Virtual Music Worlds – Part 3: ABBA Voyage

While Hatsune Miku‘s voice was still generated by a vocal synthesiser, the voices of today’s music avatars is produced by artificial intelligence. One particularly successful project is “ABBA Voyage”. Using sophisticated technology, avatars of the four ABBA members Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad were brought to life on stage in London, creating a new audience attraction that will be examined in more detail in part 3 of the series on “Virtual Music Worlds”.

Virtual Music Worlds – Part 3: ABBA Voyage

The development and implementation of ABBA Voyage

An early example of AI generated music avatars is arguably Sweden’s most successful music export of all time: ABBA. After Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad made the far-reaching decision in December 1982 to stop performing together, there were repeated rumours of a reunion. Most recently, these rumours were fuelled by the huge success of the first “Mamma Mia!” movie in 2008, which was based on the musical of the same name that premiered in London’s West End in 1999.ABBA mastermind Björn Ulvaeus even felt compelled to emphasise in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph: “We will never appear on stage again. There is simply no motivation to re-group. Money is not a factor and we would like people to remember us as we were – young, exuberant, full of energy and ambition.” Not even an offer of US$1 billion from an American-British financial consortium for a joint tour, made to the pop group in 2000, could persuade the stars to stand on the concert stage together again.

Although this attitude would not change later, there was no mention of a virtual reunion at the time. However, in an interview with Billboard magazine at the end of October 2016, Simon Fuller, the creator of the TV talent show “American Idol” and CEO of 19 Entertainment, announced his plan to resurrect ABBA in virtual reality using the latest technologies and artificial intelligence. He convinced the four ABBA stars to participate and invited them to play an active role: “We are exploring a new technological world, with virtual reality and artificial intelligence at the forefront, that will allow us to create new forms of entertainment and content we couldn’t have previously imagined.”

The first step in this direction was to record a new album. Therefore, ABBA reunited in a Stockholm sound studio in spring 2018, where they recorded two new songs: ‘I Still Have Faith in You’ and ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’. However, in an interview with the BBC, Björn Ulvaeus was rather vague about the virtual ABBA project. The only information he revealed was that work was underway on creating avatars, or ‘ABBA-tars’, that would tour in place of the human ABBA members.

The project gained momentum when British music video director Baillie Walsh joined the development team. In an in-depth interview for “Esquire”, he recounted how he was invited by the two executive producers, Svana Gisla and Ludvig Andersson, Benny Andersson’s son, to continue developing the virtual ABBA project from 2019 onwards. Originally, the idea was to bring ABBA onto the stage as holograms. However, as the technology was considered outdated and unsatisfactory, Walsh sat down with representatives from Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), the company founded by Star Wars creator George Lucas, to explore the technical possibilities of AI-generated ABBA avatars performing life-size on stage. The solution was a 10-metre-high LED wall, where the interior lighting and stage lighting were coordinated with the help of numerous cameras to create the illusion of a three-dimensional presence of the projected avatars. However, to achieve this, the avatars first had to be created using motion capture technology similar to that used for Hatsune Miku. In the winter of 2020, the four ABBA stars therefore met at a specialist studio in Stockholm, where they slipped into suits equipped with small spherical markers at specific points on the body. These suits were used to capture the stars’ movements from different angles using 160 cameras. It took five long and intense weeks to record the dance sequences for each song with ABBA’s four members and numerous younger body doubles under the direction of star choreographer Wayne McGregor using motion capture. The faces of Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid were also captured in detail and rejuvenated using AI. This ensured that the four ABBA members looked convincingly real on stage.

The result was impressive when, on 26 May 2022, the premiere took place at the ABBA Arena, which had been erected close to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London for 3,000 spectators, with prominent guests including the Swedish royal couple. But it wasn’t just the audience who raved about the convincingly realistic avatar show, which, with a budget of US$175 million, was the most expensive stage production to date.

However, the investments have paid off. By 2022, 675,600 tickets had already been sold for “ABBA Voyage,” generating a revenue of GBP 97.1 million and a pre-tax profit of nearly GBP 3 million for Aniara Ltd., the company responsible for the virtual show. In 2023, the number of tickets sold rose to 1.1 million, resulting in a turnover of GBP 103.7 million and a pre-tax profit of GBP 6.1 million. In December 2024, it was announced that “ABBA Voyage” had sold 3 million tickets since its premiere and generated a gross value added of GBP 775 million for the London economy in its first two years. Therefore, it is not surprising that those responsible sought a way to ensure that “ABBA Voyage” would stay in London beyond April 2026, when the arena’s permit expires and it is due to make way for a residential construction project. The concert hall resembles a UFO and can be completely dismantled and rebuilt elsewhere because it was always intended for an international tour as part of the “ABBA Voyage” project.

