Dates: 26 May 2022 – present
The venue (ABBA Arena) is at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London and has been purpose-built for this event, holding 3,000 audience per performance. Over a million tickets have been sold for the event which is now booking into 2026.
Live concert in London featuring digital avatars (‘ABBAtars’) motion-captured from the members of ABBA, and computer-enhanced to their 1970s era appearance, with digital costumes and digital lighting on huge screens around the venue, which blend seamlessly with real lighting in the venue. All of the music is played live by a live band and backing singers, who accompany the ABBA performers.
Initial speculation was that the show used digitally-projected ‘holograms’ but this is not the case. Read more about projection of Holograms.
The real band members performed in front of 160 motion capture cameras, and George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) digital artists created the incredible visuals.
Directed by Baillie Walsh
Venue design by Stufish Entertainment
Lighting Producer: Matthieu Debay (Tetro)
Performance running time: 95 minutes (no interval)
Equipment
Screens: One of the largest installations of ROE Black Pearl 2 v2 LED screens (2262 tiles), driven by Brompton 4K Tessera SX40 LED processors. The screen height requires 19 tiles. VYV Photon servers are used to manage the data.
Each tile is 500mm x 500mm x 90mm deep. The height of 19 tiles means the virtual stage is a staggering 9.5m high, ensuring the stunning virtual lighting rig can be fully seen.
Lighting: More than 500 moving lights across 20 locations all suspended from a bespoke grid system across the venue above the entire auditorium. Equipment from Robe. There are also 4200 ROE LED Strip panels around the auditorium and front-of-house areas blending lighting throughout the venue with the images on screen.
ROE LED Strip: 30cm – 2538 pieces, 60 cm 245 pieces, 120 cm 1385 pieces
There are also 30,000 LED pixel points around the auditorium, including over 400 strings of 30 pixels which winch in and out blending perfectly with those on-screen.
Sound: 240 speaker cabinets, made by L’Acoustics.
Ambiance Virtual Acoustic system by L’Acoustics uses four P1 Processors fed by 16 room microphones.
Scenic:
86 mirrors, with 3 cable winches controlled the height and angle of each
432 kinetic pixels on winches
(Almost 700 powered cable winches in total)
Documents
Solotech plays key role in ABBA Voyage concerts (June 2022)
[External Website]
From Lighting & Sound International
LSI: Did ABBA Just Kill Tribute Bands? (September 2022)
[External Website]
From Lighting & Sound International