ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus finds a new artistic outlet in the attractions industry

"Me he dado cuenta de que tengo que mirarme en un contexto histórico. Me acuerdo de ese tipo a partir de los años 70 todos los días, pero no soy yo. No soy una persona nostálgica. No me siento las lágrimas vienen a mis ojos cuando camino a través del museo, como algunos podrían ", dice sonriendo. "Es el aquí y ahora y en el futuro lo que importa." 

Super Trouper - September 2015

ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus finds a new artistic outlet in the attractions industry

by Juliana Gilling

“People everywhere. A sense of expectation hanging in the air.” Right on cue, ABBA’s lyrics ring out as Björn Ulvaeus, co-founder of the Swedish supergroup, leans against the pulsing lights of ABBA’s stage sign for his photo shoot with Funworld.
The sign that once sent fans into a frenzy now welcomes people to ABBA The Museum, a star-studded attraction owned by Ulvaeus that sits on the island of Djurgården in Stockholm. The museum, which opened in May 2013, celebrates the musical legacy of Björn, Agnetha, Frida, and Benny, forever famous as ABBA.
The band has sold close to 400 million records since the 1970s, the majority since they split in 1982. The release of the ABBA “Gold” greatest hits compilation in 1992—one of the best-selling albums of all time—propelled the group into the limelight again. More than 55 million people worldwide have seen “Mamma Mia!,” the musical based on ABBA songs, since its debut in 1999. The 2008 movie version starring Meryl Streep took the global box office by storm.
ABBA has become not just a band but a brand. Now it has entered the attractions arena. ABBA The Museum has surpassed expectations, bringing in 300,000-350,000 visitors a year, above the 200,000 expected (70 percent of visitors are international).
“After we had split up, I thought that was that. It came as quite a surprise when, 10 years later, everything started to happen again. That’s when I realized, objectively, that ABBA is a brand and that you can make bigger things out of it,” says Ulvaeus, who will be the keynote speaker for the Euro Attractions Show 2015 (EAS 2015) Leadership Breakfast this October in Gothenberg, Sweden. At the premier European conference for the attractions industry, he will share the story of the museum and its mission. As a prelude to that program, Ulvaeus spoke with Funworld for this exclusive interview.

The Name of the Game: Ulvaeus’ Involvement Makes an Impact
Ulvaeus didn’t want “anything to do with” an ABBA museum at first, though. “Being a museum piece, I thought I should maybe let other people deal with it,” he says. The museum concept had been around since 2006, going through various incarnations and three changes of ownership. In 2010, while waiting for a suitable site in Stockholm, the second set of owners (including ABBA’s record company Universal Music Group, and Parks & Resorts Scandinavia) took an “ABBA World” exhibition on tour to the United Kingdom, Australia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. Then the Djurgården property came up for sale and Ulvaeus joined the project as the main investor.
Realizing that ABBA The Museum was about to become a reality in his home city, Ulvaeus wanted to guarantee its quality: “The city of Stockholm thought it was a great idea and they wanted it. I love this city, so if I can do something for it, I will. I thought, I’ll be walking past here with my grandchildren and people will see it all the time, so I’d better make sure it’s as good as it could be.
“It was a matter of getting it right,” he continues. “The most important thing is that the four of us in ABBA, together with our record company, Universal, have control over it in the future. But I’m not a control freak—I’ll gladly let go if I know that someone will really take care of it.”
What did the museum team want from him? “Apart from money?” he laughs. “Cred and creativity is what I added. It makes it real if someone from ABBA is actually involved in the museum. The personal input makes it much more believable. It has been great fun to develop the museum together with Ingmarie [Halling] and the creative team.” Ulvaeus has also used his high profile as a platform to promote the museum relentlessly.

