“[A]esthetically, a bit freaky”; “the perfect iteration of them, one that’s flawless – but certainly not human”; “[A]ccusations of bad taste can still hang over these enterprises”; “On an ethical and economic level, I would liken it to a form of ‘ghost slavery’”.
As a vast array of dead artists – among them Buddy Holly (died 1959 aged 22), Roy Orbison (died 1988 aged 52), Maria Callas (died 1977 aged 53), Frank Zappa (died 1993 aged 52) and Whitney Houston (died 2012 aged 48) – are put on tour around the world in hologram form, critical reaction has been far from effusive. Yet the size of venues their virtual selves are being booked into would suggest there is commercial demand to see them again. Or, to be precise, to see a spectral manifestation of them again.
None of these acts managed to make it to pensionable age, but they can now theoretically be put on the road forever. This is never going to be the sole future of live music – but it is unquestionably going to be one component part. The size of that part will depend on just how well the format, if we can call it a format, can shake off the novelty factor.
A number of legacy acts have promised in recent years that, really, this will be their last hurrah (among them Kiss, Ozzy Osborne, Paul Simon, Joan Baez and Elton John). So they are being sold as the last chance to see these legends live. Except, well, just maybe these won’t be last opportunities to see them perform.
In 1977, on hearing of the death of Elvis, his manager Tom Parker is reported to have said, “Elvis didn’t die – the body did.” This may prove to be the most prescient thing the huckster-like Parker ever came out with, like the music business’s version of the Andy Warhol aphorism that in the future everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes.
Despite the digital Doctor Frankenstein presumptions, the origins of hologram performances actually lie with living, rather than dead, artists. Or more precisely, they lie with existing artists rather than extinct artists. At the 2005, MTV Europe Awards, Madonna performed alongside holographic versions of Gorillaz. Then in 2011, Mariah Carey (as part of a Deutsche Telekom-branded promotion) played five European cities simultaneously in hologram form.
But it was in April 2012 at Coachella that the Tupac hologram showed the public what was actually possible with late artists. (Although it wasn’t technically a hologram, rather an old 19th century reflection technique called Pepper’s Ghost.) Two years later, a Michael Jackson hologram arrived on stage at the Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas. And in 2016, a hologram version of Whitney Houston was due to appear on The Voice duetting with Christina Aguilera but was pulled when video footage was leaked online, with the Houston estate arguing it was not up to standard.
Until very recently, hologram performances were designed as barnstormers – special one-off events to gather maximum publicity but not really to have a life beyond that performance. They were promoting nothing except themselves; but the past year has been about turning these into both spectacles in their own right and commercialised touring enterprises. The one-off spectacular is giving way to the (theoretically) never-ending tour. Which is different to Bob Dylan’s Never-Ending Tour, but don’t rule out a holographic incarnation of him wheezing out ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ long after he has passed.
In order to make these virtual incarnations of artists tourable, the technology had to be improved and refined. The scrapping of the original Whitney Houston hologram was perhaps the most public admission of the early stage technological failings here, but an investment by Primary Wave to take a 50% interest in her estate in May this year saw the hologram tour idea revived. While other things like a Broadway show are planned, as Pat Houston, the sole executor of the estate, put it, “The hologram has taken precedence over everything.”
It is no outlier, with other tours happening or imminent from a range of acts including Ronnie James Dio, Frank Zappa and Maria Callas as well as Buddy Holly “touring” alongside Roy Orbison in what is the first hologram package tour.
Obviously none of these tours can happen without the estate’s full backing, especially as it is still relatively untested ground and some may regard them as lacking in sensitivity or accuse them of being tawdry cash-ins. Even with the estate’s approval, however, there are a number of licensing issues to be cleared.
“In most cases it would be dealt with as a theatrical licence – either as a theatrical production or a concert production. Either would be based upon a percentage of box office takings. Those would be standard terms negotiated by the publisher with the producer.”
– Nigel Elderton, European president of peermusic
“In most cases it would be dealt with as a theatrical licence – either as a theatrical production or a concert production,” explains Nigel Elderton, European president of peermusic (who administer the Buddy Holly publishing catalogue outside of the US). “Either would be based upon a percentage of box office takings. Those would be standard terms negotiated by the publisher with the producer.”
