A Whitney Houston hologram is getting her own Vegas residency

Whitney Houston lives on… in hologram form. The late singer is getting her own Las Vegas residency show later this year, nearly a decade after her untimely death.

An Evening With Whitney: The Whitney Houston Hologram Concert kicks off its residency at Harrah’s Las Vegas beginning October 26, 2021, according to Rolling Stone. And it’s not an early Halloween trick: the residency is expected to last at least six months.

Ticket holders can expect to see and hear Houston’s holographic voice and image, but she won’t be on the stage solo. The performance is accompanied by a live four-piece band as well as live (read: non-holographic) dancers and backup singers. There will also be some surprise cinematic special effects.

“In 2011, Whitney and I discussed her idea of an intimate, unplugged concert tour. It was a project we called Whitney Unplugged or An Evening with Whitney,” said the singer’s former manager, sister-in-law, Pat Houston (now the president and CEO of her estate), to Rolling Stone last year.

“While Whitney’s no longer with us, her voice and legacy will live on with us forever. An Evening With Whitney is another chance for us to relive and celebrate the talent that we were so lucky to receive for more than three decades and we’re excited to bring this cutting-edge musical experience to the fans who supported the pop culture phenomenon that was Whitney Houston, because they deserve nothing less.”

A duet between Christina Aguilera and the holographic version of Houston was originally supposed to air on The Voice in 2016. However, after footage leaked the performance was deemed not ready and the segment was pulled.

Harrah's Las Vegas

The hologram then went on a pre-pandemic concert tour in the U.K. in early 2020, where it seems as though they may have ironed out some of those kinks.

In total, this residency is about five years in the making. The hologram was created by BASE Hologram in partnership with the Houston estate, and it was originally supposed to debut in Vegas last year before the pandemic hit.

“It’s a complicated mix of disciplines if you will,” company CEO Mary Tudor told Rolling Stone. “I could’ve made Whitney fly around stage if I wanted to, but she didn’t. One of the things that’s really critical is we want to be authentic. To me, it’s creepy and eerie if you make the artist do something they never would’ve done. But if you are authentic and live within the rules of who they were, this is a celebration of her legacy.”

Houston died on February 11, 2012 at a Beverly Hills hotel at the age of 48. Her body was found in the bathtub; later the official cause of death was deemed accidental drowning, with heart disease and cocaine use as contributing factors.

Tickets for An Evening With Whitney: The Whitney Houston Hologram Concert go on sale July 23. So far the show is scheduled to run until at least April 30, 2022.

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