The Best ABBA Experiences in London

No city in the world takes ABBA as seriously as London does. In any given month you could sit in a purpose-built arena watching digital avatars perform Voulez-Vous, sing yourself hoarse at a themed club night, watch a live tribute band in a theatre, or spend a whole afternoon dancing to disco on a boat going under Tower Bridge.

They’re all good, but they are genuinely different experiences, and people book the wrong one all the time. This is an honest guide to what each format actually feels like, so you can pick the one that suits your group.

1. The arena concert experience

ABBA Voyage in east London is the big one: a purpose-built venue where digital versions of the band perform a full concert set with a live band. It is spectacular, it is seated (with a standing dancefloor option), and it is a show: you watch it, you sing along, and it ends after roughly an hour and forty minutes. Tickets are priced like an arena gig rather than a night out.

Best for: ABBA superfans, mixed-age family groups, anyone who wants the “I’ve seen ABBA” box ticked. Less good for: a group of twelve who want to be on their feet all day and talk to each other.

2. ABBA and disco club nights

Across London there are regular ABBA-themed and seventies disco nights in clubs and venues: DJ-led, late, loud, and usually cheap. The quality varies enormously depending on who’s programming the music: the good ones treat ABBA as the gateway into a proper disco set, the weak ones play the same six songs on repeat.

Best for: spontaneous nights, small groups, a low-commitment budget. The trade-off is that a club is a club: you’ll lose half your group to the smoking area within an hour.

3. Live tribute acts

Tribute shows are a genuine art form and London gets some very good ones, in theatres, function rooms and on cruise-style dinner events. You get live vocals, costumes and the whole hits catalogue performed properly. Formats range from seated theatre shows to dinner-and-dance nights, so check which one you’re buying before you book a group.

4. Singalong screenings and musicals

The Mamma Mia! stage show and singalong film screenings sit somewhere between a show and a party. Very fun, very seated, extremely reliable for a mixed group who want to be entertained rather than sweaty.

5. An ABBA boat party on the Thames

This is the one we run, so treat it as a recommendation rather than an impartial verdict, but it’s also honestly the most different item on this list. Disco Wonderland’s London ABBA Boat Party isn’t a performance you sit and watch. It’s a party you’re in: DJs playing ABBA and disco all sailing, bars onboard, an open-air upper deck, and central London moving past you the entire time.

Two things make it distinct. First, the room changes: Tower Bridge, The Shard, St Paul’s and the London Eye arrive one after another while the music keeps going. Second, everybody boards at once, so a group of twenty stays a group of twenty. Day sailings are a disco in the sunshine; evening sailings catch the sunset and roll on under the city lights.

Tickets are £25 Early Bird and £30 General Release through FIXR, sailings normally leave from Tower Millennium Pier (though the boarding point can occasionally change; always check your ticket), and it’s 18+. If that sounds like your kind of ABBA night, the upcoming sailing dates are here.

So which should you book?

• You want the spectacle: the arena concert experience.
• You want live vocals and a proper show: a tribute act or the musical.
• You want a cheap late night: an ABBA club night.
• You want to actually party, with your group, in daylight, on the river: the boat party.

Plenty of people do two of them in the same weekend, which is arguably the correct answer.