The Vision
Grace Church has a very talented, dynamic teaching pastor as well as a powerful and creative worship team. Their previous facility had aging tech systems that were hurting their ability to communicate with excellence. The vision for the new space was to create an environment that was highly immersive both visually and audibly as well. In addition, for long term growth, they wanted to plan for plenty of flexibility to expand their creativity down the road.
Designing the Vision
This project was especially enjoyable for us because we had the chance to again collaborate with our friend, worship pastor, Kevin Baker. We have had the privilege to work with Kevin on several other projects so there was a high level of trust and a good spirit of creativity. We are familiar with his worship style and his expectations, so the process was was an excellent example of good teamwork between client and designer. During this planning phase we were also able to tap into a new friend at Grace, Chris Bitsas who had an amazing set of skills both in terms of vision and also hands-on help.
Executing the Vision
The finished space feels "right". Going through our acoustical design phase, we designed a space that is the perfect blend of proper acoustics so the room delivers a powerful experience for Worship and Word. The audio system features L'Acoustics loudspeakers, subwoofers and amplifiers/controllers, all mixed by a Midas Pro2 console at FOH. An identical Midas Pro2 sits on stage to control all of the Shure IEM systems. Ten Shure ULXD systems provide wireless mics for all of the singers on stage as well as the pastor. A total of seven Panasonic projectors are used for left/right screens, a large edge blended center screen upstage, another large virtual pastor screen downstage, and one confidence monitor screen on the back wall. Infrastructure is also provided for a future upgrade to Environmental Projection. For the broadcast/production video system we used a combination of some existing equipment, along with new switching and routing from Ross and AJA, as well as four new Panasonic manned cameras. A Clear-Com intercom system allows the tech teams to be well connected during services. An extensive lighting system was provided to deliver on the vision of providing a highly visual immersive environment. Fixtures include Martin RUSH MH3, MH2, PAR 1, Mega Q70, Chauvet Colordash ParQuad7, Colordash Batten-Quad, Elation ELED TW uplight, and Chauvet Ovation key light.
