Let's Go To ABBAWORLD

[SiHart]

This sounds AMAZING!

Fully approved and supported by ABBA, ABBAWORLD will make its stunning, sequin spangled, world debut in London at Earls Court on 27 January 2010. The hugely interactive experience will take visitors on a mind-blowing journey through ABBAWORLD’S 25 rooms, bursting with exclusive music, footage, images and never-before-displayed memorabilia from the personal collections of the world’s most cherished pop icons; Agnetha, Benny, Björn and Frida.

An engaging introductory movie by critically acclaimed film director, Jonas Åkerlund, will start the experience and a free audio guide will move visitors through the magical space at their own pace.

The phenomenon of ABBA will be brought to life with interactive highlights including ‘Perform with ABBA’ which will allow fans to get up on stage with their idols, as part of a stunning 3D holographic illusion. ‘Tretow MIX Challenge’ - a chance to mix things up and re-create the ABBA sound, the ‘ABBA Quiz’ which will test fans knowledge. There is also the opportunity to Sing-A-Long and dance with ABBA, plus a chance for fans to see themselves as part of an ABBA video.

Better still, as part of the ticket, all interaction will be recorded so people can choose to access it later online at www.abbaworld.com, allowing their experience to live on and on, just like the music. On entry to ABBAWORLD, guests will have their photograph taken, this will appear during a number of the interactive features; fans will see themselves as part of ABBA album covers, posters and other iconic pictures.

Frida said “On behalf of Agnetha, Björn, Benny and I, we are delighted to be part of ABBAWORLD and to have the opportunity to share our amazing experiences with our fans. The interactive elements mean this is the first time we can actually take them on the journey with us. London has a special place in all our hearts and we are looking forward to the world premiere of ABBAWORLD in January”

Tickets go onsale at 9am on Thursday 3rd December 2009 and are priced at £22.00 / £19.50 (subject to booking fee) and are available from www.livenation.co.uk

Anyone else fancy joining me on a trip next year?

Si xx

[Simon R]

Ha! We were going to suggest the same thing.

I hope there's badges on sale.

[Si Hunt]

We're in Si! Let us know when!

Si. :mobile

[P-Bal]

And yet still there's no Sonia Greatest Hits we can be proud of.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

If you go by train - be sure to use the Waterloo line!

[Rob McCow]

It's OPEN!

The Independent went and were amusingly po-faced. Killjoys!

ABBAWorld opened last night in a flurry of spangled jumpsuits and cacophonous harmonies. The basement of Earls Court's cavernous exhibition centre was transformed into a 25-room shrine to everything that was bouncy, shiny and optimistic in the 1970s, when a Swedish quartet called Abba won the Eurovision Song Contest with a song about Waterloo and went on, Napoleonically, to conquer the world. The exhibition, curated by Touring Exhibitions, features interactive holograms, karaoke booths, gold discs and video installations. It's open to the public from today, and will go on to tour across Europe.


The evening kicked off with champagne in the Brompton Room, temporarily transformed by black drapes and twinkling lights into a kind of cosmic cocktail bar. Large shouty European entertainment moguls with shaven heads greeted each other with theatrical slaps. Boy George, in an outsize yellow hat, talked earnestly to a chap with his hair arrayed in Satanically crimson horns.

In the crowd, a long way from their native Brisbane, were Jacinta Wagner, a clinical psychologist (and a dead ringer for Agnetha Faltskog) and her husband Mike, a Qantas airline pilot, who had bid €1,200 in a charity auction to win a ticket to tonight's event. Jacinta has a huge fan for years. "There's no more outstanding musical compositions than Abba songs," she breathed. "They completely changed pop culture." Had she ever seen them live? "Her parents were too poor to take her to see them," said her husband, "so she's making up for it now."

After perhaps too many speeches of thanks, and affirmations that "Abba are literally responsible for the musical landscape in which we all live", two of the original line-up appeared on stage – Bjorn Ulvaeus and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. The crowd went wild. Anni-Frid is blonde these days but just as coolly distant as in her prime. "We hope you like the interactions," she said. "Me and Bjorn sang two of our songs downstairs. It wasn't quite like before, but it was okay." Bjorn, looking professorial and serious in spectacles and beard, reminded the crowd that the quartet had shifted some serious product in its time. "Can you imagine 375m CDs? I can't." Of the exhibition, he remarked: "We feel like pioneers again, like we did when we did 'Mamma Mia' [on stage]."

