ABBA Voyage was not on my ‘go to’ list, not least because the tickets are expensive, but when my son asked me to go with him as he had a spare ticket I thought I might as well keep him company. I’d only just had a cataract operation so thought I might have to just sit and listen to the music with my eyes closed and covered with dark glasses as the flashing lights might cause problems. Our tickets were for a matinee performance on a day trip by coach with NK Travel which is based in the town where he lives in North Kent. We arrived at the arena in plenty of time to get something to eat by taking advantage of the Early Arrivals combo – a limited choice of hot dog or burrito plus wedges and a soft drink for £12.95; I had the burrito and wedges (the meal as dry as the box it came in) but finding somewhere to sit and eat it was even worse; there are hardly any seats in the bar so we ventured outside into the hot sun where there were a few picnic tables and found someone who was willing to let us share their table for a short time. As soon as we’d finished our food others quickly took our place. We then thought that the only way to sit down would be to find our seats in the arena but I needed to find a toilet first which meant a long wait in a queue; the usual problem of not enough toilets – disappointing considering the arena was purpose built and the tickets were expensive. Finding our seats was also difficult as the tickets did not indicate which entrance to use but we eventually found them – in the back row up a long flight of stairs. Another problem was that that not all the staircases had handrails; this wasn’t too bad going up but was disconcerting coming down – especially for the many older people in the audience – I worked out that it was easier for me to walk on the level behind the back row until I got to a set of stairs that did have a handrail.
People were already sitting on the floor in front of the stage, getting the best position they could for standing or dancing throughout the performance; others had booked special booths in which to dance. We had a pretty good view of the stage, although it seemed a long way away; I don’t know what our seats had cost as the price we’d paid (£95 each) had included the coach fare. I think the higher seats are kept for groups as I couldn’t see prices for them on the ticket sales site. There are BSL interpreted performances and plenty of accessible seating, with ‘wheelchair spaces, ambulant seats and seats suitable for a wheelchair user to transfer into’; all must be booked in advance.
The show started with much flashing and pulsing of lights, lasers and loud music. I had to cover my eyes as it was blinding. As expected, the music (recorded and live from an on-stage group) was really good, The avatars were clever, but probably best viewed from a central, closer position. Some of the special effects were amazing and everyone seemed to enjoy the experience. Real ABBA fans, like my son, would have found nothing to criticise but althugh I enjoyed the music I didn’t think the concert lived up to its hype.
At the end I wanted to use the toilets again before getting the coach home but we were not allowed to go out the way we’d got to our seats, instead we had to join the slow throng back through the bar area so by the time I reached the vicinity of the toilets there were long queues outside both of them so I had to give up on that idea in case I kept everyone else on the coach waiting. So although I liked the performance I thought the arena design could have been better – in my opinion too much space was taken up with shops selling merchandise and not enough thought given to providing customers with a pleasant overall experience for their large outlay on tickets. Obviously I’m in a minority as it seems that some people have been many times.
