The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) broke the news — at least to us — that a night club in Las Vegas has implemented holographic technology to create a “virtual strip club.”

The dancing girls in Lolita’s Cantina and Tequila bar may look real enough, but in reality they’re conjured out of thin air using holographic technology. The entertainment in the bar, owned by veteran nightclub developer Eric DeBiasi, is created using the same technology used by Damon Albarn’s virtual band the Gorillaz and Live Earth Tokyo to project former US vice President Al Gore onto the stage.

No more dressing rooms, stench of flop-sweat, or real-world salaries.  The performer appears real but can be brought to the stage whenever the whim hits.

Digital Illusions, the company behind the technology, says that the DJ will have total control over both the music and the dancing, creating a seamless audiovisual performance that will look totally realistic to the audience.

“Imagine having a library of hundreds or thousands of clips of entertainers, magicians, comedians, dancers,” asked one of the Digital Illusions folks in a rhetorical fashion.

“Each one is ready to perform at a moment’s notice. Each one is surrounded by special effects and magical appearances and disappearances. But most importantly, each one looks totally real.”

Why the possibilities abound.  You could do six or seven birthday parties at one time.  Magic Club lectures could happen over and over and over — if such was the desire of the club.

Yes, the equipment to build a holographic stage is expensive but the price will drop.  Remember when calculators cost $17,200.00 and took up an entire room?  Remember how back in those days, you would have to literally turn the entire room of computer equipment upside down to show friends that the letters 9009 was a secret word produced by the calculator?

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