Photo: Johan Persson/ABBA Voyage

The ABBAtars are coming to New York City. Crain’s reported this week that Gary Barnett and his ever-busy Extell Development filed paperwork to demolish half a block on 11th Avenue and West 45th in Hell’s Kitchen to make way for ABBA Voyage, a holograph-forward concert designed by … ABBA. The show, which first opened in London in 2022, has a fairly devoted following and the developers behind the project (Extell is joined by Bluestone Group on this ABBA Voyage) are anticipating crowds. The planned arena, per Crain’s and the local news site W42ST, will be 175,000 square feet and have a capacity of 3,000.

The four members of ABBA — who are, yes, still alive and in their 70s — apparently spent years developing their holograms along with a team of producers to craft the 100-minute performance. This included five weeks of filming Agnetha, Björn, Benny, and Anni-Frid in motion-capture suits and the work of 140 animators from Industrial Light & Magic, the visual-effects firm behind a bunch of Marvel movies. Helpfully the event’s FAQ page notes to concertgoers that while Abba is “not physically in the arena,” the band has “created the kind of concert they always wanted.” (Holograms of themselves from almost 50 years ago.)

If you’re curious, and why wouldn’t you be, it looks like this:

According to W42ST, the city’s Industrial Development Agency approved a $50 million tax break to help Extell and Bluestone build out the arena. The developers claimed that the tax benefits were necessary for them to “recruit a European-based tenant to New York City, instead of Las Vegas.” Their proposal outlined a $500 million budget with a planned opening in 2028.

Plus now that Mamma Mia! is no longer running on Broadway, the ABBA fanatics will need a place to go. And they’re ready: “My prayers have finally been answered after all these years,” one of the devoted wrote on Reddit. “This will be my new home.”

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