The crowd dispersed at impressive speed to try the machines in the basement. In a karaoke booths, two German business types in grey Baldassarini suits and artfully slicked long hair, sang "Fernando" with their arms round each other like survivors of a revolution. In the dancing area, where screens full of colour-coded arrows direct your steps as you try to master "Dancing Queen", the highest score went to a lissom, high-strutting young woman called Ruth Matthews who had come with her best friend, Heather Mills. The former Lady McCartney had a little strut herself, fresh from her triumph in Dancing On Ice.

The exhibition's astonishing centrepiece is a "high-definition holographic video system" which gives exhibitionists a chance to perform onstage beside four illusory Abba figures.

As we milled through rooms that offered footage of the Swedish quartet's pre-Abba days (when Bjorn was with the Hootenanny Singers and Benny with the Hep Cats,) unlikely Abba fans materialised. "We were guests on the Abba TV show once, and it was a big thrill for us," said Phil Manzanera, ex-guitarist with Roxy Music. "And of course I like the songs. A few of them contain some of the best riffs in the world. And all of them provide a lot of happiness for a lot of people."

Outside, I asked Boy George for his favourite bit of the show. "Definitely the costumes. I was a punk when they were around, so I hated them, but I love them now, especially the clothes. I wish the whole exhibition had been clothes."

Why would Phil Manzanera be an 'unlikely' ABBA fan? He's as glam as a stick of 70's rock.

There are loads of great pics at the BBC website -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8480496.stm

I stand by my position though - Si can go while I wait outside!

[Simon R]

We wanna go!

I hope Abbaworld is as good as Spiceworld and Spaceworld...

[michael]

i be up for going to abbaworld

[SiHart]

The posters are all over the underground now...

Anyone up for a trip the weekend of 20th/21st Feb?

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

We're hoping it's a yes from us - will confirm later today!

Si.

[SiHart]

Ooh! Excellent! Steve is determined he's going to stay outside, the old misery.

Si xx

[Llordllama]

Sounds fab - I'd love to come, but just too damn far away for a day trip Also I'm in Stroud that weekend goose hunting! Maybe it'll tour the provinces...

[Si Hunt]

We're there! Do you have to order tickets in advance? Have you got yours? Where do we need to ring?

Si.

[SiHart]

I believe we have to buy tickets in advance Si. Shall I do that for all of us, because its one of those places where you get timed entry and otherwise we might end up not going in together.

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

Yes please Si! Book book book!

Si. :mobile

[SiHart]

I'm booking! I'm booking!

I didn't manage to convince Steve, so it'll just be the three of us and we'll find him afterwards if that's OK?

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

Sure that's ok, we can find a pub afterwards so there'll be something for everyone!

Si.

[SiHart]

I have bought the tickets!

Si xx

[Simon R]

Hoorah! Thanks for booking the tickets!

Let us know if you want us to send you a cheque or pay on the day.

[Si Hunt]

Hurrah! Well done Si!

Si. :mobile

[SiHart]

You can pay me on the day- that'll be fine! I'm really looking forward to it!

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

Only a hint, but it's such an about-turn that it made the cover of The Times today!

They have always maintained that they would never re-form and famously turned down $1 billion (£600 million) to tour again, but Abba have given a new generation of fans hope of seeing the band perform live.

For the Mamma Mia! devotees who have come to the band’s music nearly 30 years after they split, tribute bands and YouTube clips of the Swedish foursome in satin and spandex seemed the closest they could get.

But in an interview with The Times today, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, the male half of the Swedish group, offer a beguiling change of tone.

Asked if they would consider an intimate one-off performance — perhaps with an orchestra — that could be beamed around the world, Andersson said: “Yeah, why not?”

He added: “I don’t know if the girls sing anything any more. I know Frida [Anni-Frid Lyngstad] was in the studio.” Then a little later: “It’s not a bad idea, actually.”

Ulvaeus threw in a reference to the Super Trouper album’s last song. “We could sing The Way Old Folks Do,” he said. The pair's comments may offer little more than a glimmer of hope, but they are in contrast to previous statements by the band members, who split in 1982.

A good thing? Will it happen?

Si.

[SiHart]

Blimey! I saw this on BBC Breakfast this morning and was astonished, as they've always taken the view that they'd never do it in case they disappointed everyone by not being to recapture the magic.

Of course I'd love them to try. I'd love to be there too, but there's very little chance of that...

Si xx

[Anthony Williams]

My mother saw ABBA live in the 70s. She was (and still is) a huge ABBA fan, but says that they were a real disappointment live

Ant x

[Si Hunt]

Popjustice makes the point today that a "comeback" doesn't neccessarily mean a live show. Why not do a new studio album? Polished studio tracks were always what Abba were best at, not live shows. I'd love a new album, and recent material written by Benny and Bjorn shows that they can still do it.

Si.