Belgian companies team up to make the U2 360° tour a worldwide success

The world famous U2 360° tour started on 30 June 2009 in Camp Nou in Barcelona and will go on until the summer of 2011. This month, it finally sets foot in Belgium, an important country for the band. Both the spectacular stage, as well as the transformable LED screen were made possible by Belgian companies.

StageCo is a widely acclaimed international staging, event engineering and structures innovator, and was responsible for the construction of the impressive stage. “As it became clear what the designer and the band wanted to achieve it was obvious to me that this was something unprecedented,” says Hedwig de Meyer, President of Stageco. “The sheer scale of the structure, the span of the legs, lifting the huge technical production 28 metres in the air, none of this had ever been done in our industry.”

Frederic Opsomer, now owner of Tait Technologies, was responsible for the innovative design of the transformable LED screen. He comments: “Working with U2 is always a big honor. Every time, their creativity and desire to push the envelope inspires us to take technology to the next level. For this tour, we designed a transformable LED screen – a screen that in effect 'shape-shifts' from a 3-dimensional elliptical shape into the shape of a 3D cone. Many thought it could never be done, we proved it could. To welcome the show here gives us the chance to show Belgium that we have both the creativity and the technical know-how to make seemingly impossible dreams a reality.”

For the third time this millennium, the close cooperation between XL Video and Barco has resulted in revolutionary shows for U2, each with sets comprised of LED arrays previously unseen in the events industry. The shows are the result of months of intense technical and creative collaboration.

XL Video was instrumental in the realization of the amazing screen, by firstly investing in the LED pixels and subsequently by renting them out to Live Nation, the tour organiser. “This is the third time this millennium we are working with Barco for a U2 world tour,” says Rene De Keyzer, CEO of XL Video. “For the whole duration of the tour, a fourteen men strong XL Video team, recognized for their experience and expertise, joins U2 on the road, turning every show into a visually stunning spectacle, with support of Barco. In addition to the LED screen and crew, XL Video also provides the sophisticated 12-camera system together with all video-control equipment in order to deliver content for the screen.”

Barco was responsible for the manufacturing of the enormous LED screen. Carl Rijsbrack, director product management, comments: “The market is always asking for new technologies to visualize their ideas. We are proud to be able to deliver what they want, every time. The U2 360° tour is a perfect example of unlimited creativity.”

With the introduction of transformable LED, Barco has taken creative LED to a complete new level. FLX is a unique freeform LED concept that allows designers to create any shape they want on stage. The 360° screen consists of half a million FLX-24 LED pixels, integrated into a transformable structure. The FLX-24 consists of individually controllable, compact, high quality LED pixel modules that can be combined with a wide variety of specifically designed carriers (mechanical structures) to construct any possible shape.

About StageCo
Born out of supplying stages for the renowned Rock Werchter Festival in Belgium in 1985, Stageco is now one of the most prominent international staging companies in the world. Through more than 25 years of experience, Stageco has become the worldwide pioneer and trendsetter in designing and building custom-made as well as standardized concert stages and temporary structures for all kind of events. www.stageco.com

About Tait Technologies
Founded in 2010, Tait Technologies, a joint venture between Tait Towers and Frederic Opsomer, brings together some of the entertainment industry's most experienced and creative minds. Headquartered in Belgium, Tait Technologies is specialized in video scenic convergence and will offer its clients in the entertainment, corporate and architectural markets solutions ranging from the rental of 'off-the-shelf' products to the design and development of custom-made, project-specific innovations. With its extensive technical expertise and industry knowledge, 'can do' attitude and long-standing adherence to strict standards of excellence, Tait Technologies always delivers what it promises.

About XL Video
XL Video was formed in the year 1996 and has quickly established itself as the international market leader in the field of video production for trade shows, outdoor events, indoor events, concert touring and television shows. XL are a leading rental supplier of video display systems with indoor and outdoor LED screens as well as having one of the largest fleets of high-brightness projectors which also complement our fully SDI camera systems. XL guarantee creativity, quality and innovation with tailor-made solutions and work in close cooperation with all the leading manufacturers of this state-of-the-art technology. XL Video is a global player with offices around the world to serve you anywhere at anytime, offering experience, expertise and the right people for the job, with an impressive track record to prove it. www.xlvideo.com

About Barco
Barco, a global technology company, designs and develops visualization products for a variety of selected professional markets. Barco has its own facilities for Sales & Marketing, Customer Support, R&D and Manufacturing in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Barco (NYSE Euronext Brussels: BAR) is active in more than 90 countries with about 3,300 employees worldwide. Barco posted sales of 638 million euro in 2009.

© Copyright 2010 by Barco

For more information, please contact

JP Tanghe
Senior Advisor to the CEO
Barco nv

Telephone +32 56/26 23 22
jp.tanghe@barco.com