STOCKHOLM, Sweden – A museum dedicated to the music, clothing and history of Swedish supergroup ABBA will open in Stockholm in 2008, organizers said Tuesday.
ABBA is one of the most successful bands in history, having sold more than 370 million albums. While the group hasn’t performed together since 1982, it continues to sell nearly 3 million records a year and the musical “Mamma Mia!” – written by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus and based on the group’s hits – has been seen by more than 27 million people around the world.
Organizers are still searching for a suitable location for the museum, but said it would open somewhere in central Stockholm in 2008.
The interactive museum will feature original outfits and instruments used by ABBA, handwritten song lyrics, a display of awards and “all other things we can think of and find,” said Ulf Westman, an event consultant who is spearheading the project with his wife, Ewa Wigenheim-Westman.
The museum will also feature a studio where visitors can record their own ABBA songs and an interactive experience that “will recreate the feeling of being at Wembley Stadium and seeing ABBA live with 50,000 others,” Westman said.
Wigenheim-Westman said the idea was inspired by the Beatles museum in London, but that it took nearly two years to convince Andersson, Ulvaeus, Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad that it was a good idea.
“It is nice that someone feels compelled to take on our musical history,” the four members said in a joint statement. “We think this will be a fun and swinging museum to visit.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
