ABBA Voyage runs on screens, and its own site says not a hologram

What you see

Inside a purpose-built arena at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, seated audiences watch what ABBA's own site calls 'digital avatar versions of Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny and Frida performing on stage alongside a live band.' The show's own FAQ page states plainly that 'it is not a hologram performance,' describing instead a concert built around motion-captured, de-aged digital performers shown on screen technology inside the venue. No headset or glasses are required; the arena, per Industrial Light & Magic's own project page, holds 3,000 people and opened on 27 May 2022.

How it works

ABBA Voyage's official FAQ describes 'cutting-edge motion capture and stunning visual effects' used to build the four digital performers, sometimes called ABBAtars in press coverage, from movement recorded with the band members themselves decades after their touring years ended. ILM's own page credits creative director Ben Morris with overseeing the studio's work on 'creating the digital versions of ABBA,' alongside director Baillie Walsh and choreographer Wayne McGregor, but does not itemize camera counts or rendering pipeline details. The result is rendered digital video content, displayed to the arena on fixed screen technology built into the venue rather than projected into open space above the stage.

Viewing conditions and limits

Every seat in the 3,000-capacity arena faces the same fixed screen surface, so the show is designed for one primary viewing direction rather than a walk-around illusion; ILM's page confirms the venue was purpose-built for this single production. Neither the FAQ nor ILM's page states screen brightness, resolution or exact camera-capture specifications, so those numbers remain unconfirmed by the sources opened here, and should be treated as the companies' own unstated design choices rather than independently measured figures. The show runs as a fixed residency rather than a touring production, unlike several other hologram-branded shows this site covers.

What it is not

ABBA Voyage's own FAQ is unusually direct that the show 'is not a hologram performance,' explicitly rejecting the label that press coverage sometimes applies to digital-performer concerts. It is also not a Pepper's-ghost-style projection onto a transparent surface in front of a live stage: the performers are motion-captured video content displayed on built-in screen technology, closer in kind to a very elaborate concert film synchronized with a live band than to any of the projection illusions used for other artists this site covers. The 'digital avatar' framing the show's own materials use is a more accurate description than the shorthand 'hologram' that some press coverage still applies.

• Ask whether a 'hologram' concert uses a fixed screen, like ABBA Voyage, or a projected foil visible from multiple angles.
• Ask how much of the performance is pre-rendered video versus content generated live during the show.
• Ask whether the venue was purpose-built for one production, which affects how directly the format could be reused elsewhere.

ABBA Voyage is a useful contrast case precisely because its own producers reject the word its imitators embrace, making the underlying screen-based mechanism, rather than marketing language, the clearest way to describe what the format actually is.