KISS To Rock And Roll All Nite, Party Every Day Forever! Gods Of Thunder Find Eternal Life With Pophouse

Over the PA at Madison Square Garden, a bombastic MC intones those eternal and magical rock ’n’ roll words: “You wanted the best! You got the best, the hottest band in the world…. KISS!” The curtain drops, pyrotechnics ignite and KISS launch into the brilliant rock assault of “Detroit Rock City,” the band members rocking mightily as they’re lowered onto the iconic stage via individual platforms.

It’s how KISS began so many shows over a 50-year-career that spans 24 studio albums,13 live records – including the quintessential 1975 double LP Alive! – and myriad merchandising and media projects. While the band’s final “End of the Road World Tour” concluded on Dec. 2, 2023, at MSG, the end of the road for live touring, it also marked a new beginning: KISS debuted avatars at the end of the Garden show on the MSG screen, but most fans didn’t know what to make of it.

Three years later, with those avatars as the jumping-off point, KISS are forging a new path, as is the band’s wont. The next time KISS is wearing makeup “in concert” will be the initial KISS Pophouse production, an avatar-based show in a bespoke theatre, launching in Vegas in 2028. The production is not yet named, but “show” sells it short. “Show is not the right word,” says co-founding KISS bassist/singer Gene Simmons, who is never at a loss for words. “When you are parachuting into a volcano, I would call it a show. These are semantics, but you know, I’m not anti-semantic.”

Manager Doc McGhee, who has handled the band since 1995, says, “This will be a must-see. It’s a new form of entertainment, it’s very immersive. In today’s technology, you can do almost anything. It’s like we’re at The Jetsons.”

Pophouse Entertainment – the Sweden-based music investment firm co-founded by ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus that purchases IP and music catalogs – raised an estimated $1.3 billion for its debut fund, according to reports. Pophouse launched ABBA Voyage in London in May 2022. The as-yet unnamed KISS experience will be Pophouse’s first major entry into the U.S. market.

“There’s a positive in that,” says Simmons. “It’s a world view versus an American view. And KISS always wanted to be and is, perhaps, the most recognizable iconic imagery, certainly in pop culture. There’s Mickey Mouse; there are one or two iconic visual images on the planet. So if one of the guys in U2, like the drummer, walked down the street, one or two people might say, ‘Oh, you’re the drummer.’ It’s undeniable that if any of the four KISS faces walk down the street, you get a crowd. In any country in the world. In Africa.

”While the thought of a “live” concert without artists may be anathema to live music fans, the industry’s been heading that way for years. The starless Blue Man Group or Cirque Du Soleil’s “Beatles Love” shows have been around for decades. The Tupac, Roy Orbison and Ronnie James Dio holograms began rolling out in the 2010s. Travis Scott and Lil Nas X’s metaverse shows in Fortnite and Roblox were just a few years ago.

As technology rapidly advances, so does the shape of the KISS production, with avatars created by the George Lucas-founded visual effects company, Industrial Light & Magic at the center. “It’s been a very good partnership in that Pophouse understands aspects of technology and the possibilities that we are not really adept at,” says KISS guitarist/singer Paul Stanley. However, he affirms, “people will see how much they are a part of the show. I don’t like the idea of a separation between band and audience, and the idea is to integrate both.”

Pophouse CEO Jessica Koravos, who joined the company in January 2026, is taking over for Per Sundin, who became Pophouse’s President of Music and Artist Relations. Pollstar spoke separately to KISS founding members Simmons and Stanley, as well as Doc McGhee, whose other clients have included Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi and the Scorpions.

Pollstar: I was at the final KISS show at MSG when the avatars were introduced. At that point, where did Pophouse and KISS stand regarding the planning of the upcoming KISS show?
Jessica Koravos: 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.

Doc, did you see ABBA Voyage?
Doc McGhee: Yes, I saw it years ago, like four times. It’s what got me to go to Pophouse, the ability to make KISS immortal and take them into the future. That’s what everybody would want, it just was not [previously] possible or done correctly. This is totally real, photorealistic; it’s hard to explain, but you fall into that they’re real and they’re in front of you. Now ours [the KISS avatars] is even more advanced, and of course, KISS is a different animal, so effects and different means of becoming in the show is mind boggling. They’ve shown it to me and I have no idea what they’re talking about [laughs], but it’s insane.

What eras of KISS will be represented? The current lineup, the Ace Frehley and Peter Criss lineup?
Gene Simmons: It’s going to be the iconic face personas, The Demon, the Starchild, and so on. Who you want to place into that lineup is up to you.

And the songs? “Love Gun,” “Deuce” and the like?
Paul Stanley: We will have all the classics through the years and some surprises.

