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Post by theatreian on Sept 4, 2021 14:43:10 GMT
Well at least there will be plenty of options even after the initial pre sale with 7 shows a week for a couple of years.
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Post by alece10 on Sept 4, 2021 16:55:21 GMT
I had an e mail from the Abba people earlier as I had contacted them regarding access tickets and the reply I got might give you an idea of what prices are going to be like. They gave me the price for accessible spaces and an adjacent seat which, I guess, is if you took someone with you and they are going to be: £86.95 Monday and Thursday, £97 Saturday matinee, Sunday matinee and Sunday evening and £107 Friday and Saturday evening. So I am guessing the £21 seats are going to be sitting on a park bench down the road and listening to the sound. Credit cards at the ready folks.
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Post by talkingheads on Sept 5, 2021 9:09:36 GMT
What a nightmare the presale was! Ages to get through, then they have the cheek to not let you buy general admission tickets without a hotel! Ended up going for cheap seats.
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Post by anthony40 on Sept 5, 2021 9:11:44 GMT
I’m in baby- Ant’s off to the ABBA Voyage concert on 30th May!
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Post by mkb on Sept 5, 2021 9:11:48 GMT
Can't say I'm surprised. Over £100 a ticket for any decent seat, and standing tickets only available if you also book a hotel, starting at £436 for two in a three-star Holiday Inn Express.
Absolute greed.
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Post by Mark on Sept 5, 2021 9:23:23 GMT
Money, money, money Must be funny In the rich man's world
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Post by anthony40 on Sept 5, 2021 9:27:38 GMT
BTW, I’m Ant
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Post by theatreian on Sept 5, 2021 9:28:58 GMT
I can't quite believe it but managed to get opening night tickets!
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Post by alece10 on Sept 5, 2021 9:33:44 GMT
Maybe I was lucky as the process was all pretty quick. I was expecting to be in the queue for hours but I was in within 10 minutes. I had a feeling prices would be high but I have managed to get a couple of tickets for the first Saturday afternoon performance. And it seemed to let me book without having to buy the CD. I also decided not to pay extra for the souvenir ticket as what would I do with it in reality apart from sticking it with my pile of old tickets and programmes
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Post by floorshow on Sept 5, 2021 9:34:53 GMT
Relatively painless getting decent seated tix. Prices are exactly what to expect though - big brand and location. Can't imagine the edge seats in the horseshoe are going to be great for the (not) holograms but hey, you can watch your holograms on a big screen, I guess. Incidentally, TMs choose your seat thing can just be ignored and you can pick individual seats from the seatplan
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Post by mkb on Sept 5, 2021 9:47:21 GMT
£75-£85, which is a lot, gets you a comfy seat in a prime view in an historic West End venue, watching a cast of 20+ performing live, with a live orchestra, and without the economy of scale of 3,000 capacity.
A large temporary shed in Stratford that will no doubt be too hot in summer and drafty the rest of the time, with only a live band of 12 for 100 minutes, ought to cost considerably less.
The only advance clue that rip-off pricing would be in place was the choice of Ticketmaster as the selling agent
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Post by timothyd on Sept 5, 2021 9:48:14 GMT
Got two tickets! Cheap and in the back, but really happy I'm able to go.
Didn't expect it to be so easy and can't wait for the album in November and show in June. Hope the other songs on the album are as good as the two they've released this week.
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Post by theatreian on Sept 5, 2021 9:53:35 GMT
A large temporary shed in Stratford that will no doubt be too hot in summer and drafty the rest of the time, with only a live band of 12 for 100 minutes, ought to cost considerably less. The issue here is that this show has had hundreds of people working on it for 5 years so far so I guess a lot of costs to recoup. My tickets were £65 for seated ones which i thought was reasonable given the costs of some concerts. Elton John was charging up to £1000 for some seats. Concerts have a different pricing structure to theatre, although some theatre can cost well over £200.
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Post by poster J on Sept 5, 2021 10:04:58 GMT
Each to their own but I think that sort of price to not even have a live performance aside from musicians who will obviously have to replicate their performance exactly each night to match the holograms rather than have any individuality is insane. If something ever goes wrong it will surely be blindingly obvious rather than people using their skill to recover/cover it.
When you think about how much effort the band themselves are putting into this you are essentially going to a filmed concert (which they did in special motion capture suits, but it is still just a live performance recording at its core) with some extra special effects. Much of the money spent on this appears to be on the non-visible tech.
You are paying to watch a recording not dissimilar to what you could see on Sky Arts anytime (indeed, whether the performance energy is even half what it was 40 years ago remains to be seen). No chance of seeing anything remotely different to the night before. There is no joy or chance for ongoing creativity and flair in that, and the investors must be laughing all the way to the bank. It seems like a con to me.
