BASE Hologram's Whitney Houston show changed plans after announcing

What you see

BASE Hologram's own production page for 'An Evening With Whitney' describes a 'live theatrical concert' in which a projected digital performer resembling Whitney Houston appears with 'a live band and singers,' aimed at seated theatre and arena audiences rather than anyone wearing a headset. BASE Hologram's own site, the same company behind the Whitney project, describes its comparable Roy Orbison show as combining 'digital and laser projection' with a live orchestra, giving a concrete sense of the visual format the company builds. The Whitney production's own page, archived from basehologram.com in 2021, calls the result 'this one of a kind holographic experience.'

How it works

BASE Hologram's own materials say the Whitney production was directed by choreographer Fatima Robinson and built with 'digitally remastered arrangements' backed by a live band, singers and dancers, with the Estate of Whitney E. Houston. The company does not name the optical technique on this page, but its sister Roy Orbison page describes 'digital and laser projection,' consistent with a screen-based digital performer rather than a captured hologram of Houston herself. Pat Houston, the estate's president, is quoted saying BASE was chosen because it could 'produce a phenomenal hologram,' the company's own marketing claim rather than an independent optical verification.

Viewing conditions and limits

BASE Hologram's own site shows the touring plan changed: an earlier page, archived in 2019, said only that 'tour dates' were 'coming soon,' while the 2021 archive lists a completed United Kingdom run of theatre dates in February and March 2020, then an announced Las Vegas residency at Harrah's from October 2021. That shift from a multi-city UK tour to a fixed residency is stated on the company's own page rather than inferred from outside coverage. No source opened here gives screen brightness, size or a viewing-angle limit for the production.

What it is not

Despite BASE Hologram's own repeated use of the word 'hologram' across its site, the company's comparable Roy Orbison page describes the underlying mechanism as projection, not an interference-recorded free-space image, and no source opened here states that Houston herself was scanned or captured for this specific show. This is closer to a screen or foil-projected digital performance built around remastered audio and a live band than to a hologram in the optical sense, and it should not be treated as a recording of Houston's own performance captured in three dimensions. The company's marketing language and the technical description on its own site are not the same claim.

• Ask whether an announced 'hologram tour' has a confirmed venue and date, since BASE's own page shows this production's plan changed more than once.
• Ask which company licensed the estate's rights and whether that company also built the projection technology, or subcontracted it.
• Ask whether the artist's own voice recordings were digitally remastered for the show, which affects how much of the performance is original audio.

Because BASE Hologram's own production page for this show was updated between 2019 and 2021 with a materially different touring plan, this entry should be rechecked against the company's current site before being cited as a live schedule.