Posted by “What a show! ABBA Voyage, a mind-blowing fusion of technology and nostalgia that brought digital avatars to life in a way that felt shockingly real. The sound, the energy, the visuals… it was like stepping into a concert from the future.”
That was my Instagram caption the night of July 28, 2025, and I meant every word of it. I walked in skeptical. A concert by digital avatars of ABBA, performing as their 1970s selves, in a purpose-built arena in East London? It should not work. It completely does.
The avatars are the first thing your brain tries to reject. You know they are not real, and then about three songs in, you stop knowing. The movement, the light, the way the live band behind them fills the room, your eyes make a deal with the technology and the uncanny valley just… closes. I am a hard audience for spectacle, I build the stuff for a living, and I was grinning like a kid.
The setlist did exactly what it was supposed to do: the whole room singing, all at once. [NIKO: any specific songs you want named?]
The whole family was there that night, all five of us. It was Sawyer’s first concert, and she danced and sang like she had been waiting her whole life for it. We all did. We danced, we sang, we had a blast, the kind of night where nobody checks the time.
No photos from inside, they do not allow it, but honestly the lighting alone was a spectacle. You do not need the pictures. The room does the remembering for you.
And the crowd was the show’s second act. Grandparents, parents, kids who learned the words from their parents, three generations singing together. There is something about ABBA that skips a generation and lands anyway, and a room full of people all doing it at once is its own kind of technology.
It was a great family event celebrating a group, and somewhere in the middle of it you suspend your belief of what is real and what is not. The avatars stop being a trick and start being ABBA, and you stop caring how it works because you are too busy singing.
My verdict: go. If you are on the fence because avatars sound like a gimmick, I was on that fence too, and I am telling you to climb down. Book tickets in advance, they sell, and get to the arena early. [NIKO: anything about the pre-show, food, or merch worth telling people?]
I build experiences for a living, so I watch this stuff with the operator brain running, and here is what ABBA Voyage taught me: the technology is not the show. The feeling is the show. The avatars, the lights, the sound system, all of it exists to make a room full of strangers sing together like they have known each other for years. The best experience design is invisible, and this is that, at arena scale. You never think about the architecture. You just feel what it was built to make you feel.
The memory is the product. I will be talking about that night for a long time.
Practical info: Show: ABBA Voyage, ABBA Arena, London. Date: July 28, 2025. Party: the whole family, all five of us; Sawyer’s first concert. Booking: not a Viator tour, no booking ref on file. Book it: [LINK TO BE DETERMINED]
