By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
Negotiations over staging the holographic ABBA Voyage concert in Melbourne drag on.
CBD hears that the stakeholders, which include the Victorian government, ABBA Voyage in London and local promoters were heading towards an agreement, as reported in May … but then something changed.
The ABBA Voyage show in London.Credit: Johan Persson
Of course, it all came down to Money, Money, Money.
“They got greedy,” said a senior government source who was not authorised to speak publicly and certainly not authorised to reveal if their favourite ABBA member was Agnetha or Frida.
Still, what governments consider “greedy” might just be standard in the world of music promotion.
The source said negotiations were inching closer in May but then the other side altered the potential terms of the complex deal, which would involve funding a permanent amphitheatre for the concert, with Flemington Racecourse the favoured location.
The total cost of between $60 million and $100 million is needed to build the arena and the hi-tech visuals, which transport audiences back to an ABBA concert circa 1978 as youthful holographic likenesses of the Swedish supergroup Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad take to the stage, accompanied by a live band and backing singers.
The ABBA Voyage concert opened in London in May 2022, and if Melbourne secures the show it will have scored an international coup as the venue outside London, beating even Las Vegas.
No wonder the Victorian government, which is skint, is spruiking Melbourne’s credentials as a world ABBA city which played a significant role in the group’s global success thanks to Molly Meldrum championing them on Countdown.
ABBA members Björn Ulvaeus (left), Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Agnetha Fältskog and Benny Andersson attend the ABBA Voyage opening night in London in May 2022.Credit: AP
A spokesman for the local promoters Paul Dainty of TEG Dainty and Geoff Jones, chief executive of TEG Group, declined to comment. As did ABBA Voyage in London.
The state government trotted out its standard line, “As Australia’s major events capital, we’re always looking at new opportunities and events for our calendar,” a government spokeswoman said. Clearly the song remains the same.
Meanwhile, there was a flurry of excitement among ABBA watchers as Ticketek opened up its official ABBA Voyage Waitlist.
“Want to know when an ABBA Voyage tour hits Australia? Waitlist your favourite events and we’ll contact you when any information becomes available,” the Ticketek website stated before adding a stern disclaimer: “Registration on this waitlist does not constitute a booking.”
Trump that
Red faces at another newspaper group on Monday morning after several news sites including the Herald Sun, Geelong Advertiser, Daily Telegraph and Weekly Times fed the insatiable reader interest in all things Donald Trump by running a video titled “Donald Trump back on golf course after shooting”.
Donald Trump’s motorcade leaves Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport ahead of the Republican National Convention.Credit: AP
The short video, posted by US Republican senator Mike Lee, was taken through a rainy window and showed Trump, wearing a MAGA cap, walk over to a golf buggy, climb onboard and drive away.
News that Trump was back on a golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, one day after the assassination attempt was pure internet catnip, but it was also totally untrue.
In reality the presidential candidate was heading for Milwaukee to attend the Republican National Convention one day after he was shot at during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
News Corp operatives scrubbed the offending TikTok footage off their parts of the internet quicker than a crack squad of bioremediation forensic cleaners sent to deal with a crime scene.
The internet fakers are having a field day. In parallel to the TikTok, a post purportedly from a “cart boy at Bedminster” appeared on Golf Reddit describing the scene of Trump and his entourage and detailing his putt off the ninth green, which ended with Trump apparently announcing, “The difference between me and the shooter is that I don’t miss.”
HARRY’S PLACE
Sometimes, even Young Liberals grow up and get a real job.
In the case of former Liberal staffer Harry Hughes, the nephew of Lucy Turnbull (wife of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull), that means leaving the sordid world of parliament behind and opening up a bar-cum-nightclub.
Hughes has been described to this column as a Young Liberal about town and a regular in hospitality tsar Justin Hemmes’ social orbit, known as the Hemmes-sphere.
Hughes comes from true blue Liberal Party royalty – outside the obvious Turnbull connection, his grandfather Tom Hughes was attorney-general, and dad Michael Hughes briefly ran the party’s finances.
The bar’s opening is a bit of a redemption arc for Hughes, who in 2017 was dumped as a staffer by then NSW planning minister Anthony Roberts after the premier at the time, Gladys Berejiklian, wanted him to lose a few staff.
Hughes was mentioned as a former mate of Bruce Lehrmann in documents produced in Lehrmann’s failed defamation case against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson.
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