For the current George Michael tour, celebrating his 25-year career, a massive nine metre wide and 25 metre long screen was designed, incorporating 3000 of Barco's MiStrip LED modules. This giant backdrop flows onto the stage and beyond via both concave and convex curves to create a stunning visual element, strong enough to be both stood and danced on. Barco specialists were involved in the set design from the very beginning and worked closely with XL Video to design the spectacular stage.
Phil Mercer, project manager of XL Video, says: "The project was very ambitious, demanding for extremely high resolution. So we were worried that it would not be achievable as we expected problems with the weight and reliability because of the high number of LEDs needed to reach this resolution. However, this proved to be no issue at all for the MiStrip. It has stood up really well to the demanding tour schedule and fulfilled a very exacting design brief." He continues: "It made us start to think of all the other applications we can use this product for. It is so modular and flexible, and has the tried and trusted Barco processing and signal distribution as the basic building blocks of the system."
The MiStrip is a linear LED screen element, essentially a 'strip of pixels', that can be combined in any shape and quantity to make up any size and form of LED screens. Despite its sleek appearance, the MiStrip is structurally very strong, which made it ideal for Willie Williams' design for the George Michael tour. The modularity of the MiStrip system and special mechanics developed for the show allow the lower rear part of the screen to open up, an unexpected entrance for the artist onto the stage.
(Chris Henry)
