The concentrated solar flux distributions of a sixteen-dish concentrator (SDC) were measured applying a thermal infrared imager in combination with water-cooled Lambert target, and predicted using a Monte Carlo ray tracing method (MCRT). A slope error of 2.2 mrad is detected by comparing the experimental and numerical results. Then, a two-stage concentrator system, formed by the SDC in tandem with a three-dimensional compound parabolic concentrator (3D CPC-SDC), is constructed based on the geometrical optics approach. The interception performances and the energy concentration ratio images (ECR) are presented for both the SDC and the 3D CPC-SDC. The results show that the ECR profiles of the SDC depend on the receiver sizes, whereas that of the 3D CPC-SDC is rather steady because most sunlight enters the receiver via several reflections with the 3D CPC mirror. The 3D CPC-SDC is capable of increasing the geometric concentration ratio (GCR) at the expense of a little interception efficiency. Copyright (C) 2012, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.