Out east in London, across from a light-rail stop, set among the grounds of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
London, United Kingdom — Resident show in a purpose-built venue.
The four of them will never share a stage again.
Ten live musicians play on stage while four 1979-era figures sing from the screens — real and not-real on one stage. No existing theatre could hold a show like this; it had to be built for the purpose.
A venue of this scale exists in exactly one place on earth, and it is meant to come down one day.
The lights dim, the band starts, and the four figures come up. The room holds still for a beat before anyone joins in.
A row of blue light tubes overhead, and the floor answering in blue.
The first glass poured across the wooden bar. In the minutes before the start, everyone in the corridor seems to be holding one.
Put it on your East London day — browse Stratford in the afternoon, head into the venue at night.
More than forty years on. After they split in 1982, ABBA's four members never performed together again — there were reunion rumours, and in 2021 they did release a new album, but no live show. If you want to see the four of them together now, this corner of East London is the only place left.
The stage is not empty. Ten people up there — guitar, bass, drums, keyboards — play straight through, never stopping; the four figures stand beside them, projected onto a 65-million-pixel screen. One side is tonight, the other is 1979, and both have to be present for the show to count — the drums you hear are real, the faces you see are not.
No existing theatre could hold it. The stage sits in the middle of the hall, visible from all four sides, with the audience seventy metres from the screen and not a single pillar in between; the edges of the screen are masked with black, with set pieces and with light; the glow on the figures has to match the real lights in the venue. Put all that together and the only answer was to build a building.
The building was only ever meant to stand five years. That deadline has now arrived, and the official site says nothing about what comes next. Want to see this version, in this place — go sooner rather than later.
In April 1974, the four of them sang Waterloo in Brighton and won Eurovision — Sweden's first time taking that prize. Eight years later, they split.
They didn't take the reunion-tour road. In the winter of 2020, in a motion-capture studio in Stockholm, the four dressed in tight suits and stood inside a ring of 160 cameras, singing the whole set list through, for five weeks. It was anything but romantic — the lights glared white, and there they stood in those outfits, looking a bit absurd. Director Baillie Walsh said so himself.
When the four of them finally stood on the stage, someone on the crew was left speechless. Producer Svana Gisla later recalled that talking to each of them one-on-one had been fine, but the moment the four lined up, it became something else.
At seventy-something, none of them could dance the 1979 routines. Royal Ballet choreographer Wayne McGregor first drew out each person's little habits, then had young stand-ins and professional dancers carry the moves. It all landed with Industrial Light & Magic — four divisions, over a thousand people, months of work — to return the four to 1979. The face on stage tonight was filmed six years ago, in the look of four decades earlier.
Step out of the Pudding Mill Lane light-rail station and you run straight into it. Hexagonal, eight storeys tall, wrapped in timber slats from the eaves to the ground, with ABBA's four-letter light strip set into the gaps. At night it all lights up, like a lantern stood on end.
The hexagon isn't for looks. The stage is in the centre, visible from all four sides, and a seventy-metre span leaves no room for columns. The steel dome on top weighs 744 tonnes, assembled whole on the ground, then lifted to 25.5 metres by eighteen jacks working together.
There's no foundation underfoot — it rests on a row of concrete blocks, because the land has to go back one day. The savings went elsewhere: two layers of soundproofing inside the timber lattice, so the drums and bass wouldn't bother the neighbours; and the light strip around the facade is set into the timber gaps, not merely stuck on. Built by local East London firm ES Global, designed by London's Stufish. When it opened, it carried the title of the world's largest demountable venue.
The land used to sit empty, used now and then as a temporary car park. Taking it down is no trouble either: the building sits on its blocks, the timber lattice comes off panel by panel, the dome is lifted down whole, and the lot packs into containers and leaves. For all its weight, it was designed from the start to be moved.
The doors open early — 1 hour 45 minutes before showtime. Those who arrive early and those who arrive on time live two different evenings. A ring of corridors around the hall holds all the food and drink, hot and cold; vegetarians and anyone with dietary needs just tell the staff.
You can only eat what's bought inside the venue; medical or religious reasons need an advance email. The whole venue takes no cash. For something more, you can buy into the Oceanbird Lounge — open bar with snacks, entry from opening, and a Sunday matinee brunch. The name borrows from the venue's only corporate partner, a Swedish company.
Once inside, it's sit, listen, and sing along. One hundred minutes, no break. The official line is that this lets you sing and dance a little longer. Want to dance? Buy a Dance Floor ticket. If you bought a seat, no one stops you standing up — just mind the people behind who can't move.
The show starts at the printed time; latecomers wait for a suitable moment to be let in, so don't cut it close. No photos, no recording, no video during those hundred minutes. The official wording: help ABBA keep the Voyage a surprise — partly for those who haven't seen it yet, partly so phone light doesn't distract those beside you.
One thing up front: no one on stage will talk to you, there's no improv, no encore, no looking into the crowd. This is a staged show, not a back-and-forth concert. If what you want is that call-and-response energy, this won't give it to you.
No need to rush out. A few steps from the exit is the light-rail station, a few stops back to central London. Friday to Sunday nights there's hot pizza, picked up only after the show — order ahead and grab it on the way out.
The venue sits within the Olympic Park grounds, on the same light-rail line as the Stratford shopping centre.
Opened May 2022, running show by show
About 100 minutes
Book by session on the official site; hotel packages, family tickets and gift vouchers also available
Indoor venue with separate seating and standing areas; access and on-site help for visitors with reduced mobility follow the official Accessibility page
If you're piecing together a few days in London, tell me who's coming and what shows you'd like to see.