The existing hologram tours would be technically classed as a compilation show – a new twist, basically, on the long-established jukebox musical model – and, as such, require full licensing. “You can’t really put on the show without licensing the music,” says Elderton. “Without Buddy’s music, you don’t really have a show about Buddy.”
He suggests one way of licensing here would be as an escalating share of the box office takings as one would in a jukebox musical. The more successful it is and the longer it runs for, the more the publisher can take, possibly reaching up to 10% of box office receipts.
They are clearly a way to help estates expand their revenue streams (or to help them to return to profitability if the late artist left behind significant debts) by making touring a possibility that was inconceivable even two decades ago. There are the obvious knock-on benefits to touring like this such as merchandise sales; but actually putting an act on tour again – albeit as a hologram – has direct benefits to their streaming revenues.
“There are the obvious knock-on benefits to touring like this such as merchandise sales; but actually putting an act on tour again – albeit as a hologram – has direct benefits to their streaming revenues.”
Ty Roberts was formally chief technology officer at Universal Music Group and is currently working with the estates of both Ronnie James Dio and Frank Zappa on their hologram tours. He said what he noticed at UMG – as the streaming age began to take hold at the major – was that the catalogues of dead artists tended to spike around calendar events like anniversaries when there was a lot of chatter about the act and their legacy, but “generally speaking the catalogue had a tendency to head down stream”.
He said this was due, in part, to the fact that the acts were (for obvious reasons) not touring and therefore being in the public’s sightline for any lengthy period of time. Now, he suggests, a holographic act can generate and maintain interest in a catalogue in the same way a living and touring artists can: the more they tour, the more this will drive streams on Spotify, Apple Music and other DSPs.
“At Universal Music this was really difficult for them,” he says of the investment and expertise needed to get into the hologram business. “They are a recorded music company; they’re not a live touring company. But they do own the catalogues of these artists and they are the custodian of a large body of historical works. It was just outside of their business to worry about touring those historical works because they didn’t have to do it when the artist was alive; the artist did it themselves. There was this gap of knowledge and experience.”
While at UMG, he met Ahmet Zappa – son of Frank and the person running the Zappa estate – which led him to Jeff Pezzuti, CEO of Eyellusion.
“Jeff had created by himself the first version of the Ronnie James Dio hologram,” says Roberts. “He was working with Wendy Dio, Ronnie’s wife. This was the hologram on stage with his band members. He took it on tour and it did OK. It wasn’t massively successful, but the reality is he was playing larger rooms as a hologram than he was at the time of his death! We knew that was there and we also knew that Jeff had the energy and the production expertise to mount the shows and tour them. This was a whole skill set that one has to have. If you are a popular live musician, you have a team of people around you who know how to do this.”
This is very much still a nascent business, but those investing here – including Eyellusion and Base Hologram – regard it as one bursting with creative potential. And one equally bursting with earning potential.
Elderton concurs with Roberts’ thesis that these tours are a way to revive interest in streaming catalogue on a regular and consistent basis.
“It goes without saying that whenever an artist appears live on a big stage, it does start to spike in terms of interest and sales of the repertoire,” he says. “Any kind of live performance tends to drive more interest in the artist and therefore more sales or more streams. The interesting thing from me is that, not only does it do that, but the hologram shows have the ability to bring back those artists that we have lost to an audience who might never have had the opportunity or the ability to have seen that particular artist. To an extent we saw that with Buddy the musical [in the late 1980s and 1990s]. When that came to the West End, the interest in Buddy Holly grew exponentially.”
“The interesting thing from me is that, not only does it do that [drive interest in the artist and sales], but the hologram shows have the ability to bring back those artists that we have lost to an audience who might never have had the opportunity or the ability to have seen that particular artist.”
– Nigel Elderton, European president of peermusic
The difference here, of course, is that a musical tends to be resident in London or Broadway for a long period of time and the related artist’s profile will only spike, for the most part, in the same geographic area. Taking a hologram tour round the world for hundreds of dates means that the interest in that act can become more global and streaming spikes will follow the tour around the world.
