ABBA Voyage raises over £325,000 for BBC Children in Need

ABBA Voyage has raised over £325,000 for BBC Children in Need after two gala performances at the ABBA Arena, presented with BBC Radio 2 and hosted by Vernon Kay. The special concerts took place at 1pm and 6pm on Sunday 8 November 2026 at the purpose built venue in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, east London.

ABBA Voyage raises over £325,000 for BBC Children in Need

The production announced the total after the two galas at the weekend. On top of a donation from the performances themselves, ABBA Voyage, together with its partners Benugo and Sandbag, donated all hospitality and merchandise profits from the day. The result takes the concert's support for the charity well beyond last year's gala, which raised more than £200,000 from a single special performance.

This year's event was planned on a larger scale from the outset, with two full concerts in the same day rather than one. More than 5,000 audience members came through the doors of the ABBA Arena across the afternoon and evening, filling the 3,000 capacity room twice and turning the foyer, bars and merchandise stands into part of the fundraising effort as well as the shows on stage.

Svana Gisla and Ludvig Andersson, producers of ABBA Voyage, said: “We are thrilled that these two special performances of ABBA Voyage with BBC Radio 2, have helped raise such an incredible amount for BBC Children in Need. It means a great deal to know that the joy of ABBA Voyage can help make a real difference to the lives of children and young people across the UK. A big thank you to Vernon Kay and the 5,000 plus audience members who joined us throughout the day and helped create such a magical atmosphere.”

BBC Children in Need raises money for charities and projects that work with children and young people across the UK. This year's television appeal is on Friday 13 November 2026. The ABBA Voyage total arrives in the same week, and the production's producers have framed the galas as a way for a London concert, and the people who come to it, to put something back while the appeal is in the public eye.

Vernon Kay hosts the ABBA Voyage gala performances

BBC Radio 2 returned to the ABBA Arena for a second year, after last year's event for the same charity. Vernon Kay, who presents the UK's most listened to radio programme, with a weekly audience of 6.8 million, hosted both performances on 8 November. He was in the building throughout the day, welcoming audiences around the two concert times and appearing with Pudsey Bear, the long standing mascot of the appeal, in the public spaces of the arena.

Between the 1pm and 6pm concerts, Kay also took to the decks at a party next to the venue, giving ticket holders for either gala a chance to keep the day going in the hours between shows. Official photographs from the afternoon and evening show the host in headphones at the decks, on the floor with Pudsey, and in the auditorium as the room filled. The release from the production thanks him directly, alongside the thousands of people who bought tickets and spent money on food, drink and merchandising that then went to the charity.

The tone of the day was festive rather than formal. Staff in Pudsey ears worked the merchandise stands, the bear took a turn at a drum kit on the concert stage, and audiences in the steep seating stands rose to applaud as the mascot moved through the room. For a concert that already leans on celebration, the charity framing gave the regular night out a clear purpose, without changing the shape of the show that people had come to see.

ABBA Voyage at the ABBA Arena in east London

ABBA Voyage is a full scale concert experience that brings Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad back to the stage as digital versions of themselves as they appeared at the height of the band's fame. They perform the group's best known songs alongside a live ten piece band, inside a venue designed for this show alone. The concert is directed by Baillie Walsh and produced by Gisla and Andersson for Goldonder AB, a company founded by Conni Jonsson, Ulvaeus and Andersson.

The running time is approximately 100 minutes, with no interval. Since opening in May 2022 at the ABBA Arena, a bespoke 3,000 capacity room opposite Pudding Mill Lane station in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, the production has been seen by more than 4 million people. It plays seven concerts a week, including weekend matinees, and further performances are added regularly as dates sell. In May 2025, to mark its third London anniversary, the concert expanded its setlist for the first time, adding Super Trouper, The Name of the Game, Money, Money, Money and Take a Chance on Me to the running order. Our earlier coverage of that first year, including new images released for the first anniversary, gives a sense of how quickly the show settled into London life.

The arena itself is part of the draw. It is not a converted theatre, and it is not a temporary tent. The room was built for this concert, with a mixture of seated areas, a standing dance floor close to the stage, and dance booths around the space. Doors open well before each performance, and visitors are asked to arrive early for security checks. The concert is recommended for ages 5 and over, with under 3s not admitted and under 16s accompanying an adult. None of that changed for the charity galas: the same concert, in the same room, was offered twice in one day, with the proceeds pointed in a different direction.

That combination of a fixed London home and a show that does not depend on a touring company has made ABBA Voyage an unusual fixture in the city's entertainment calendar. It is close enough to the West End to sit in the same night out conversation as a musical, yet it lives in Stratford, on the Olympic Park, with its own transport pattern and its own door times. For many visitors it is a destination trip rather than a show they combine with dinner in theatreland, which is one reason a whole day built around two galas, and a party between them, made sense for this fundraiser.

ABBA Voyage and ABBA's music on the London stage

London already had a long relationship with ABBA's catalogue before this concert arrived. Mamma Mia!, the jukebox musical built around the same songbook, continues at the Novello Theatre in Aldwych, and remains one of the West End's most familiar nights out. The two shows are not substitutes for one another. Mamma Mia! is a musical with a Greek island wedding plot, a live theatre orchestra and a company of actors. ABBA Voyage is a concert, with the four members of the group present as digital performers and a band playing live in the room. Audiences often treat them as complementary, rather than as a choice of one or the other.

What the gala total underlines is that the concert has also become a useful partner for a national charity appeal. A single Sunday, using the existing production, the existing venue and a radio station with a huge weekly audience, has now generated a six figure sum two years running, and a higher figure this time by putting the show on twice. The producers' statement is careful not to overclaim: the joy of the concert, they say, can help make a real difference to children and young people. The money is the test of that, and the official total now stands at over £325,000.

For anyone planning a visit later in the season, including over Christmas, ABBA Voyage continues its regular weekly pattern at the arena. It also sits alongside other festive London outings in our guide to the best Christmas West End shows for 2026, for readers who are building a wider trip around a date at the Olympic Park.

ABBA Voyage tickets after the Children in Need galas

The two charity performances have now been and gone, but the concert itself is still running in Stratford, seven times a week. If you want to see it for yourself, look for ABBA Voyage tickets.