ABBAWORLD AUSTRALIAN OPENING
ABBAMANIA
returned to Australia in June with the opening of ABBAWORLD – The Official
Interactive Exhibition, at Federation Square in Melbourne.
ABBAWORLD was opened in grand style with a gala celebration on the night of Thursday June 17th. One hundred or so invited guests were treated to a preview of the ABBAWORLD exhibition followed by a party at Arintji Cafe & Bar just next door. Guests included sponsors, celebrities and ABBA fans from all around Australia.
The evening started at 7 pm, with guests arriving on the red carpet to enter the exhibition. Because so many arrived right on the starting time there was a bit of a crush in the first few rooms until people started to spread out through the exhibition.
The interactive elements, especially the quizzes, karaoke, and performing on stage with the ABBA avatars were extremely popular, with lines forming as guests wanted to try it all. It was fun to watch people who we probably wouldn’t consider “ABBA fans” having so much fun enjoying ABBA, testing their ABBA knowledge or just singing along. Even I was coerced into getting up on stage and performing ‘Mamma Mia’ with the ABBA avatars!
Everyone took the time to look over all the displays, reading the captions, listening to the audio commentary, looking over the memorabilia, stopping to watch the various videos. It seemed a lot of people didn’t recognise Frida in her interview video.
Also popular were the ABBA fan memories, near a display of Australian ABBA merchandise from 1976/77. Here Australian ABBA fans wrote their memories of ABBA in Australia, attending concerts, watching television specials, sharing ABBA with friends, meeting ABBA members or just telling of their love for ABBA. Some fans’ photographs also feature in the display. Many people stopped here for quite a while to read the stories.
After going through the exhibition guests were given a gift bag including the ABBAWORLD Souvenir Programme, an ABBAWORLD mug, an ABBA CD (either ABBA Gold or The Definitive Collection), a ticket to visit ABBAWORLD again, and a small bottle of sparkling wine. Many guests also stopped off to check out the gift shop, some of them even buying quite a lot of merchandise! Guests were then guided through to the party next door, where the local version of Björn Again entertained with ABBA hits.
Celebrity guests included singer and Australian Idol runner-up Anthony Callea, Ross Wilson, lead singer of 70s group Daddy Cool and 80s group Mondo Rock, “ Belvedere” from Good Morning Australia, and Seekers legend Judith Durham (who coincidentally announced another revival of The Seekers the very next day, touring with André Rieu).
Promoter Paul Dainty, whose company also promoted ABBA’s concert tour in 1977 and the original Australasian production of MAMMA MIA! in 2001-2005 was also on hand. Many staff from his company were delighted to see a photograph of him from the ABBA 1977 tour programme on display!
Christopher Patrick, whose book ABBA Let The Music Speak is on sale in the gift shop was there, and signed copies of his book for fans. ABBA biographer Carl Magnus Palm had also made the trip to Australia in time for the opening.
Unfortunately there was another major opening night event the same night which seemed to attract more celebrities than ABBAWORLD. But I’ll bet the celebrities at ABBAWORLD had more fun! Later that night Callea Tweeted to his thousands of followers “Check out AbbaWorld in Melbourne if you get the chance! Had really good night tonight!!”
ABBA fans had travelled from all over Australia for the opening week of ABBAWORLD, and it was great that so many of them were able to attend the gala opening. The ABBAWORLD team including Magnus Danielsson, Mats Daleskog and Ingmarie Halling had travelled from Sweden to bump in the exhibition, all seemed very happy with the evening.
ABBAWORLD was officially declared open in a special video by Agnetha and Benny, recorded outside the Mono Music building in Stockholm a few days earlier. The video was played twice during the party, with the noise of the crowd most people missed it the first time. The video now greets visitors at the entrance to ABBAWORLD.
The party wound down at around 11, with some of the ABBAWORLD team and a cache of ABBA fans moving on to the “after party” at another bar in Federation Square.
ABBAWORLD is scheduled to run at Federation Square, Melbourne until October 31 2010.
The Official International ABBA Fan Club Magazine # 104 September 2010
