Abba Voyage—London

Virtual show

STORY

“WITHOUT A SONG OR A DANCE, WHAT ARE WE?” — On May 26, the four members of ABBA were in attendance for the opening night of ABBA Voyage, their revolutionary concert, which sees them perform their greatest hits as digital avatars in their very own ABBA Arena at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London.

ABBA Voyage is a concert like no other: directed by Baillie Walsh and produced by Svana Gisla and Ludvig Andersson, with the digital ABBA’s created by legendary VFX company, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), choreography by Wayne McGregor, a ten-piece live band that play live throughout the concert, and cutting-edge lighting and audio technology.

Green Wall Designs was contracted in 2020 to provide lighting programming and contributions to lighting design under the creative vision of director Baillie Walsh and in collaboration with visual consultants TETRO. We provided pre-visualization renders through the creative process, and later lighting data and digital set to be ingested by ILM for several songs. We also provided a lighting direction & programming team on site in the arena as a part of the wide creative technical team making the show come to life during rehearsals. This project not only challenged ourselves and the technology available in many ways—it forced us to develop new workflows, but also to trust our experience as a lot of decisions were made long before they even started to build the arena. It was certainly a milestone for us as a company. Thank you to ABBA, Baillie Walsh and the producers for trusting us, and to all the rest of the team for great collaboration!

CREDITS

ANIARA CREATIVE:

‍

Producers

Svana Gisla, Ludvig Andersson

Show Director

Baillie Walsh

Technical producer

Nick Levitt

Line Producer

Josh Barwick

ILM Creative Director

Ben Morris

VFX Producer

Nikki Penny

Choreographer

Wayne McGregor

Musical Director

Martin Lowe

Instrument Director

Philip Adams

‍

PRODUCTION:

‍

Technical Director

Joe Frisina

Head of Infrastructure

Chris Hey

Rigging Consultant

Jon Bray

‍

DESIGN TEAM:

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Design and Engineering Consultants

Jeremy Lloyd [WonderWorks]

Venue Architects

Alicia Tkacz [Stufish Entertainment Architects]

Visual Consultant

Mathieu Debay [Tetro]

Audio design

Scott Willsallen [Auditoria]

Video Technical Director

Anthony Bezencon [Vyv]

Lighting Director

Fredrik Stormby [Green Wall Designs]

Kinetic design

Christopher Bauder [White Void]

Laser design

Michael Sollinger

Laser design & programming

Sascha Kwasny [Tarm Showlaser]

Venue construction

Tony Wheeler, James Lee [ESG]

Technical design

Andy Prescott [ESG]

Structural engineering

Ewa Hazla, Aran Chadwick [Atelier One]

Concourse construction

Stage One

SUPPLIERS:

‍

Systems supplier

Ian Woodall, Paul Mccauley [Solotech]

Kinetics

Florian Fink [White Void]

Lasers supplier

Michael Sollinger, Sascha Kwasny [Tarm Showlaser]

Rigging

Mike Goodwin, Calum Willoughby [Unusual Rigging]

Automation stage

Geert Stockmans [Wicreations]

Led screen wall hardware

Brecht Moreels [Twenty-three]

Soft goods auditorium wall

Tom Lambert [Black Out]

Soft goods roll drops

Daphne Cosquer [Showtex]

Custom stage barrier

Anthony Sinclair [Eps]

Carpentry

Liam Hill [Coldharbour Industries]

‍

GREEN WALL DESIGNS TEAM:

‍

Lighting Director

Fredrik Stormby

Associate Lighting Director

Mike Smith

Lighting Programmer

Ishai Mika, Dom Adams

Disguise Programmer

Emanuel Tilly, Robert Witt

Video Content Artist

David Nordström, David Carvajal, James Carter

Visualization/Modeling Artist

Isak Gabre

Entrance tunnels / Associate design and renders

Andreas Bini

Photo credits

Johan Persson—Abba Voyage, Ralph Larman

‍

Abba Voyage—London

Virtual show

STORY

CREDITS

ANIARA CREATIVE:

Producers

Show Director

Technical producer

Line Producer

ILM Creative Director

VFX Producer

Choreographer

Musical Director

Instrument Director

PRODUCTION:

Technical Director

Head of Infrastructure

Rigging Consultant

DESIGN TEAM:

Design and Engineering Consultants

Venue Architects

Visual Consultant

Audio design

Video Technical Director

Lighting Director

Kinetic design

Laser design

Laser design & programming

Venue construction

Technical design

Structural engineering

Concourse construction

SUPPLIERS:

‍

Systems supplier

Kinetics

Lasers supplier

Rigging

Automation stage

Led screen wall hardware

Soft goods auditorium wall

Soft goods roll drops

Custom stage barrier

Carpentry

GREEN WALL DESIGNS TEAM:

‍

Lighting Director

Associate Lighting Director

Lighting Programmer

Disguise Programmer

Video Content Artist

Visualization/Modeling Artist

Entrance tunnels / Associate design and renders

Photo credits

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