PAUL STANLEY On KISS's Upcoming Avatar Show: 'The Experience Will Start When You Come Through The Door'

Earlier today (Tuesday, April 14),KISS principals Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, along with longtime manager Doc McGhee of McGhee Entertainment, participated in a panel discussion titled "KISS Forever: How Pophouse Defines The Next Era Of KISS in Vegas" during the Pollstar Live! Conference at the Loews Hollywood Hotel in Los Angeles, California. The conversation was moderated by Jessica Koravos, the CEO of Pophouse Entertainment, the Sweden-based music investment firm co-founded by ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus that acquired the KISS catalog in 2024. Some excerpts appear below (as transcribed by Clay Marshall for BLABBERMOUTH.NET):

On the KISS avatar show, which will premiere in Las Vegas in 2028:

Paul: "KISS has always been interactive. As fit as we might be, we don't get younger, but those iconic characters can last forever. The idea was to take that and transform [via] all the technology that has become available. What we've created and what we're in the works of creating for the avatar show is going to be something that is dependent on you as an audience member and upon the iconic characters, the personas. It's not going to be a concert, so to speak. Basically, we're there as travel guides as KISS goes through KISS worlds, as opposed to being limited to this stage."

On how the avatar show will extend the band's legacy:

Gene: "We did this the right way, instead of staying on stage too long. There are some artists that should really call it quits. Get off stage while you still look good, while you can still stand up straight instead of [using] walkers. That's not what you want to do. Quit while you're on top. We're so fortunate to have found Pophouse. Jessica and her team are here to take KISS to levels we never imagined."

On why the band preferred the avatar concept over Las Vegas's famed Sphere venue:

Paul: "Towards the end of the ['End Of The Road' farewell] tour, people were saying, 'Why don't you play the Sphere?' The truth of it is, the Sphere minimizes a band. It makes a band miniature. You're not going there to see a band — you're going to see screens. We wanted to incorporate the highest of technology, but we want to be the center of it. It's a very, very different experience than going to see a postage stamp with a band on it. This is the antithesis of that — it's 180 degrees from that. The show is going to be spectacular, but it's only as good as what you put into it. The personas are there and acknowledge you, so it's very different than anything that's been out there. It's hard to comprehend, but if you've seen the ABBA show ['ABBA Voyage', also produced by Pophouse], everybody who's there is having an amazing time. You become immersed in those four people on stage. This takes it even further."

On the to-be-constructed Las Vegas venue that will host the avatar show:

Paul: "Theater is almost an understatement. It's more an arena of sorts, where every seat is a perfect-view seat. It's being designed so that every seat is a great seat. That's critical with the technology. With flat-screen TVs, you have a limited area where you get the whole experience. This arena is designed as the environment, and the whole experience will start when you first come through the door of the building. The whole building is a KISS building, so you'll experience the whole band, the museum, all the curios, all the artifacts. It's 'KISS World'."

On how they think the avatar show will be received:

Paul: "I think the most important thing about this avatar show is KISS fans will love it, but it's not directed solely toward them. This is a show, an experience, that people who don't like the band will come and see just because of the mind-boggling technology. It's true to the band. It's bombastic. People talk about technology, and that it loses heart. This doesn't. This is a new representation of us, but it has the heart and soul of who we are… We're not only the band — we're fans of the band. We love the band, and we hold it in reverence. The show is about, what would the ultimate KISS fan want to see?"

Gene: "When our experiential show opens, I want to take my kids, and I'm sure Paul is exactly the same. There's a sense of pride when you do something well, you want your family first to experience it and love it. You want your kids to be proud of it, and then, the most important people, the fans — you want them to come in and gape and awe and tell everybody else, 'You can't believe it.' That's going to be our best public relations thing. When the fans see this, they're going to be so proud — 'I stuck by these guys for decades and decades. Look what they gave me back.' It's fan and band. It's electric church."

On their working relationship with Pophouse:

Paul: "You're only as good as the people you surround yourself with, and Pophouse was a group that we had faith in to really take our baby, something that we've nurtured for 50 years, and say, 'What can you do?' There are things we don't have expertise in, but nobody knows KISS better than we do. We felt comfortable in that we could hand it over to Pophouse and still be involved. We are very much a part of it. It's not something we've cut ourselves off from, and Pophouse has been admirably smart enough to keep us involved, so we're involved every step of the way, and constantly meeting and [giving] feedback for what we think is right and what we don't. It's incredibly exciting."

On the future of the KISS Kruise, which will return to Las Vegas for another "Land-Locked" event this fall:

Paul: "KISS Kruise started out as an idea to have a boat for KISS fans to celebrate the tribe, so to speak. The first year we did it, honestly, I went, 'Who's going to come on a KISS cruise?' [As] it turned out, people from 33 countries. We did 12 cruises, and during that time, it became such a popular thing that everybody started doing it. For the last few years, we haven't been able to get a ship, so we've taken over the Virgin Hotel in Vegas. Brand recognition is everything as we know from KISS, so KISS Kruise was not something we wanted to give up, so we called it 'KISS Kruise: Land-Locked In Vegas'."

