HOLOGRAMS 2030
10 avatar residencies sell $1 billion a year. Holograms stay niche.
Key figures
Digital holography: $5.7 billion in 2026, $23.5 billion by 2033, 22.3% a year (Grand View), about $12.8 billion by 2030 on that curve.
Other houses for 2030: $10.1 billion to $18.7 billion.
Digital avatars 2030: $270.6 billion.
Spatial computing 2030: $469.8 billion.
XR 2030: $1.07 trillion across AR, VR and MR.
These markets overlap.
Do not add them together.
ABBA Voyage 2024: 1.06 million tickets, £104.3 million turnover, £4.2 million pre-tax profit.
Pophouse: €1.2 billion raised for music catalogs and IP.
KISS avatar residency: Las Vegas, 2028.
Igor 2030: 10 permanent avatar residencies worldwide, $1 billion a year in tickets.
Players: Meta, Apple, Google, NVIDIA, HeyGen, ElevenLabs, Synthesia, Proto, Looking Glass, ILM and Pophouse.
Start with my own receipt. Coachella, April 15, 2012. Tupac walked on stage next to Snoop Dogg, nearly 16 years after his death. I saw grown men cry.
Except Tupac was not a hologram. It was a 2D projection using Pepper's Ghost, a stage illusion from the 1800s. The tears were real. The hologram was not.
That confusion still defines the market. A hologram is not AR, VR, spatial computing, a digital avatar or an AI talking head. Meta even named its new video-call avatar "Hologram" at Connect in September 2026. A photorealistic digital version of your face, driven by your voice.
Apple calls Vision Pro spatial computing. NVIDIA, HeyGen, Synthesia and ElevenLabs build digital humans. Proto and Looking Glass build the displays.
ABBA Voyage is not a hologram either, but its avatars sold 1.06 million tickets and generated £104.3 million in turnover in 2024. Pophouse takes KISS to Las Vegas in 2028. Artists are becoming software franchises. They do not get jet lag.
My prediction: digital holography stays a niche, about $12 billion by 2030. The money sits around it: XR, spatial computing and avatars. I predict 10 permanent ABBA-style avatar residencies worldwide by 2030, $1 billion a year in tickets, 10 shows at ABBA's $100 million each.
Princess Leia (the 1977 Star Wars hologram) floating in your room with no glasses? Still a lab demo in 2030.
What could change this: likeness laws, estates refusing resurrection, and fans deciding a dead star on stage is creepy, not magical. Coachella says they buy the ticket and cry anyway.