Bringing together over 120 key commercial and technical representatives from over 70 Rental Partners throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the annual meeting has become the rental and staging industry's official launch pad for Barco's latest products. This year was no exception, Barco launched its OLite 510, a multi-purpose high-resolution indoor/outdoor SMD LED platform, as well as several new projectors, including the RLM R6+ and RLM R5i. The company also anticipated the ever-growing trend of convergence between lighting and video by launching its brand new MiPIX rental structure as well as a first showing of the MiPIX Creativity Pack prototypes, a further development on last year's popular MiPIX LED blocks.
Barco's believes that its market leading position in the rental and staging market is driven by providing ground-breaking technologies and products to its worldwide Rental Partner network. This year, the company also used the meeting to introduce its latest acquisition, System Technologies, to its rental partner network. In its role as a consultant to show and set designers worldwide, System Technologies (recently re-branded to carry the name "Innovative Designs") plays a key role between end user, rental company and product supplier. The addition of Innovative Designs will allow Barco to further strengthen its total solution offering to the rental and staging markets by catering to the design needs of the growing 'special projects' market segment.
Bringing together over 70 European rental companies to review its latest product offering and meet the Innovative Designs team, Barco's European Rental Partner Meeting has clearly grown to become a annual gathering of industry forces.
Steve Scorse, general manager of Barco Events says: "At Barco, we firmly believe in the value of the strategic partnerships we have built with our rental and staging partners over the past five years. Their input and feedback remains key in the development of our new products and the adaptation of current technology platforms to changing market needs. With the acquisition of Innovative Designs we have also extended our total solution offering to our rental partners by providing them with a focused yet independent group of experts within Barco to help them realise innovative designs for extra-ordinary projects". Scorse continues: "Barco will continue to work very closely with its rental partners in order to enable them to grow their businesses and provide quality visualization solutions."
Barco holds three regional rental partner meetings each year. All three meetings are held in the first half of the year, with the next regional meeting to take place in Scottsdale, Phoenix from 6 - 8 March for Barco's North American rental partners. Barco's final Rental Partner Meeting for 2004 will take place in Asia in April this year.
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