Yet getting to this stage, where a hologram of an act can be booked into venues the size of the Hammersmith Apollo in London, is far from a cheap undertaking. Roberts estimates that building the digital stage for holographic incarnations of acts can easily run to “a couple of million dollars” and then on top of that is at least another $1m of visual production costs.
Once one successful hologram tour is underway, however, the costs to develop a similar show for another act drop in increments as a lot of the technology can be templated. That said, however, audiences might be impressed the first time they see a hologram show but, as with all other touring, investment in visual production is essential to keep such shows ahead of the curve and to keep drawing people back.
Roberts feels the technology in 2019 is only scratching the surface of what can be achieved here.
“In the future we will be able to make the musical and video segments more responsive and interactive,” he suggest. “We think that in the future they can synchronise to the players. We don’t have that technology yet, but we can see how to do that and we can see that is in the future.”
“In the future we will be able to make the musical and video segments more responsive and interactive,” he suggest. “We think that in the future they can synchronise to the players. We don’t have that technology yet, but we can see how to do that and we can see that is in the future.”
– Ty Roberts, Technologist
There may also be a wider benefit to the live industry. One might be tempted to regard hologram tours as a nice additional niche for live music – existing at the level of venues with capacity for a few thousand people and where the ticket price is comparatively lower than that for a living artist at the same venue.
Pezzuti has a slightly different take on things here. “When the company started four years ago, I said, in five to seven years all the major touring acts that are making a ton of money – Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Fleetwood Mac – are going to retire,” he told Pollstar. “The venues are going to have problems because of the overhead, they’re not going to have anybody to go play them, and there’s no Plan B. I said, ‘This is the Plan B.’”
Despite the proven commercial upsides here (ticket sales, merchandise, the streaming long tail), there is still a certain public wariness or queasiness about hologram tours. They are, of course, incredible technical feats and are enabling a new form of live creativity, with pioneering visuals and whole new types of audience interactivity. And yet the terms like “freaky”, “bad taste” and “ghost slavery” still niggle at the back of the mind for some.
“Despite the proven commercial upsides here (ticket sales, merchandise, the streaming long tail), there is still a certain public wariness or queasiness about hologram tours. Terms like “freaky”, “bad taste” and “ghost slavery” still niggle at the back of the mind for some.”
A planned Amy Winehouse hologram tour is on hold for now, amid fears that it could be seen as insensitive or poorly timed. And yet, as each year passes, it will almost certainly become more and more likely to happen.
Now, however, living acts might take all of this as a warning from recent history.
Elton John, as part of the press event to announce his farewell tour, was asked about hologram shows and if he could imagine a holographic version of himself playing his hits for decades after his passing.
“I said to my eldest son, ‘When Daddy dies, promise me there won’t be a hologram of me going around the world doing concerts,’” he said. “That’s the last thing I want. It’s like doing a duet album with someone who’s dead. I think Barry Manilow did one! It’s so spooky. […] Who knows. They may go broke and they’ll put me back on the fucking stage! I think that’s a bit freaky.”
A family promise is one thing, but refusing to come back in hologram form could become a clause in wills that estates are bound to comply with.
“There will certainly be some form of legal cover for these things going forward. There are moral rights and you could certainly write that into your will to ensure that your likeness wasn’t used in certain ways. I am sure there will be plenty of lawyers who will be licking their lips trying to see how they can get around that one!”
– Nigel Elderton, European president of peermusic
“There will certainly be some form of legal cover for these things going forward,” suggests Elderton. “There are moral rights and you could certainly write that into your will to ensure that your likeness wasn’t used in certain ways. Absolutely. You could do that now and I’m sure that people do. It is an interesting one and, from a legal perspective, I am sure there will be plenty of lawyers who will be licking their lips trying to see how they can get around that one!”
Some artists may now have to decide if their virtual selves will keep their legacy alive by touring into infinity; or if they are happy just to live on through their records. For some, RIP will mean Rest In Peace; but for others it could mean Revenues In Perpetuity.
