ABBAWORLD was an interactive exhibition including 25 rooms of music, footage, images, and memorabilia from the personal collections of the band members. Among interactive activities: fans could get up on stage with 3D holograms of the band, take an ABBA quiz, join a sing-and-dance-along, and see themselves in an ABBA video.

Organised by Touring Exhibtions, ABBAWORLD was a forerunner to ABBA The Museum and toured four cities:

1. London, UK (Earl's Court) - 26 January - 28 March 2010
2. Melbourne, Australia (Federation Square)  - 19 June - 31 October 2010
3. Sydney, Australia (The Powerhouse Museum) - 16 December 2010 - 26 June 2011 and
4. Prague, Hungary (Slovanský dúm) - 6 May - 7 August 2011.

On a freezing cold night in London, Björn and Frida attended the opening night.  Other well-known faces attending included Boy George, US actor Stephen Baldwin and Michael Ball.  They gave numerous interviews to a worldwide press.

1. ABBAWORLD
   Their own report about the opening with an opening introduction by Björn and showing the celebritiy arrivals (Boy George, Michael Ball and Paul McCartney's ex-wife Heather Mills) and aspects of the exhibition.
   
   
2. Sky News
   Broadcast: UK
   A short and entertaining report with an interview with Frida and Björn
   
   
3. Sky News
   Broadcast: UK
   A second and different report from above and with a different with Frida and Björn
   
   
4. CNN
   Broadcast: USA
   A short report by Neil Curry about ABBAWORLD and an interview with Frida and Björn but also comments from Boy George and Stephen Baldwin (with Paul McCartney's ex-wife Heather Mills and Michael Ball in the background).  The report indicated that ABBAWORLD would be travelling to the USA but that never actually happened.  This might have been the first use of the phrase 'ABBAtar' when describing the holograms at the exhibition.
   
   
5. ITN News and Aftonbladet
   Broadcast: UK (ITN News)
   Published: Sweden (Aftonbladet)
   Both news outlets used the same stock (presumably news agency) footage for their reports.
   
   
6. EuroNews
   A very short interview with Frida and Björn.
   
   
7. Private footage - there were loads of fans there in the freezing cold that night - and many uploaded their films to YouTube.  I have included two of them here.

Images from all are above. To see which is which, click on the ( i ) on the top-left hand corner of the picture gallery.

Thanks to Paul Russell and Jeff Roberts and Roxanne Dickson c/o ABBA Village. Extra thanks to Ian Cole, Ron Steens and Gareth Jones c/o ABBAtalk. Thanks to Jan Bach.
YouTube links c/o Sinny1992, Ekaterina Kovrigina, TheTowerBridgeFox and camblu