Televisionation: Co-Producer, Gisla, and Director, Walsh, on the ABBA Voyage Concert and its “ABBAtars”

LOTS OF VISUALS!

This episode features Svana Gisla, Co-Producer, and Baillie Walsh, Director of ABBA Voyage, a hybrid virtual/IRL concert series centered on “ABBAtars,” digital avatars of the Swedish super-group, ABBA, which portray its members as they appeared in 1977, the group’s heyday. The concerts take place in the ABBA Arena, a purpose-built facility at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London’s East End.

Gisla and Walsh provide us with an in-depth overview of the ABBA Voyage project, which employed a range of motion-capture and graphics technologies, was “filmed” with 160 cameras, took five years to realize, involved collaboration with ILM and many other partners, and cost $175 million. They also tell us why they think this shared, immersive experience has proven so popular with audiences; describe how those audiences “fall in love” with the ABBAtars, share their thoughts on the project’s implications for the future of storytelling, and more.