News : Take a Tour of Stockholm’s Newly Opened Avicii Experience Tribute Museum

After years of planning, the Avicii Experience tribute museum opens Friday (Feb. 25) in the late producer’s hometown of Stockholm.

In a testament to the strength of the legacy of the artist born Tim Bergling, the space was inaugurated Thursday by Sweden’s Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia. As part of this opening, the latter royal read the lyrics of the 2014 Avicii track “The Nights” to Avicii’s father Klas Bergling, reciting “One day my father, he told me/ Son, don’t let it slip away/ He took me in his arms, I heard him say/ When you get older/ Your wild heart will live for younger days/ Think of me if ever you’re afraid.”

It was a teary moment to launch the emotional facility. Others at the opening event included Per Sundin, the CEO of Pophouse Entertainment, the producer of the Avicii Experience and the same group behind Stockholm’s ABBA museum and other cultural installations and hotels throughout the city, along with the Experience’s Content Producer Lisa Halling-Aadland.

Months prior to the opening of the space, Billboard joined Halling-Aadland in Stockholm for a tour of the Experience, which then existed only as a miniature model. Halling-Aadland notes that while the Experience is “Ultimately for his fans and EDM lovers and culture lovers,” many people who visit may be new to Bergling’s story, particularly given that the Avicii Experience is working with myriad Stockholm tourism agencies to drive attendance.

Thus, the Experience is packed with information intended to resonate with both those with deep knowledge of Bergling’s life story and those who are discovering him and electronic music culture for the first time. Located inside digital culture center Space, the roughly 3,700-square foot Experience thus starts at the beginning of Bergling’s life via a replica of his childhood bedroom, complete with the video games the young Tim Bergling spent countless hours playing during his childhood.

“The idea here is to give the visitor a sense of, ‘This could have been my brother; this could have been my friend,’ super relatable,” says Halling-Aadland.

This area and other parts of the Avicii Experience were furnished with many of the actual items Bergling had in his room as a boy, as provided to the space by Klas Bergling and his wife Anki Lidén. “There’s no way any of this could have happened without Klas and Anki,” Halling-Aadland adds. “They provided props, information, instruments, guidance, literally everything.”

From the bedroom, the experience transitions into a space exploring Bergling’s teenage friendship with Filip Åkesson, who produced music under the name Philgood. While even many hardcore Avicii fans aren’t aware of Åkesson and the role he played, “he’s actually the first guy that Tim met that he started making music with,” explains Halling-Aadland. “He’s a really big deal in Tim’s musical life.”

Åkesson worked with Halling-Aadland on the project, which benefits from the fact that Åkesson saved his PC from this early era. The team was thus able to excavate never-released early productions by Avicii and Philgood. These productions are available for listening, along with an interview video with Åkesson discussing this first phase of Bergling’s carer.

From there, the space leads to a replica of the Stockholm studio first used by Bergling and his first manager, Ash Pournouri. Working with the Avicii Experience, Pournouri provided many of the actual items that had been in the studio, including the purple faux fur tapestry they pinned to the wall to improve the sound quality in this basement space. (“People made some really good choices back then to keep things that we’re now so lucky to have,” says Halling-Aadland.) This area also features a replica of the “tiny, tiny” apartment Bergling rented from his older brother in this era, a shoebox-sized room where he’d stay up all night making music.