Swedish pop music icons ABBA are the inspiration behind a beloved event returning to the Central Coast town of Trundle.
The Trundle ABBA Festival is back, with this year’s edition celebrating the 50th anniversary of Waterloo. The event is happening on Saturday, 19 October, and tickets are on sale now.
The Trundle ABBA Festival has been described as the biggest ABBA festival in the world, drawing punters to the small town annually since 2012. Last year, the event had another great year, with 2,200 punters attending the Berryman Oval-hosted extravaganza.
More acts will be announced later this month, but it’s already confirmed that the Australian-based ABBA tribute band Björn Again will return to headline the festival.
“We are pleased to be hosting the 2024 festival and look forward to showcasing and establishing Trundle as the home of the festival,” the Mayor of Parkes Shire Council, Cr Neil Westcott, commented in a press release.
Westcott added, “Trundle has the unique honour of being THE Australian ABBA festival on the 50th anniversary of Waterloo and will be the centre of the ABBA universe come October. Parkes Shire Council could not be happier to be partnering with the community of Trundle on what will be an amazing festival.”
Children under ten can enter the festival for free, with youth (11-17) tickets costing $70 and adult tickets $90. Tickets are on sale now via 123 Tix.
Last year, ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson confirmed that the band won’t be performing at the Eurovision Song Contest this year.
Speculation hit a fever pitch after Sweden’s Loreen won last year’s Eurovision Song Contest. With the winning country set to host the following year’s event, fans quickly assumed that ABBA would perform to commemorate their epic win with 1974’s Waterloo.
Those hopes were quickly dashed, with Ulvaeus and Andersson appearing on BBC Newsnight this week and ruling out rumours.
“I don’t want to,” Andersson admitted, “and if I don’t want to, the others won’t. It’s the same for all four of us – someone says, ‘no’ – it’s a no.”
“We can celebrate 50 years of ABBA without us being on stage,” Ulvaeus added.
