Dancing queens, rejoice: More than three decades after it disbanded, pop super-group ABBA is finally getting its own permanent museum, set to open next spring in Stockholm.
The ABBA Museum, the centerpiece of the new Swedish Music Hall of Fame, will be both chock full of kitschy memorabilia—and interactive elements, including one that gives you chance to be the band’s fifth member.
Stockholm’s downtown island of Djurgården—also home to Skansen, the city’s popular 75-acre open-air museum—will be the ABBA Museum’s home.
Long-planned but hung up for years by various delays, the institution will finally open in April, just in time to dovetail with Sweden’s hosting of the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest in May. It was ABBA‘s winning performance of “Waterloo” during Eurovision’s 1974 edition that launched them into international superstardom.
“It’s a Cinderella story that’s well worth telling,” band member Björn Ulvaeus told Sveriges Radio, “and that’s what we’re doing here with the ABBA Museum in a fun way, full of warmth.”
Made up of two married couples (Ulvaeus and Agnetha Fältskog, and Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad) who each split during the band’s several years of unrivaled global success, ABBA itself split up in 1982, never to reunite — so far.
Asked at a press conference whether an ABBA reunion might be in the offing in honor of the museum’s opening, Ulvaeus was hopeful, but realistic. “If they all come I would be very happy,” he said, “but they decide for themselves.”
Images via ABBA: The official site