His involvement was a “big, big, big turning point,” says Halling, ABBA’s friend and former makeup, costume, and hair maestro turned museum director: “Björn is an extremely clever, intuitive guy. When he talks, people listen. I know if I’ve got him on my side it’s a lot easier to get things going.” All of ABBA’s members have a say in the museum, she adds: “We can’t and won’t do anything unless they are happy with it.”
Forty-one years after ABBA won the Eurovision song contest with “Waterloo,” Ulvaeus is finally relaxed about presenting ABBA as “a pop history phenomenon” in the museum: “I want visitors to get a sense of ABBA: who those people were, what made them, what happened.
“I’ve realized that I have to look at myself in a historical context. I’m reminded of that guy from the ’70s every day, but he is not me. I’m not a nostalgic person. I don’t feel the tears coming to my eyes when I walk through the museum, as some might,” he says smiling. “It’s the here and now and the future that matters.”


Thank You for the Music: The ABBA Museum Experience
ABBA The Museum walks visitors through the group’s lives chronologically, from their early years on Sweden’s folk park circuit to the height of their fame, eventual split, and involvement in ventures like “Mamma Mia!”
The attraction features re-creations of locations including ABBA’s Polar Music Studio, dressing room, record company offices, and the Viggsö summer house where songs were born. Halling explains: “Everyone has seen the glamor of ABBA. We wanted to show the four ordinary, hardworking people behind it.” The experience culminates in the disc-lined Gold Room, home to a glam-tastic collection of original costumes.
New to the museum this year are remarkably lifelike replicas of ABBA members dressed in satin stage outfits. Swedish makeup artist and sculptor Göran Lundström and his team at Effektstudion created the full-size silicon figures based on measurements from all four band members, giving visitors the chance to get as close to the originals as possible. It is one of many photo opportunities at the museum.

The feeling of hanging out with the band is reinforced in other ways. A red telephone sits expectantly in the exhibition. ABBA’s members can call in via Skype at any time and speak to whoever answers. The phone has rung six times so far.
“You’re not doing that well though,” Halling prompts Ulvaeus.
“Yes, I should make a call soon,” he admits good-naturedly.
There’s also a piano linked to one in Benny Andersson’s studio, which plays whenever he does.
“In this digital world, people want that closeness, that analog feeling that these are real people,” says Ulvaeus. “I wanted visitors to feel that we are not taking ourselves too seriously. There’s humor and warmth in there. We are not trying to shield ourselves from the visitor.”
Ulvaeus is “intrigued by the interaction between story and fun-park experience” and thinks “it’s very much the future. When you walk through the museum, it’s quite old-fashioned and analog in a way. At the same time, we’re using interactive fun and digital experiences. We’ve filled the digital components with a true, flesh-and-blood story.”
One simple set shows ex-wife Agnetha Fältskog’s modest kitchen. Visitors can see through the window into the yard where Ulvaeus watched his daughter leaving for school—the inspiration for “Slipping Through My Fingers.” The former couple speak candidly via an audio guide, developed in-house by the museum. Ulvaeus was “totally consumed by what we were doing,” running toward “a potentially glorious future,” while Fältskog worried about leaving their children too much.
A few feet away, guests can belt out classic tunes on stage with a holographic ABBA, created with a Pepper’s Ghost illusion; new holograms are in development based on scans of the silicon figures. Elsewhere, people can dance in virtual costumes, audition to be the fifth ABBA member, test their sound-mixing skills, and star in an ABBA pop video (thanks to green screen technology). Guests can scan their tickets to save their performances, which are then stored on the museum website for a month and can be downloaded and shared.