And I live less than half an hour from the venue so if I did want to go and stand I'd be pretty annoyed at having to buy a hotel.
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Post by interval99 on Sept 5, 2021 10:06:20 GMT
Seems Ticketmaster site either works well or you just get stuck in a loop of errors and it crashing when you hit the final payment button. Will try later. Congratulations to all who have tickets, it's almost certain to extend booking period soon and at least you know with this new type of show you will be seeing the same lead performers even in ten years
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Post by timothyd on Sept 5, 2021 10:07:45 GMT
And I live less than half an hour from the venue so if I did want to go and stand I'd be pretty annoyed at having to buy a hotel. You don't need to buy a hotel, it's optional.
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Post by digipal on Sept 5, 2021 10:12:46 GMT
Seems Ticketmaster site either works well or you just get stuck in a loop of errors and it crashing when you hit the final payment button. Will try later. Congratulations to all who have tickets, it's almost certain to extend booking period soon and at least you know with this new type of show you will be seeing the same lead performers even in ten years Same here, I had tickets in my basket three times and it crashed at final payment. I’m not trying again for the moment in case I get charged for three sets. I never normally have issues on ticketmaster
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Post by talkingheads on Sept 5, 2021 10:23:53 GMT
I'm sure it's a lot more complicated, but aren't we essentially paying £75 for a technician to press a button to start the show each night?
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Post by max on Sept 5, 2021 10:33:24 GMT
I wonder how long the band spent in the motion capture suits. I imagine it was a short time, to capture any gestures that seem particularly 'them', especially in the 'between song' moments that will make it feel more real. For the rest of it, they'd surely get younger performers to recreate the dance routines - ABBA weren't great dancers, but there was energy, and they wouldn't move the same way now.
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Post by timothyd on Sept 5, 2021 10:36:54 GMT
I wonder how long the band spent in the motion capture suits. I imagine it was a short time, to capture any gestures that seem particularly 'them', especially in the 'between song' moments that will make it feel more real. For the rest of it, they'd surely get younger performers to recreate the dance routines - ABBA weren't great dancers, but there was energy, and they wouldn't move the same way now. Five weeks according to the press release.
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Post by singingbird on Sept 5, 2021 10:41:25 GMT
I wonder how long the band spent in the motion capture suits. I imagine it was a short time, to capture any gestures that seem particularly 'them', especially in the 'between song' moments that will make it feel more real. For the rest of it, they'd surely get younger performers to recreate the dance routines - ABBA weren't great dancers, but there was energy, and they wouldn't move the same way now. This is what I'm concerned about. If I understand it correctly, Abba spent 5 weeks in motion capture suits performing this new concert set list, and they're then being 'de-aged' to how they were in 1979. Surely that means you'll have slightly off-looking figures of 'young' Abba moving with all the creakiness of seventy year olds?!? It's not just how someone looks that you need to de-age, it's their physical and mental lived experience, all of which will be there in their performance. Personally I would have just suggested to them that they can act and be their age - it's okay, we all get old - sat them on a stage with two stools, a piano and an acoustic guitar, along with a small backing band, and had them perform a set in a hall in Stockholm which would be shown live in cinemas around the world. I guess, however, that they consider the colourful 1970s Abba dynamic, visuals and energy to be too much a part of the brand to strip away.
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Post by interval99 on Sept 5, 2021 10:47:02 GMT
Interesting name choices for the dance booths and that they didn't go for the obvious band members or album names. Box a haven't see a name for and possibly this is open for corporate sponsorship hire but the other seven Stikkan after their original manager and given the still clouded issues over the management aspects it's nice to see him back in the abba world. Gudrun - stikkan wife Michael b tretow - the amazing studio engineer who really helped make the abba sound Gorel Hanser previously stigs PA but the abba spokesperson and guardian for many years Graham Tainton their choreography teacher Ola brunkett the missed session and live drummer who we never did hear sing Rutger gunnansson guitarist on many abba tracks
They may swap names about but I presume these have been selected or approved by abba and give insight into who they know helped them.
Spell checker has been a pain changing every other word. Hopefully I spotted all and reverted back e.g Hanser became handset!
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Post by mkb on Sept 5, 2021 10:49:29 GMT
And I live less than half an hour from the venue so if I did want to go and stand I'd be pretty annoyed at having to buy a hotel. You don't need to buy a hotel, it's optional. Not if you want a standing ticket. And, infirm people aside, who on earth would want to go to a gig and sit at the back rather than dance down the front? I've never understood that mindset.
