena’ under the direction of producers Svana Gisla and Ludvig Andersson and director Baillie Walsh, the show debuted at London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in May 2022 to universal acclaim.

One of the most expensive productions in music history, the £140m (€164m) show has brought the Swedish group – Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus (co-founder of lead investor Pophouse Entertainment), Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad – back to the stage in avatar form, supported by a 10-piece live band.

ABBA Arena is designed to fit 1,650 seats and space for a standing audience of 1,350. According to Bloomberg, the residency has already generated upwards of €140m in sales after selling over 1.5 million tickets, achieving a 99% occupancy rate with an average ticket price of around £85 (€100).

Discussions are reportedly taking place to expand ABBA Voyage to cities including Las Vegas, New York, Singapore and Sydney, and Pophouse CEO Per Sundin says other icons have expressed interest in developing similar productions.

“If you are an artist, you can create your legacy in a way you never could before”

“If you are an artist, you can create your legacy in a way you never could before,” Sundin tells Bloomberg. “This is such a success. We already have been talking to some artists that really want to do this.

“ABBA has done it again. They were early to music videos, they were early to jukebox musicals.”

The four members of ABBA spent five weeks being filmed by 160 cameras for motion capture as they performed the 22 songs that make up the show’s 95-minute runtime. Other key team members include co-executive producer Johan Renck, choreographer Wayne McGregor and AV tech specialist Solotech UK, led by director of special projects Ian “Woody” Woodall.

Speaking to IQ last year, Ludvig Andersson (son of Benny) said the show was six years in the making.

“An idea came to the Stockholm office of ABBA that it might be possible to create digital versions of themselves, and that’s basically how it started,” he said. “Then followed three years of research and development: a lot of conversations around tables in different cities, with different people about what can and cannot be done. Slowly, slowly through that process, we ended up with the idea that became what it is today.”

Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.