Barco has teamed up with stage, lighting and visual designer Oli Metcalfe and new media and entertainment studio Moment Factory to elevate the latest Muse global concert tour to a larger-than-life visual spectacular.

The Drones World Tour features the famed English musical trio “in the round” with two extended catwalks connecting giant projection screens, and voile-covered flying drones floating above the audience. Barco rental partner PRG XL Video is supplying the tour with Barco’s 4K XPR-604 media servers and large venue projectors to drive the dynamic interplay of 3D projection, tracked lighting and custom visual effects featuring never-before-seen stage design concepts.

“Barco uniquely offers a grand master solution, integrating video, lighting and show control into a package that empowers us to push the boundaries of our creativity – evolving concepts from the physical to an electronic environment to realize our vision,” comments Oli Metcalfe, lighting designer and director for the Muse Drones Tour. “The media servers’ calibration and projection study/preview tools allowed us to confidently manage three types of projection, mapping onto the dynamic surface to transform our design into reality with a high degree of reliability,” continued Metcalfe.

Impressive projection mapping and lighting control made easy
The Barco XPR-604 media server delivers end-to-end show design, creation, setup and control, enabling producers to easily develop creatively complex shows from idea to realization.

Barco HDF-W30 FLEX projectors equipped with MMS-200 Moving Mirror systems power a combination of particle, distortion and mosaic effects interspersed with real-time I-MAG feeds. The FLEX projectors and moving mirrors enable shooting on the voiles as well as straight down, providing the variable lighting to diffuse the special effects.

A Barco High End Systems Hog4 console, designed to control the most complex, high-profile shows with a surprisingly simple and intuitive interface, precisely control the lighting in sync with the pulsing music and rapidly morphing visual elements.

See the Muse Drones Tour!
The Muse Drones Tour kicked off in the United States last fall, moving to Europe this week with performances scheduled through August 2016.

Photo courtesy of Moment Factory