On the origins and inspirations behind their "Starchild" and "Demon" personas:

Paul: "My thought was to be on stage and be a ringleader, an evangelical preacher preaching rock n' roll, a game show host — somebody who would acknowledge the audience and also make the audience participate in what we do. That's always been my role. The star came about because early on, I realized that so much of the star quality was lost when we started out. You were seeing people who were famous who looked like your neighbor. I was longing for a time where you had the Cary Grants, the Marilyn Monroes — people who looked like stars. I painted one on [one] side of my face, and then I got a little lazy and didn't have time to put it on [the other]. That's basically how that started. My character, it's really an extension of a part of me. I think some other bands who try to emulate or replicate what we've done missed the point, because it was never about dressing up and putting on a costume. It was about finding a part of yourself and putting it out for people to see. It was never hollow. It stayed true to this day. Those figures at this point have become iconic to the point where who's behind it is not as relevant as the image. The heart and soul of it is a human being, but what it represents is those four personas in KISS."

Gene: "Imagine [if] I, at the beginning, wanted that extension of who I am — the persona — to look like Paul: ruby red lips, the star. I wouldn't be convincing, because it wouldn't connect with me. As a kid, I couldn't speak English. When I came to America, I was fascinated by television. When I saw the first imagery on TV, they used to have 'Million Dollar Movie' — 'King Kong' and 'The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari' and especially 'Phantom Of The Opera', the original silent film. The German silent expressionist films, it's more interesting when there's shadows instead of this brunt California daylight. There's no oomph, no gravitas. I was always drawn to these films that played around with good and evil and shadows and things like that. The extension, the makeup — we all basically created our own personas. All four of us were up in this rat-infested loft, and one day, one of us said, 'Let's go downstairs to Woolworth's and see what's going on. Let's buy makeup.' We didn't have a clue what we were doing. We went downstairs and bought Clown White. Then I bought some Clown Black stick. Paul bought red lipstick. Nobody knew what they were doing. We went upstairs and bought cheap $15 mirrors and leaned them against the wall of this loft we were rehearsing in. Each of us are busy putting on the makeup and designing what became iconic imagery. Scientists call it a singularity. It just happened. No experience, no resume, no nothing. Then we started looking at each other and kind of getting off on it — like, 'Wow, this is kind of cool.' We didn't know what it meant or anything. Pretty closely, the makeup that we put on is the makeup that has lasted."

The KISS avatar show is expected to open in Las Vegas in 2028. Koravos said the company hopes to subsequently take the show on "tour." "The goal in this process is that eventually, we will crack the touring side of avatar shows, and when we launch in Las Vegas, we will eventually be able to take the show on the road and hopefully figure out a way to get into arenas," she explained.

More information on the 2026 edition of "KISS Kruise: Land-Locked In Vegas" is expected to be revealed in the coming weeks.

Launched in 2014, Pophouse closed its debut fund, Pophouse Fund I, in March 2025, raising over $1.3 billion to invest in music catalogs and IP. KISS's deal with Pophouse, reported to be worth over $300 million, saw the company acquire the band's song catalog, name, image and likeness rights — including their iconic face paint designs — and their artist share of master recordings and publishing rights.

Unlike the "ABBA Voyage" show, which recreates a 1970s-era ABBA concert in a custom-built London arena, KISS's avatars that appeared at the band's final concert in New York on December 2, 2023 were not as grounded in reality as ABBA's digital replicas. Instead, according to BBC News, the KISS avatars that were previewed at Madison Square Garden band appeared as fantasy-based superheroes who are eight feet tall, breathing fire and shooting electricity from their fingers, while floating above the audience.

Earlier this month, Koravos told Pollstar magazine writer Katherine Turman: "What the crowd got to see at MSG was an early prototype of the KISS avatar concept. A lot has evolved since then — both in terms of creative concept for the show and avatar technology. We are now deep in development with a top-flight creative team headed by Thierry Coup — the team was on set last week testing out pyro effects against a new generation of LED screens to make sure we max out the KISS signature flame throwing. The show concept is a crazy 4D roller coaster ride through the hits, the comic book worlds and personas of KISS."

KISS will reportedly become the first American band to go fully virtual and stage its own avatar show.

Back in December 2023, Simmons said that "about 200 million" dollars was being invested into the KISS avatar show.

More than four million people have attended the "ABBA Voyage" show since it launched in 2022. The groundbreaking concert residency sees digital CGI versions of the four members of ABBA performing in the purpose-built ABBA Arena in East London.

To date, 1,415 "ABBA Voyage" concerts have taken place, with audiences collectively spending over 141,500 hours at the show, a total of 7,075 costume changes taking place, and ABBA's smash hit song "Dancing Queen" alone playing for 4,800 minutes.

Last year saw the "ABBA Voyage" setlist switched up for the first time, with the introductions of the songs "Take A Chance On Me", "Super Trouper" and "The Name Of The Game".

Photo by Clay Marshall for BLABBERMOUTH.NET