Abba rule out reunion for Eurovision in Sweden

ABBA have refused to reunite for Eurovision 2024 in Sweden on the 50th anniversary of their win.

Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson said there was no chance of re-forming for the song contest 50 years on from the band’s win with Waterloo in 1974, and also dismissed the idea that they might compose Sweden’s entry.

Since Abba’s victory, Sweden has won Eurovision five times, including this year with Loreen’s song Tattoo.

Ulvaeus and Andersson have said they will never tour again and reportedly refused a fee of $1billion to play 100 shows at the turn of the millennium.

They have said they do not wish to reunite with former members Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-frid Lyngstad, even for one performance.

In an interview celebrating the first anniversary of their virtual concert, Abba Voyage, Andersson told the BBC’S Newsnight: “I don’t want to, and if I don’t want to, the others won’t. It’s the same for all four of us – [if] someone says ‘no’, it’s a no.”

Ulvaeus described audiences’ responses to Abba Voyage, which features virtual avatars of the band members, depicting them as they would have appeared in 1979, as “surpassing every expectation”.

“That emotional connection was the important thing for us,” he said. “We never knew until we started whether that would work. Their intellect is telling them that we’re not there – but emotionally they are connected, which is a fantastic thing.”

Ulvaeus has said that the technology could be deployed so that fans can attend concerts in the future of stars who are deceased, although he acknowledged that this would be an “ethical question” in that the dead performer may not have consented for their image to be used in this way.

“We can say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to everything, so the audience knows that we are behind this,” he said, “so it would be an ethical question.”