Attendees of the Coachella Music Festival (http://www.coachella.com/) were surprised (and some spooked 🙂 when a very lifelike hologram of the deceased rapper, Tupac appeared on stage. This was great news for Tupac fans who had the opportunity to experience a very real performance by one of the most popular artists of all time.
This “hologram” was actually not really a technical breakthrough or even a real hologram. It was actually based off of what is called a “Pepper Ghost” effect which was created by John Henry Pepper in the 1800’s! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper’s_ghost
It is a really neat effect which made many fans happy. That’s why this is good news. It made fans happy and gave them an opportunity to “see” and artist that they would not normally have the opportunity of seeing. This does brings some new questions to mind:
1. Will the Tupac Pepper’s Ghost go on tour?
2. Will more deceased artists go on stage? Bob Marley? Michael Jackson? Elvis? Whitney Houston? Jimi Hendrix?
3. Will other artists go on tour exclusively as holograms?
No matter what happens after this, it was still really wonderful for fans to “see” an artist that they never had the opportunity to see in person.
The video of this surprise performance is below.