Barco Receives Manufacturer of the Year Award

Barco received the Manufacturer of the Year Award at the 2005 AV Awards ceremony on October 10th at the Hilton Metropole Hotel in London.

Barco received the award for its work, in conjunction with Innovative Design and rental partner XL Video, in designing and creating the MiSPHERE LED modules for U2’s Vertigo tour. MiSPHERE was custom designed, manufactured, and developed with the help of U2's lighting designer Willie Williams, tour designer Mark Fisher, and XL Video.

The judges stated that Barco’s technological innovation and the way it worked with the U2 tour designers to develop MiSPHERE was a good example of a manufacturer working with its clients to develop the market as well as an engineering feat. And it did so at a time when it continued to increase revenues and maintain market share.

“Barco involves customers in the design and development of products. In this way, we have changed over the past decade from product supplier to industry collaborator," says Stephan Paridaen, president of Barco's media and entertainment division. "For the U2 Vertigo tour, we have worked directly with XL Video, Innovative Design, as well as with leading show, lighting and video designers. Willie Williams and Mark Fisher were directly involved in the design and creation of the MiSPHERE product. By becoming involved in the early ‘fuzzy’ stage of a project’s origins, we offer creatives the opportunity to dream their wildest dreams, and then we turn them into technical reality. The MiSPHERE used on U2’s Vertigo tour is the perfect example.”

While they formed a very significant part of the visualization, the MiSPHERE modules were only one of the Barco solutions on tour with U2. XL Video also provided over 540 square meters of LED video wall (OLite 510), four DLP projectors, and six LCD projection systems.

MiSPHERE will be available for shipment beginning of 2006.