You Can Dance: New ABBA Restaurant/Show Coming to Gröna Lund
Ulvaeus trusts Halling, who has a “no rules” attitude toward museum exhibits, to come up with an innovative array of attractions. Her wishlist includes the “jDome” from DreamStage in Stockholm. The pop-up half-dome uses Google Maps projections to take visitors on a journey: “I want to go into the jDome, rise in a helicopter to see the museum from above, go out to the island where ABBA had their summer house, then land at the museum,” she says. She also plans to create iPad displays, putting more information on artifacts at people’s fingertips.
Having used the dramatic experience he gained developing musicals to create engaging scenes at the museum, Ulvaeus is working on a new immersive concept. In January 2016, “Mamma Mia! The Party” will open at the Gröna Lund amusement park next to the museum. Ulvaeus is producing the themed restaurant show in collaboration with Eventum.
He wanted to transfer the buoyant, dancing-in-the-aisles mood that “Mamma Mia!” inspires in audiences into an evening’s entertainment. The park’s popular Tyrol restaurant is being transformed into a Greek taverna, the setting for a new story about a wedding party which will involve guests in real-time.
“It’s almost like you walk into the movie set, with olive trees, fountains, bougainvillea, and the fragrance of rosemary and thyme in the air. There’s fantastic food and a show not only to look at, but also to be part of,” he says. “The ‘Mamma Mia!’ concept was perfect for creating that party atmosphere. This thing with story, with intellectual property, going hand in hand with attractions in fun parks was a challenge I couldn’t resist.”
If the experiment works, Ulvaeus hopes to transplant “Mamma Mia! The Party” to other world capitals. The show will also act “like an extension of the museum in a way,” he says.
Money, Money, Money: ‘The Future Is Cashless’
ABBA The Museum is contained in an intimate space (1,200 square meters/13,000 square feet) at the Djurgården property. The building is also home to the Swedish Music Hall of Fame and the newly rebranded POP House hotel, which has 49 music-themed rooms including the ABBA Gold Room. There’s also a restaurant, bar, and outside performance space. Ulvaeus has recently acquired the whole property with his partners, Conni Jonsson and Pelle Lindberg. “The big picture is to create long-term stability for the museum,” he explains. “Now it’s just one house and everyone is working toward the same goal.”
Economic sustainability is important to him: “The museum has to stand on its own two feet, and it does. I know from experience that it’s not good for the longevity of a project like this if you have to chase money from elsewhere all the time.”
He is a passionate advocate for a cashless society, a philosophy that is reflected in the museum. Visitors can only pay by credit card for tickets and purchases at the well-stocked gift shop. Handling cash is “expensive, difficult, dangerous, and unnecessary,” he says. “Those filthy bills—who needs them? The thinking that there’s some intrinsic value in a piece of paper with a number on it is outdated. It’s just that some people want cash for nostalgic reasons. The future is cashless. Sweden is leading the way and everyone will follow.”
Looking ahead, Ulvaeus wants the museum to become “Stockholm’s musical hub,” akin to the Nashville of Sweden. “This is where everything—events, exhibitions, song-writing camps, press conferences—will take place in future. You could say that it all started with ABBA because before then no one outside Sweden ever listened to Swedish music. It’s natural that ABBA The Museum should be there at the beginning of everything that’s happening musically here and now.”
The idea that one day Ulvaeus would own a museum about his band would have once seemed unthinkable: “I started when I was 18 in 1963 and for 10 years I didn’t think this would be my career. I just delayed going back to university year after year until, in the end, I gave it up. I never trusted it to be my career and I don’t think my parents or anyone else did, either.”
Imagining a museum about ABBA would have been “absolutely ridiculous,” he says. “Going to the moon would have been more likely. Life is strange, isn’t it?”
Stranger still that Ulvaeus talks to Funworld while driving his space-age Tesla to a film shoot. There he gamely dons his skintight purple jumpsuit from ABBA’s heyday to play the part of a psychiatrist who counsels celebrity clients to let go of the past in a comedy sketch. After shedding his costume and returning to his stylish 2015 self, he bids farewell with a final thought on the music and attractions industries: “I see lots of similarities. We’re so much about entertaining people and giving them exciting experiences.”
When it comes to ABBA’s presence in the analog, digital, and attractions worlds, Ulvaeus is clearly “master of the scene.” He’s done it all before and now he’s back to get some more. You know what I mean.
Contributing Editor Juliana Gilling is still digging the “Dancing Queen” and covers the European attractions industry for Funworld. Contact her at julianagilling@gmail.com.

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