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Post by timothyd on Sept 5, 2021 10:51:38 GMT
You don't need to buy a hotel, it's optional. Not if you want a standing ticket. And, infirm people aside, who on earth would want to go to a gig and sit at the back rather than dance down the front? I've never understood that mindset. You can just hoover your mouse over general admission. Then you're able to select tickets. They give you the option to buy them with or without hotel. If there aren't any available they're probably gone and you can try another date. I bought seating tickets because I'm not able to stand on my feet for longer then a few minutes.
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Post by steve10086 on Sept 5, 2021 10:52:50 GMT
You don't need to buy a hotel, it's optional. Not if you want a standing ticket. And, infirm people aside, who on earth would want to go to a gig and sit at the back rather than dance down the front? I've never understood that mindset.
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Post by steve10086 on Sept 5, 2021 10:54:55 GMT
You don't need to buy a hotel, it's optional. Not if you want a standing ticket. And, infirm people aside, who on earth would want to go to a gig and sit at the back rather than dance down the front? I've never understood that mindset. Not everyone enjoys standing in a crowd of people for 100 minutes.
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Post by max on Sept 5, 2021 10:55:04 GMT
I wonder how long the band spent in the motion capture suits. I imagine it was a short time, to capture any gestures that seem particularly 'them', especially in the 'between song' moments that will make it feel more real. For the rest of it, they'd surely get younger performers to recreate the dance routines - ABBA weren't great dancers, but there was energy, and they wouldn't move the same way now. This is what I'm concerned about. If I understand it correctly, Abba spent 5 weeks in motion capture suits performing this new concert set list, and they're then being 'de-aged' to how they were in 1979. Surely that means you'll have slightly off-looking figures of 'young' Abba moving with all the creakiness of seventy year olds?!? It's not just how someone looks that you need to de-age, it's their physical and mental lived experience, all of which will be there in their performance. Personally I would have just suggested to them that they can act and be their age - it's okay, we all get old - sat them on a stage with two stools, a piano and an acoustic guitar, along with a small backing band, and had them perform a set in a hall in Stockholm which would be shown live in cinemas around the world. I guess, however, that they consider the colourful 1970s Abba dynamic, visuals and energy to be too much a part of the brand to strip away. It may be forgotten, but 'ABBA The Movie' was a bit of a flop (critically at least), and the first moment when the gloss fell away a bit. It was a documentary of their tour. The clamour around the tour was immense, but I don't know if they were ever considered a phenomenal stage act - outside of the music (the most valuable bit, of course). Instead their pop videos were iconic and what everyone waited for, particularly decoding what the state of their personal relationships was. Maybe the idea is that they can be an iconic 'stage act' now, in a way they weren't then? But doing the same stuff I'm not sure.
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Post by max on Sept 5, 2021 11:01:24 GMT
I wonder how long the band spent in the motion capture suits. I imagine it was a short time, to capture any gestures that seem particularly 'them', especially in the 'between song' moments that will make it feel more real. For the rest of it, they'd surely get younger performers to recreate the dance routines - ABBA weren't great dancers, but there was energy, and they wouldn't move the same way now. I now see I was quite wrong about this. Motion capture with the band for 5 weeks. It does allow them to say, 'you're really seeing us'. Including rehearsal time? For all those songs, that's not really that long. I guess, sticking with the integrity of 'it's really us' a lot of it will be quite static, pointing, posing in time to the music. So no extra dance routines beyond what they really did in the past. Not sure the performances will be that spectacular, but where it'll score is between song interactions (and within). The Roy Orbison (and others) shared upthread look unconvincing, because there's an orchestra going for it, and no turn from 'Roy' to acknowledge or get into the music with them. It doesn't matter how great the technology, it's the small things like that (even faked mistakes) that will make it look real. Storylining really.
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Post by mkb on Sept 5, 2021 11:04:50 GMT
Thanks for the heads-up. It is true that standing tickets without hotel are now on sale (at £75.95 each plus £2.50 per booking). I have now bought two.
But they were not there anytime during at least the first 30 minutes of the sale. (I got lucky with queue position 11 so was almost straight in at sale opening.).
This is going to really upset those who wanted standing but took seats instead.
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Post by mkb on Sept 5, 2021 11:08:08 GMT
Not if you want a standing ticket. And, infirm people aside, who on earth would want to go to a gig and sit at the back rather than dance down the front? I've never understood that mindset. Not everyone enjoys standing in a crowd of people for 100 minutes. They'll be disappointed at many gigs then, because the people in the row of seats in front of them will almost certainly be standing throughput and blocking the view. The nice thing about standing areas is that you can alternate between the congested front half and taking breaks in the uncongested rear.
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