GS: You’re gonna get all that stuff, and also new songs.

Wait, what? New?
GS: Exactly what that means, written by us. We have songs done.

It seems you’re doing some of this press a little prematurely.
GS: It’s foreplay. You don’t just want to come breaking in and say, “Okay, here it is!” Before a movie comes out, there’s a trailer. It’s the way things develop.

I read that “the avatar show is one, a biopic another, and a KISS-themed experience a third.” Is that still accurate?
JK: Correct, we have various tentpole projects that we mapped out alongside the KISS team at the point of signing – including the avatar show, a biopic, a documentary, and other projects.

DMG: We have McG (“Charlie’s Angels,” founder of Wonderland Sound and Vision and co-founder of Chaplin Studios) as the director in charge of the biopic, with Mark Canton as the producer. It’s in the process of being cast.

What convinced the KISS team that the Pophouse model would be right for them?
JK: They understood that what we do is fundamentally different from a traditional catalog deal. We’re not just collecting royalties. We’re building a world around an artist’s legacy, and they saw that. Pophouse’s founder Björn, also a member of ABBA, was involved in partnering with KISS. That connection with Björn is meaningful. What “ABBA Voyage” proved is that when you treat an artist’s legacy with real creative ambition, fans respond.

GS: Pophouse is a terrific bunch of entrepreneurial futurists. They did buy our makeup and the tunes, yes, but what they’re deep into is planting seeds for the future to make it even bigger. I’ll tell you what I mean. But the big move now is what we’re calling, as a place card, “the avatars.”

It’ll be less of a show and more of an experience, because as fantastic as virtual reality is – it fools your eyes – but your ears can hear what’s going on around you. So if, hypothetically, you see a dragon that breathes fire into your face, the visuals will give you that, but you won’t feel the heat, so imagine all your senses are being attacked right along with the visuals.

PS: It will be a true immersive experience that really magnifies the band and the iconic nature of what we’ve built for 50 years. It’s very different from anything else that’s been out there. It has really no connection to some of the experimental holograms that were tried in the past, which were really very primitive. This will be virtually seeing us. My avatar looks just like me, not a cartoon or an artist rendition. The great thing about being an icon is you can stay young forever.

How is the Pophouse structure/approach different between ABBA Voyage and the KISS avatar project?
JK: It’s good to clarify that Pophouse’s role with ABBA Voyage was as a founding investor, with ABBA Voyage having its own dedicated production and creative team who brought that show to life. KISS is its own beast – it is a very different creative challenge from ABBA Voyage because the goal is not just a concert, but the fully immersive fantasy world of KISS! What is consistent is our commitment to doing it right, for the fans.

What role do Gene and Paul have with the Pophouse KISS show/projects? Are they allowed to perform live again as KISS under the Pophouse agreement?
JK: Gene and Paul are KISS and are at the heart of everything we do. It is a true partnership and we collaborate closely on all of the tentpole projects. It goes beyond the tentpole projects too as we pull the band in for various activations, social content, or fan moments. They’re still very much the faces of KISS. And yes, they can still perform. We saw that firsthand at last year’s KISS Kruise, where they came back unmasked and the fan response said it all.

Gene, you’re from the old-school rock n’ roll world. Do you feel that technology like AI and avatars could destroy the soul of music and creation?
GS: That’s such an interesting question, and I don’t know that anyone has the answer. I don’t know. I think we’re all going to find out together. Invariably, our culture is of the people, for the people, by the people. So they’re going to decide, right?

Paul, if Pophouse owns KISS’ likenesses and music, isn’t it strange for you to sell the rights to your Starchild makeup and the band’s music but still be doing these projects?
PS: It’s nothing that I ever anticipated, but the analogy of the bird flying the nest… We’ve brought this [band] up for 50 years, we nurtured KISS, and at some point, if you’re lucky, you bring in people who can supplement and augment what you’ve done. You’re only as good as our team. We were very, very fortunate in that we found people who, yes, bought the entity, so to speak. But in many ways, they understand we’re the heart and soul, and to have us not involved would be crazy after 50 years. To their credit, we are still very much involved in the ongoing life of KISS. It’s very interesting, because unlike other rock bands, we’re not confined by their limitations. We’re basically Superman with a guitar and a Marshall amplifier.

Gene, anything you’d like to add?
GS: The fans should start to think about this as not the end of anything. This is the phoenix rising out of the ashes. As a form of life, caterpillars aren’t very impressive, but they survive, and then it looks like they’re dying as they go into a cocoon. But then you get a beautiful butterfly that sprouts wings and goes to places and soars above that the caterpillar never imagined. This is not the end. This is the beginning.