This photo of Abba on stage in 1979 will be on
display at the museum
The first permanent exhibition to
celebrate Sweden's most successful band will open to the public in May. The
BBC's Maddy Savage was given an exclusive preview of Abba The Museum.
From the moment you touch down at Stockholm's Arlanda airport, you get a
taste of the impact the museum is hoping to make.
There are banners advertising its launch, a giant TV blaring out clips of
Abba videos, and a revolving glass cabinet featuring replicas of the glittering
costumes worn by the band as they shot to fame in the Eurovision Song Contest in
1974.
Forty kilometres (25 miles) away, the museum site on the island of Djurgarden
in eastern Stockholm is still packed with builders and technicians wearing
yellow hats and jackets.
But they are well on track for the venue's launch and are completing what
should become a star attraction within the exhibition.
"We are entering the place where each and every visitor
can, for a brief moment, become the fifth member of Abba," says the museum's
managing director, Mattias Hansson, as he guides us into a bright white room
containing a small white platform.
The sounds of drilling and hammering echo around the building.
"It might not look like much now!" he shouts above the noise. "But in a few
weeks the band will appear on that stage as life-size holograms and you can
dance and sing up there with them!"
Each fan will be able to view their performance online and upload it to
social networking sites to share with friends and family.
They will also have the chance to virtually try on Abba's trademark sparkly
dresses and flared trousers with the help of green screen technology.
'Looking back'
Abba has sold almost 400 million albums around the world and a film featuring
their hits, Mamma Mia!, is the most successful musical movie of all time. Almost
50 million people have seen the stage version of the production.
Stockholm has long considered building a museum to
celebrate its most popular music export, but the band was initially hesitant
about the idea, with Bjorn Ulvaeus saying he did not want to become "a museum
artefact before I'm dead".
Previous plans for a permanent exhibition in a disused customs warehouse in
Stockholm harbour collapsed in 2008.
The new museum has the band's full support, with Ulvaeus offering daily
direction to some of the 50 staff involved with the final preparations. He is
busy promoting the project in Germany, where Abba has a loyal fan base.
"Bjorn told me that as time has passed, it is becoming easier to look back at
those years, both the beautiful memories and also the hard times," says Mr
Hansson.
'Coming home'
The museum's curator, Ingmarie Halling, is the band's former stylist and says
her work remains an emotional experience.
"It is a scary feeling because it feels like I am doing a giant loop. In the
80s and 90s I had my children and worked in the film industry. So it is a bit
strange to be back working with Abba, but at the same it is really fun to do
this job and tell this story."
Ms Halling says she did not just want to "put labels on glass cabinets" and
instead has combined her favourite Abba memorabilia to create sets where
visitors can follow in the band's footsteps.
These include the group's song-writing cottage on the island of Viggso, where
the group were inspired to write many of their hits, surrounded by seagulls and
boats.
"Bjorn told me that when he heard Benny playing the piano in the morning, he
knew that they would be composing that day!" smiles Ms Halling.
The hut is her favourite section of the museum, both because she has fond
memories of midsummer parties with the band there and as a lifelong fan of
Sweden's archipelagos.
Her other sets include the legendary Polar Music Studio, where the band
recorded some of their biggest hits, and Edmonton Ice Hockey Arena, where they
performed in 1979 as part of their final world tour.
"Visitors will come into the dressing room there and Abba have just left, so
there are empty champagne glasses and you can hear that they are on stage," Ms
Halling explains.
"It feels like coming home when I go into that room, even though it was
30-odd years ago!"
Ring Ring
Some of the exhibits were included in the Abbaworld show that toured
Australia and parts of Europe between 2009 and 2011.
The band members have also donated clothes and
memorabilia from their private collections.
Ring Ring, the group's first major hit in 1973, will be celebrated with the
red telephone Agnetha Faltskog posed with in publicity shots. It has been
connected to an outside line and only four people in the entire world know the
phone number.
A sister exhibition, The Swedish Music Hall of Fame, is also being built on
the same site.
There, visitors will be able to learn about the country's more recent global
success stories including Roxette, Europe and Swedish House Mafia.
"Abba was a door-opener for so many other artists," Mr Hansson says.
"Before Abba, not so many record companies in the world were opening
envelopes coming in with Swedish music, but after Abba they had to."
The museum is hoping to attract several hundred-thousand visitors in its
first year, half of them foreigners.
