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Amy Winehouse Hologram Tour On Hold Over 'Sensitivities'

Tour company Base doesn't detail the "challenges" of its plan to resurrect the soulful singer on stage.

The creator of an Amy Winehouse concert tour via hologram has suddenly put the event on hold because of “sensitivities.”

Base Hologram, the company developing the tour, said on Twitter that it had encountered “some unique challenges and sensitivities” on the path to “remembering Amy Winehouse and her legacy in the most celebratory and respectful way possible.” It did not detail the hurdles it’s facing. And no alternative date was provided.

The tour featuring a hologram Winehouse based on a body double with a live backup band had been scheduled to launch later this year. Base CEO Brian Becker told Billboard that the production was to be a “cross between a Broadway show and a concert spectacle which requires creative engineering.” He added: “That type of creativity does not necessarily follow a schedule.”

But the holdup may also be linked to controversy. While Winehouse’s father, Mitch Winehouse, was excited about the effort, some fans found it macabre and exploitive to resurrect the singer who struggled with substance abuse and died at the age of 27 — and now has no control over how her image is used.

“Amy wasn’t treated like a human being when she was alive and this is treating her even more like a show pony,“ Maria Dobrinescu, owner of the Instagram Winehouse fan account @theamyjadewinehouse, told GQ. “It’s heartbreaking.”

Winehouse’s ex-husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, is also opposed to the idea, which will lack the “human element” of the soulful singer, he said.

Winehouse last performed in Belgrade, Serbia, in June 2011. She was found dead at her home north of London just over a month later.

A portion of the proceeds of the hologram tour were to benefit the late singer’s Amy Winehouse Foundation, which addresses substance abuse in young people.

Base has already taken its hologram of Roy Orbison on tour in Britain and the U.S. and will launch a tour in April of the late opera singer Maria Callas.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.