ABBAFEST Report

Having just returned from Brighton, I thought it was now the ideal time, to give feedback on the event.

I stayed in Brighton for all 3 days, and had a great time. I went to the event with Julie and Gareth (who I hadn't seen since the last Bristol event back in 1999), so we all had much to catch up on. Unfortunately owing to a slight technical hitch (navigational difficulties!) - we missed the first event on the Friday evening, and then due to strobe lighting being used in the venue, I didn't have the confidence to go the disco in the Event 2 Club ( I am epileptic you see & if I have a fit it means that I lose my driving license for a year, so you can see my predicament) and this is the reason why I haven't been to the ABBF Day in The Netherlands for a long time.

So on the Friday of ABBAFEST 2004 I went back to the hotel and got a early night - which would have been great had several couples not starting shouting at the tops of their voices - bloody inconsiderate bastards etc !!!! I was SO tempted to shout abuse at these people but in the end I thought better of it.

The Saturday was THE highlight for me . Yet again I met loads of familiar faces that I hadn't seen for years (Sara & Paul Russell, Robert Day, and also I got recognised by the stallholders on the record fair which was a pleasant surprise - as they were regulars at Bristol back in the nineties) Another great thing to see was the actual costumes bought along by Owe, wonderful to see them there - and we also saw some of them on the big screen too. Very interesting to hear about the costumes , and I found Owe very funny, and interesting. However, I also very much enjoyed Anders Hanser's talk about his time when he took the photos of ABBA, which was great to hear about.

After these talks, I made much use of my digital camera, in taking shots of our guest speakers and the costumes themselves, - thank god I wasn't using a 35mm camera, as some of the shots I took initially came out blurred, but at least being able to see them on the spot meant that I could have a few more attempts at getting the right shot, rather than going home with my 35mm camera, assuming they had come out OK & ending up very pissed off once the film was developed !!!!!

Naturally I bought quite a few bits of merchandise, including a few nice bits from the ABBF stand - such as the next single from Agnetha, the Waterloo 30th Anniversary album - the CD & DVD ( I couldn't wait to pick this one up as I didn't know if Universal in the UK were going to issue it or not) , and lastly a couple of Agnetha promo posters - which I had been hoping to obtain - although initially I thought they were only for use as competition prizes, so when I finally realised they weren't - I picked up the last two that were left - thank f--k for that I thought to myself !!!!

One disappointment was missing out on the new Carl Magnus Palm book, which looks very interesting - but I should hopefully be able to obtain that later on in the month anyway, perhaps unlike the Agnetha posters which for all I know could end up going for silly money on Ebay !!

The video display which I think was arranged by Alex Jones, was bloody great - including Noel Edmunds show on which we see the FULL show where ABBA sing Thank You For The Music !!! Another few highlights were the latest Agnetha videos - I based myself right in the front row to gawp at these - she looks so great for her age I think. It was nice to see that Björn & Benny had sent a message to us fans attending ABBAFEST - short but sweet.

After all this excitement on Saturday - me, Julie & Gareth decided to opt out of going to see Björn Again. So instead we had a big meal in one of Brighton's restaurants, along with Helen (who's surname I didn't catch unfortunately) who is also a long term fan. So another early night for me beckoned - which I didn't mind as I was knackered!

On Sunday we went on the walking tour of Brighton, which was very interesting as Vaughn filled us in on ABBA related places of the area. We also went inside the Dome, which was really great, so a lot of us went on the stage, and took loads of photographs again! The stage seemed really quite small compared to how it seemed on TV - but maybe the BBC were using wide angled lenses on their cameras for the show.

Shortly after we went to see ABBA- The Movie, which was great as it had been remastered and the sound cleared up too. In fact there were a number of bits that I hadn't seen before - although these were only minor details, and no new sections really. I very much look forward to seeing this released on DVD. This is where the story ends - as the weekend was now complete. However, me, Julie & Gareth went off with three other fans (Richard, Dave & Jen ) to get a bite to eat - and as I had a good amount of travelling in front of me, I opted for a Chocolate Fudge Cake for dessert as well as main course. Oops that didn't quite read right did it !- what I meant to say was that in addition to the main course, I opted for a dessert, which was Chocolate Fudge Cake !

It was a great weekend, and thanks to Vaughn for organising it, it was really good !!!! It would be great to have an ABBAFEST every year in addition to the ABBF Day in The Netherlands event.

Anyway well done again Vaughn, it was great !

Thanks to ABBAMAILer Chris Bowles, Hemingford Grey, nr Cambridge, United Kingdom