Eva Camel from Visit Stockholm, the city's tourist board, believes the museum
will become its most popular tourist destination.
By 2020 she hopes there will be 15 million commercial overnight stays a year
in Stockholm - compared with around 11 million in 2012 - with the Abba museum "a
very important piece in the plan to help reach that goal".
'Abba tourists'
Fans say the exhibition will provide a focal point where they can celebrate
the group.
The Polar Music Studio was turned into a gym in 2006.
The Hotel Rival, which is owned by Benny Andersson from the band, is said to
attract some so-called "Abba tourists", although on our visit its red-cushioned
chairs appear to be full of Swedes holding business meetings.
"I think it is great that we will finally have a place to remember the band
in their home city," says
Stockholmer Micke
Bayart, 45, in the hotel's cafe.
He used to run an Abba fan group and has written a book about his experiences
following the band.
"There is a large hype about the museum, but I have to say I think it is
mostly outside Sweden," he adds. "For example I spoke to a friend who runs a
club in Germany and she has just had so many requests about when it opens and
how people should get there."
He argues that Swedes have, at times, been too modest or even embarrassed
about the band's success and he hopes the museum will also help revive national
interest in the group.
"Everybody was very tired of Abba in the 80s and it was a really bad time to
be an Abba fan. But then Abba Gold broke, and then Mamma Mia!, and the outside
world once again showed Sweden how big Abba really was. So I think it is high
time for a museum like this."
His comments are endorsed by 29-year-old Karl Batterbee, from Drogheda in
Ireland, who recently relocated to Stockholm, where he runs a
website dedicated to Scandinavian chart
music.
As a teenager in the 1990s he became "pretty much
hooked" on Abba after discovering their compilation album Abba Gold.
"The songs just have amazing melodies and there is something timeless about
the music, which still inspires a lot of commercial Scandinavian pop today, even
if people don't realise it."
He hopes to get "totally immersed" in the museum. "Because I wasn't there the
first time round and I do wonder about the lifestyle and the people behind the
music."
Certainly not all his contemporaries share his enthusiasm. Another customer
at the cafe, Steinar Aspoy, 32, says he is tired of Abba being so iconic.
"When I was travelling a few years back, everyone was like 'oh you're
Swedish, like Abba!' and I got fed up because they are really not the best thing
about Sweden! I just hope that the Swedish Hall of Fame part of the museum shows
off the great indie bands like First Aid Kit that have also emerged from
here."
Mr Batterbee says "the Swedes have a strange relationship with Abba, because
they were never as big here as they were abroad". But he adds that when he DJs
in bars, "rarely a night goes by when I don't get a request for an Abba track...
you can tell there's a genuine fondness there".
Reunited?
Abba have not performed together in public since 1986, and last appeared as a
group in 2008 to attend the Swedish premiere of the Mamma Mia! film.
Organisers say they are unsure whether the band will reunite again to attend
the museum's official opening in May.
Agnetha Faltskog is busy
promoting her first
album in nine years around Europe, and Frida Lyngstad now lives in
Mallorca.
"The visitors and the whole crew behind the museum - everyone - wants them to
come. But they have their own agendas and they are really busy," says Ms
Halling.
"I know they will turn up sooner or later, though, because they want to see
what we have done with their legacy."
This illustration by Jonas Celsing Arkitektkontor shows what the museum will
look like
Tumba station was the setting for part of The Day Before You Came video and many
of the museum’s exhibits are being stored in a secret warehouse in the Stockholm
suburb
Many of the band’s boots were handpainted and are being stored in a cool, dark
room before they are moved into the exhibition
Museum curator Ingmarie Halling used to be the band’s stylist. She has fond
memories of visiting the island of Viggso, where Benny and Bjorn wrote many of
their songs and is recreating their cabin for one of the exhibits
Benny Andersson’s old piano which he kept on the island of Viggso is about to be
transported to the museum
The band at Polar Music Studio, which is being recreated for one of the museum’s
exhibits
The museum will give an insight into the band’s three world tours. This is
Agnetha and Frida in a private jet in 1979
This is a replica of a car used by Benny Andersson during his time in his
previous band, The Hepstars. The museum will look at all the band members’ lives
before they joined Abba.
With just six weeks to go, there is still work to do to ensure the museum is
finished on time
Museum curator Ingmarie Halling used to be the band’s stylist and has selected
which items will be included in the exhibition
Abba fans old and new: Micke Bayart and Karl Batterbee