ABBA-tare as Role Models for Other Music Avatars: Avicii and KISS

However, “ABBA Voyage” could soon be expanding. Pophouse Entertainment, the event and music rights company co-founded by Björn Ulvaeus in 2014 and an investor in “ABBA Voyage”, has been buying up music catalogues from numerous artists since 2022. For example, in March 2022, Pophouse announced that it had purchased the master and publishing rights of the Swedish EDM group Swedish House Mafia. However, Pophouse caused a stir at the end of September 2022 when it acquired 75 per cent of the master and publishing rights of the Swedish DJ Avicii, who died young, from his heirs, the Bergling family. It seemed likely that Avicii could be “resurrected” as a virtual musician in the future. This assumption was confirmed in April 2024 when Pophouse acquired not only the song catalogue and associated artist royalties of the glam rock band KISS, but also their NIL rights (name, image, likeness), including the rights to their distinctive face paint, for US $300 million. Per Sundin, now CEO of Pophouse and former head of Universal Sweden, explained: “Our partnership will fuse the rich history and iconic status of KISS with cutting-edge technology, allowing fans – now and in the future – to experience the band like never before.” This also includes the creation of avatars of the musicians modelled on the ABBA-tare, which can then go on tour as a virtual band, as evidenced by an agreement that KISS concluded four months before the rights deal with Pophouse.KISS already has experience with performances by their avatars. At the end of their concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City, the iconic American band had their avatars perform “God Gave Rock And Roll To You” as an encore, as evidenced by a promotional clip on YouTube. We are therefore at the beginning of a development whereby living and deceased artists will take to the concert stage in the form of AI-generated avatars. This would have significant economic implications. Avatars of superstars could perform in different places at the same time, relieving their human role models of the need to go on tour. This would further concentrate the live music market, which is already dominated by the superstar effect, making it more difficult for younger musicians to build a career. Additionally, music rights, particularly personality rights (NIL rights), will continue to increase in value as they are

Endnotes

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Wikipedia, “Mamma Mia! (musical)”, version of August 24, 2025, accessed: 2025-08-22.

Cited in The Guardian, “Abba reunion: Don’t hold your breath”, July 7, 2008, accessed: 2025-08-26.

Business Insider, “Why ABBA Turned Down $1 Billion To Reunite In 2000”, July 9, 2014, accessed: 2025-08-26.

Billboard, “‘Virtual’ ABBA Coming Soon Through Partnership with Simon Fuller and Universal Music”, October 26, 2016, accessed: 2025-08-26.

BBC News, “Abba announce first new music since 1982”, April 27, 2018, accessed: 2025-08-27.

Esquire, “Super Trouper”, July 21, 2022, accessed: 2025-08-27.

A detailed description of the technical implementation of the virtual ABBA project can be found in the journal Ingenia, “How ABBA Voyage was made”, September 2022, accessed: 2025-08-27.

Ibid.

NME, “ABBA Voyage’s creators tell us how they made the show, and what’s next”, May 28, 2022, accessed: 2025-08-27.

Ingenia, “How ABBA Voyage was made”, September 2022, accessed: 2025-08-27.

The Guardian, “Abba Voyage review: jaw-dropping avatar act that’s destined to be copied”, May 26, 2022, accessed: 2025-08-27.

Musically, “Bloomberg breaks down numbers behind ABBA Voyage’s success”, September 5, 2023, accessed: 2025-08-27.

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Ingenia, “How ABBA Voyage was made”, September 2022, accessed: 2025-08-27.

Music Business Worldwide, “Swedish House Mafia sell master recordings and publishing catalogs to Pophouse”, March 29, 2022, accessed: 2025-08-27.

Music Business Worldwide, “Pophouse Entertainment buys 75% of Avicii master recordings and publishing”, September 28, 2022, accessed: 2025-08-27.

Music Business Worldwide, “KISS sells song catalog, name and IP to Pophouse, company behind ABBA Voyage, in $300m deal”, April 4, 2024, accessed: 2025-08-27.

Music Business Worldwide, “KISS to stage avatar show in partnership with Pophouse Entertainment, following the success of ABBA Voyage in London”, December 4, 2023, accessed: 2025-08-27.

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