On March 12th when Britney Spears kicked of her Onyx Hotel Tour in Seattle, she was backed by a spectacular 3D display of over 25,000 Barco MiPIX LED blocks.
The MiPIX blocks are part of an order placed by Barco rental partner XL Video in January 2004. The order by XL Video and use of Barco’s MiPIX on the Britney Spears tour mark another high point since Barco launched the revolutionary LED block in Frankfurt last year. The company won the 2004 Entertainment Design Product of the Year Award in January this year, and Barco reports that it has sold over 100,000 blocks of MiPIX to various rental partners over the past six months.
"We are enormously proud to have MiPIX associated with a high-profile artist such as Britney Spears," says Stephan Paridaen, president of Barco’s Media & Entertainment division. "Our rental partner XL Video saw the unlimited potential of the MiPIX module early on, anticipating the evolution of the lighting industry and the creative industry’s need for increased modularity and freedom, and placed two orders in a very short span of time.
"Being one of the world’s foremost rental and staging companies made them an early adopter of this new technology, a fact that has now given them the opportunity to supply some of the world’s biggest brands including Mercedes, Kylie Minogue, and now Britney Spears with the technology."
Britney on stage during her Onyx Hotel Tour
Barco’s MiPIX modular intelligent LED pixel block is tiny compared with other LED display modules and measures only 4x4 cm. A revolution in the LED market, its small size and shape allow it to be used to create intelligent lighting effects on large-scale backdrops of any form, shape or size, while also offering the possibility of full video content on 3D logos or other free-form shapes. The MiPIX blocks further facilitate the construction of large-scale backdrops, because they can be spaced apart at various distances, making the pixel blocks a cost-effective medium for ultra-large applications.
"We believed in this product from the start," says Rene De Keyzer, managing director of XL Video. "We invested in the MiPIX in August of last year and immediately used the product on the Mercedes booth at the Frankfurt International Auto Show. The success of the booth and the enthusiasm it received from creatives around the globe convinced us that we needed to increase our investment ASAP. In the past six months we have already used MiPIX at the Frankfurt Auto Show, at the Geneva International Auto Show, for the launch of Kylie’s Body Language cd and now on Britney’s tour."
"Interest in Barco’s MiPIX continues to increase and you will no doubt be seeing much more of this product on future events," concludes De Keyzer.
For more information about Barco Events or its products, please contact [email protected] or visit www.events.barco.com