LONDON — Ahead of the start of ‘ABBA Voyage’, a London concert performed by 3D digital avatars of the iconic Swedish band, member Björn Ulvaeus said he hopes audiences will “feel they have been through something they’ve never seen before. “
After the debut on May 27, most reactions from home and international critics, fans and industry professionals were delighted.
“Aside from the committed team, nobody really knew how one can integrate an avatar-based performance,” Sarah Cox, director of a consulting firm, told CNBC. “It blew me away as someone who works on real-time graphics. My jaw dropped to the floor. Go searching and folks really fall for the concept that ABBA is there.”
Demand has been strong – the program has been prolonged to November 2023 and may extend well beyond that.
And the team has confirmed that they intend to take the program worldwide.
“Our ambition is to do one other ABBA Voyage, say in North America, Australasia, we could do one other in Europe. We are able to replicate the arena and the show,” producer Svana Gisla told a UK government committee session in November.
![What can fans expect from ABBA's new virtual concert, ABBA Voyage?](https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107065171-16532841761653284173-23320731407-1080pnbcnews.jpg?v=1653284175&w=750&h=422&vtcrop=y)
It also expects other programs to follow the same model.
“The technology itself will not be latest, but the way now we have used it, the scale and the barriers now we have broken down are latest. I’m sure others will follow and plan to follow,” said Gisla.
She added that this “absolutely” could possibly be the case in Las Vegas, where some shows run around the clock with rotating crews.
“We have now live musicians so we keep our band going and we play seven shows five days a week. But you’ll be able to shoot around the clock. Vegas will quickly adopt this style of entertainment and play Elvis or the Beatles.”
Money box money box
Voyage’s venue, dubbed the ABBA Arena, was built specifically for the concert in Stratford, East London, with 3,000 standing capability, tiered seating on three sides with no restricted view, and costlier private “dance booths”. ,“ in addition to space for an intensive kit situated in the roof i what the creators of White Void say is the largest everlasting kinetic lighting installation in the world.
A view of the ABBA Arena on May 26, 2022 in London, England.
Dave J. Hogan | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
It is usually designed with flexibility in mind. It was built on a platform raised one meter without breaking the ground, and could possibly be dismantled and reconstructed elsewhere – or left in place and host one other show in the future.
But mimicking the Voyage model – where digital replicas of the 4 band members perform classic hits and newer numbers for 90 minutes while interacting with one another and talking to the audience between songs – won’t be a simple task.
The scheme was in the works for five years and had £141m ($174.9m) budget financed by global investors. In response to Gisla, to interrupt even, around 3 million people need to walk through its doors, and the average ticket price is £75.
After choosing the setlist and making other creative decisions, the members of ABBA performed in motion capture costumes for five weeks. Tons of of visual effects artists then worked on the series for 2 years, led by the London branch of Industrial Light & Magic, a visual effects company founded by George Lucas.
Promotional image of ABBA Voyage, a digital avatar live show currently airing in London.
Johan Persson | ABBA’s Journey
Ten years ago, a performance at Coachella with a visible Tupac Shakur hologram wowed audiences and suggested the potential of an alternate reality in live performances, with the artist’s likeness digitally recreated without the use of archival footage.
Not meeting the technical definition of a hologram, which uses laser beams to create objects with depth, the visual effects team projected a 2D image onto an angled piece of glass that itself projected onto a Mylar screen, creating a 3D effect. Shakur then “performed” two songs with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, 16 years after his death.
The Voyage team is not saying exactly how their program works, but has previously confirmed that it isn’t a laser-based hologram. It features 65 million pixel screens that give the impression of a band acting on stage in life-size real-time 3D, with traditional concert screens showing close-ups and different views from either side.
Gisla said its servers are pushed to “the absolute extreme” to render images without lag, in order that they shake during certain transitions. She also admitted that the 10m side screens are “very merciless” in terms of detail and enhancements could possibly be made.
Rapper Snoop Dogg (left) and a “hologram” of late rapper Tupac Shakur take the stage on the third day of the 2012 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival.
Christopher Polk | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
Nevertheless, she added that with the increase in real-time rendering speed, “Benny and Bjorn could possibly be sitting at home in a chair connected to their avatar, updating them to talk with the audience about last night’s football scores. It is going to come.”
Next steps
Consultant Sarah Cox said the processing and motion-capture technology utilized by Voyage remains to be too expensive for many productions, but believes it’s “a whole latest format that might be replicated again and again over”, especially in places like The Forest Las Vegas.
“An immersive venue can accommodate multiple shows. After which the costs go down because you have got a stack of tech, space and all the money goes to creating the avatar and virtual experience and improving the software.”
Many will remain skeptical of digital avatar-based gigs, especially in the event that they are wary of the general trend towards metaverse-based virtual experiences.
Bjorn Ulvaeus himself previously told CNBC he had concerns about the misuse of technology to create nefarious “deep fakes” that may be “indistinguishable from the real thing in the future.”
There’s also the issue of finding the right artists for the shows. ABBA is a rare proposition as a band with a large hit catalog, a multi-generational worldwide fan base, and a full roster of members who’re on board the show – but who have not toured together in 40 years.
ABBA avatars perform the 1981 song The Visitors in London, 2022.
Johan Persson | ABBA’s Journey
“Posthumously, you’ll be able to put artists back on the scene, ethically you might or may not have a view on that,” said Gisla. “Having ABBA involved in this, I can say it’s an ABBA concert. ABBA made the decisions, picked what to wear, picked the set list, ABBA made the show.”
For an artist like Elvis with an intensive visual and audio archive, an actual replica might be created, but without the input that makes this show so tangible, she said.
For Cox, live shows that provide a “shared experience” corresponding to ABBA Voyage are more appealing than headset-based virtual experiences, although there will definitely be more of them in the future.
Each AR and VR are spreading in the world of games, events, sports, theater and more.
Experiments with digital avatars included the premiere of a song by musician Travis Scott in the hugely popular game Fortnite in 2020, along with his avatar hovering over players who were still moving around the game world. It got reported 45.8 million viewers across five shows. Lil Nas X starred in the same yr in Roblox.
A 15-year-old plays Fortnite and Travis Scott Present: Astronomical, April 23, 2020, Los Angeles, United States.
Frazer Harrison | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
Jo Twist, chief executive of business organization UK Interactive Entertainment, said she saw growing opportunities at the intersection of gaming, music and entertainment.
“While up until now this sort of experience has mostly been the domain of major artists, we imagine that the growth of each the number of individuals who play and the online gaming worlds that allow user-created content could open up gaming to all performers. , allowing them to successfully leverage their huge player base to lift their profile.” she said.
Giulia De Paoli, Founder and CEO of design and AR studio Ombra, has worked on projects that bring “augmented reality” – including AR and VR – to live sports.
“AR enabled us to create a full show for event broadcasts that may have been inconceivable with traditional projections and LED setups corresponding to creating huge 10-meter flying numbers and flames around the arena,” she said.
“We’re seeing this develop into a full experience that individuals can watch live and, as the word goes, expanding the reality around us, gaming, interacting and watching the inconceivable occur.”